Strengths and Weaknesses of Research Styles
ABSTRACT
The strengths and weaknesses of the three principle social scientific research methods of experiment, survey and ethnography are highlighted. For each, the relative emphasis placed on the setting, reliability, generalizability, description of explanatory variables and control of extraneous is summarized.
The following table summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of the three principle social scientific research styles.
|
experiments |
surveys |
ethnographies |
|
|
advantages |
cause and effect relationships are readily determined |
lots of information may be gathered quickly and cheaply |
strong emphasis on naturalism |
|
disadvantages |
there are practical and ethical limitations in social scientific research |
prone to superficial answers |
laborious and time-consuming; |
|
strengths |
internal validity; reliability |
population validity; reliability |
ecological validity; |
|
weaknesses |
ecological validity; inclusiveness |
ecological validity; inclusiveness |
internal validity; |
|
data type |
quantitative |
quantitative and/or qualitative |
qualitative |
|
reliability |
high |
high |
low |
|
generalisability |
high |
high |
low |
|
description of explanatory variables |
low |
low |
high |
|
control of extraneous variables |
high |
none if a descriptive survey otherwise high |
depends on stage of research and progressive focusing |
|
emphasis on setting |
low |
low |
high |
Glossary
|
ecological validity |
The extent to which research results may be generalized to other conditions, such as different settings, different treatments, different researchers, and so on. |
|
explanatory variable |
The variable that causes or produces changes in another variable (sometimes known as the independent variable). |
|
extraneous variable |
A variable that might also explain the phenomenon in question and which must be ruled out as a possible explanation by the use of controls. |
|
generalizability |
The extent to which the research findings hold true for subjects or settings other than the ones that the researcher used. |
|
inclusiveness |
The extent to which a particular research method investigates a sufficient range of possible explanatory variables; the extent to which the data contain the information required to address particular research questions. |
|
internal validity |
The extent to which the causal variables actually produced the observed effect(s). |
| naturalism | The practice of observing people (individuals or groups) in their natural setting with minimal interference and manipulation by the observer. |
|
population validity |
The extent to which the results from the particular research sample may be generalized to the wider population from which it was drawn. |
| progressive focusing | The development and refinement of one’s research ideas and questions in accordance with what is discovered as ethnographic fieldwork progresses. |
|
qualitative data |
Information expressed in terms of descriptive qualities, attributes, characteristics, and so on. |
|
quantitative data |
Information that can be counted or expressed numerically and which is amenable to statistical manipulation. |
|
reliability |
The extent to which a test would give consistent results if it were applied more than once to the same people under standard conditions. |
|
representativeness |
The extent to which a sample drawn from a population accurately reflects all the important characteristics of that population. |