Empirical Social Research: An Introduction

470 Pages·2022·12.377 MB·English

by  Michael Häder

Michael Häder
Empirical
Social Research
An Introduction
Empirical Social Research
Michael Häder
Empirical Social Research
An Introduction
Michael Häder
Philosophische Fakultät – Institut für Soziologie
Technische Universität Dresden
Dresden, Germany
ISBN 978-3-658-37906-3 ISBN 978-3-658-37907-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37907-0
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022
This book is a translation of the original German edition „Empirische Sozialforschung“ by Häder, Michael,
published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH in 2019. The translation was done with the help of artificial
intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily
in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer
Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related
technologies to support the authors.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the
whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does
not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective
laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are
believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give
a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that
may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of
Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany
Contents
1 The Structure of This Book: An Introduction 1
2 The Importance of Methodological Knowledge for Understanding
Empirical Data 5
2.1 On the Need to Reflect on Research Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.1 F irst Example: The Evaluation of the CDU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.2 S econd Example: Television Viewing Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.3 T hird Example: The Ladders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.4 F ourth Example: Prohibited and Not Allowed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Some Basic Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.1 E mpirical Social Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.2 M ethods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.3 T echniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.4 M ethodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.5 T heory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.6 E mpiricism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.7 Q ualitative and Quantitative Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.8 V ariable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3 Philosophy of Science 17
3.1 The Concern of the Philosophy of Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.2 Problems and Their Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.2.1 P roblems as Conflicts Between Goals and Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.2.2 T ypes of Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.3 Terms and Their Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.3.1 N ominal Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.3.2 R eal Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.3.3 O perational Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.4 Hypotheses and Their Treatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.4.1 I f-Then Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.4.2 J e-desto Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
v
vI Contents
3.4.3 Deterministic (or Nomological) and Probabilistic Hypotheses . . . . 39
3.4.4 Individual, Collective and Contextual Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.4.5 Differentiation of Hypotheses According to Their Stage of
Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.5 O perationalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.6 T heories and Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.6.1 Theories with Different Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.6.2 Nomological and Probabilistic Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.6.3 The Role of Theories and Laws in Explanations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.6.4 Presentation of Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.7 T he Value Judgement Problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.8 Q ualitative and Quantitative Research Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4 Research and Investigation Planning 63
4.1 P hases of an Empirical Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.2 T he Example of the Dresden Self-Defence Study 2001/2002 . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.3 M easurement and Index Formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.3.1 Problem Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.3.2 The Principles of Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.3.3 The Formation of the Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.4 S cales and Scaling Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.4.1 The Different Measurement (Scale) Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.4.2 Scaling Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
4.5 T he Quality Criteria of Objectivity, Reliability and Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.5.1 Objectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.5.2 Reliability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
4.5.3 Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4.6 C ross-Sectional and Longitudinal Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
4.7 N on-Reactive Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
4.7.1 Non-Reactive Field Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
4.7.2 Behavioural Traces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
4.7.3 Use of Process-Produced Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4.8 S econdary Analyses of Data Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
4.9 D ata Protection, Anonymity and Confidentiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5 Sampling Procedure 125
5.1 B asic Concepts and Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.1.1 Sample Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
5.1.2 Confidence Interval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
5.2 R andom Sampling in Survey Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
5.2.1 The ADM Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
5.2.2 Register Sampling: The Sample of Population Registers . . . . . . . . 142
5.2.3 Telephone Sampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Contents vII
5.3 Sampling for Intercultural Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
5.4 Sampling for Access Panels and Internet Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
5.4.1 S elections for Access Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
5.4.2 S ampling for Intra- and Internet Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
5.5 Lump Sampling: The Example of the PISA Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
5.6 Quota Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
5.7 Sampling for Special Populations and for Qualitative Studies . . . . . . . . . . 158
5.8 The Non-Response Problem and the Possibilities of Weightings . . . . . . . . 161
5.8.1 N onresponse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
5.8.2 T he Weighting of Samples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
6 Survey Methods 173
6.1 Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
6.1.1 C lassification Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
6.1.2 T heories of Interviewing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
6.1.3 F orms of Questioning and Their Specific Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
6.1.4 E xamples of Survey Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
6.2 Social Science Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
6.2.1 B asic Problems of Scientific Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
6.2.2 F orms of Observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
6.2.3 O bservation Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
6.2.4 T he Development of the Observation Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
6.2.5 T he Social Prestige of a Residential Area: Example of a Standardised,
Non-Participatory External Observation in the Field . . . . . . . . . . . 289
6.3 Content Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
6.3.1 E xamples of Content Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
6.3.2 S pecifics of Social Science Content Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
6.3.3 C lassification Possibilities of Content Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
6.3.4 A dvantages and Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
6.3.5 S urvey Research in the Mirror of the Press, an Example of Content
Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
6.3.6 S pecial Forms of Content Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
7 Complex Designs 313
7.1 Social Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
7.1.1 N ature and History of Social Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
7.1.2 T ypes of Experiments and Their Sources of Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
7.1.3 T he GfK BehaviorScan: An Example of a Social Science Experiment
from Market Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
7.2 Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
7.3 Delphi Surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
vIII Contents
7.3.1 Concerns of the Delphi Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
7.3.2 The Future of the Dresden Frauenkirche, Example of a Delphi
Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
7.4 E valuation Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
7.4.1 The Concern of Evaluation Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
7.4.2 The Approach to Evaluation Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
7.4.3 Types of Evaluation Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
7.4.4 Evaluation of the Three Strikes Law in the USA, an Example . . . . 339
7.5 I ntercultural Studies: The Example of the European Social Survey . . . . . . 340
7.5.1 Organisational Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
7.5.2 Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
7.5.3 Sampling Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
7.5.4 Intercultural Fieldwork, Organisation and Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
7.6 T ime Budget Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
7.6.1 Methodological Concepts for Time Use Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
7.6.2 Time Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
7.6.3 Examples of Results of Time Use Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
7.6.4 Design of a Time Use Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
8 Pretests 359
8.1 O verview of the Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
8.2 P retesting in the Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
8.2.1 Standard Pretest/Observation Pretest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
8.2.2 Behaviour Coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
8.2.3 Problem Coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
8.2.4 Random Sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
8.2.5 Intensive Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
8.2.6 Qualitative Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
8.2.7 Analysis of Response Distributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
8.2.8 Split-Ballot Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
8.3 C ognitive Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
8.3.1 Think Aloud Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
8.3.2 Probing/Demand Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
8.3.3 Paraphrasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
8.3.4 Sorting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
8.3.5 Response Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
8.4 E xpert Evaluations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
8.5 T he Pretest Design of the Dresden Self-Defence Survey 2001 . . . . . . . . . . 370
8.5.1 Issues to Be Addressed in the Pre-Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
8.5.2 The Pretest Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Contents Ix
8.5.3 I mplementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
8.5.4 R esults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
8.5.5 T he Pretest at the Survey Institute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
9 Preparation and Evaluation of the Data 375
9.1 Preparation of Data and Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
9.1.1 P reparation of Qualitative Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
9.1.2 P reparation of Quantitative Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
9.2 Basic Principles of Statistical Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
9.2.1 D escriptive Evaluations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
9.2.2 I nferential Statistical Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
9.2.3 T he CHAID Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
9.3 Multivariate Methods for Data Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
9.3.1 F actor Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
9.3.2 C luster Analyses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
9.3.3 R egression Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
9.4 The Use of Facet Theory for Data Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
9.4.1 B asic Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
9.4.2 S earch for Causes of Mispartitioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
9.5 Qualitative Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
9.5.1 P hotography and Film Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
9.5.2 B ody Language Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
10 Documentation of Empirical Projects 417
10.1 The Quality Criteria of Survey Research and the Handling
of Empirical Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
10.2 Method Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
References � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 427
Name Index � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 457
Subject Index � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 465
The Structure of This Book: An Introduction 1
Abstract
The methods of empirical social research are highly specialized and capable of cover-
ing a wide range of tasks. They range from research logic and selection procedures to
statistical data analysis. This volume contains the basic knowledge of all relevant meth-
ods of empirical social research and lists further publications. Extensive special litera-
ture is available on numerous individual problems, to which reference is made at the
appropriate points.
In addition, this volume uses various examples to demonstrate how this basic knowledge
can be used in researching social facts. After all, a text can convey information on methods
and techniques. However, in order to achieve skills in the use of the methods in the reader,
they must be applied and practiced by the reader. The volume aims to support this, it has
the following structure:
First, the second chapter attempts to sensitize the reader to the use of empirical meth-
ods. A number of experiments have shown that even seemingly insignificant details of the
methods used for researching social facts have a decisive influence on the results of the
research. In other words, a research finding depends not only on the facts being researched,
but also on the tools used to research them. Thus, it becomes relevant for every user to deal
with the prerequisites and the possibilities of the corresponding methods.
The third chapter is then initially devoted to the theory of methods. Similar to a cook-
book, in which something is also said theoretically in the introduction about the art of
correct seasoning and the careful handling of the most important ingredients, aspects of
the logic of research should and must also be discussed here. Social problems, which are
expressed with the help of certain terms, undergo an initial treatment in the form of
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 1
GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022
M. Häder, Empirical Social Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37907-0_1