Welcome to Unit 7. This unit continues the portion of the course that addresses qualitative research designs. This week we will be going over unobtrusive methods. Unobtrusive methods are “nonreactive” and so do not alert the people that they study. Such methods, then, do not suffer from problems of modified behavior or answers that the reactive methods of survey and interviews can have. The chapter discusses four sources used in unobtrusive methods: physical traces of human activity, archives of human records, observation, and contrived observation. Next, the chapter examines three types of research that take advantage of these sources. Content analysis is the systematic analysis of human communication. Historical methods compare historical eras using event-structure analysis or oral histories. Comparative methods compare different human populations and may be cross-sectional or longitudinal.
More specifically, the methods we are addressing this week are:
Similar to Unit 6, your Discussion activity will be to conduct a mini-qualitative study (better if related to your topic, but not a requirement).
Note: For your research proposal, you will be asked to identify a specific method. Continuing from Unit 4, you will learn more about the various methods in detail. As you formulate your research proposal, use the activities during these weeks to determine whether the method used that week will be the best fit for your proposal. As you determine fit, bear in mind the trade-offs for sampling, measurement, and determining cause-and-effect relationships.
To set the stage for this, check out the following videos featuring the human body farmThe Farm of Rotting Corpses in Tennessee (11:46) (Links to an external site.)
TOP BEST Documentary National Geographic Secrets of the body farm (45:44) (Links to an external site.)Body farms such as the one featured in the videos give important insights into decay processes of the body and helpful forensic scientists in their investigations.
For this discussion, you won’t have to go to the body farm, but you get to engage in data gathering to get a sense of the methods of this unit.
Choose one of the following methods to complete your discussion assignment and present a Summary PowerPoint presentation to capture your ideas.
Note: you are not expected to formulate, collect data, analyze it, and write it up for this week! There’s simply not enough time especially if this course is taken in an 8-week term. Instead, I would like to introduce to you various methods to conduct research. Perhaps one of these methods will inspire what you plan to do for your research proposal.
To utilize this method you will need to: