1 / 7

Understanding Archives and Traces in Research

Explore the benefits and challenges of utilizing physical traces and archival research without reactivity. This method allows for validity checks, life history examination, and analysis of long-term changes. Learn about the vast data available and potential problems to consider when working with archived materials.

angelo
Télécharger la présentation

Understanding Archives and Traces in Research

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Archives and traces

  2. Physical traces & Archival Research • no reactivity (no Hawthorne effect, subject bias etc) • can be done with subject anonymity • especially useful for validity check • of measures • external validity • very good for long term changes • life histories (impact of divorce, illness, death) • different epochs ( eg baseball batting averages) • Huge amount of data available

  3. Problems – • Not everything is saved – some traces last longer than others, questions may change over years. • Records kept but may not be representative of all data. • Little information stored when nothing happens. • Some records maybe easier to retrieve than others. • Recording errors • 3rd variable over time • Spurious relationships found

  4. Problems ctd • Experimental bias – more information available than you can use So need to choose. • Need to interpret data that is already there. • Need great operational definitions • Access - government private or corporate?

  5. How to objectively code information 1) Identify data source 2) Sample data 3) Code records – classify events and behaviors into clear categories. Record time, words, space, events devoted to category. Trained raters for qualitative judgments

  6. Running records – eg congressional records , baseball stats continuously updated – used for epoch comparison • Personal records –diaries, blogs – eg used in social network research • News media – not unbiased – eg lost and found columns used for altruism research

More Related