Neuman includes a quote in this chapter that "The price of fieldwork is very high, not in dollars, but in physical and mental effort"  An interesting statement that clearly may separate the researchers willing to invest a very specific (and rigorous) amount of time and resources.

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Good point Evren.  Although rare but not impossible.  A book named "The Soul Of A New Machine" by Tracy Kidder may be interpreted as ethnography or a case study or both.  The author virtually lived there with these guys who were developing a computer.  Kidder reported on every small aspect and wrote the book as a narrative, which made for an interesting read.  I also agree that this type of research is not for everybody.  It requires more resources and skills to do.

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In comparing the difference between statistics and calculus, it seems that statistics starts with preciseness (significant digits) and calculus ends with it.

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Yes, let's hear it for levels of significance. It doesn't look like engineering calculators get used much in social science research. I guess it's a good thing we're not designing and testing flight-critical systems here - ouch!

 

I'm glad you gave the example of carrying out the decimal point. The other issue is when people make the mistake of trying to claim that p <.000000001 is a more significant result!

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I like the chapter discussion of similar points.  It shows that the same terms can mean a great deal of different things to different people.  What is population?  What is a person?  When is a person a person in terms of the diamond carpool lane?

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Yes, that is a good point. That is a good example of discrepancy between interests of government officials and normal customers. As a former economist of the bank of Korea, I heard that question whenever CPI was released. In brief, components that consists of CPI were decided based on through considerations. Once the components are fixed, the components are not easily changed because of reliability and validity.

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I agree with you Lori when you talk about the advantages that it has over the surveys. However, how do the researcher deals with the problems of intercoder reliability and the different analysis that you could get form a visual material?

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Evren, I also like the flow chart.  The only thing to consider with secondary data, is the research question.  Researchers, do not get to ask whatever they want.  They have to take into considerations the reasons and must know what was the true purpose.  In that sense, they are limited as to how they can conceptualize and operationalize their definitions, since that has already been done in the original research.  However, they might be able to extend and improve any aspect of it (Action Research!).

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Well Evryn, wonder no more! I have done a research paper using meta-analysis - even got it published. It can be a very tedious process and you will definitely want the right software tool to pull it all together. I can tell you a couple of big advantages it has over surveys:

1. No IRB!

2. You don't have to rely on people to participate! 

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You did a good job on explaining content analysis from the SWOT analysis. I think that a few research use content analysis because it's difficult to do in the IS field and its validity is hard to verify. It may be more suitable for other fields than the IS field. I'm also interested in doing this kind of research. We may work together in the future. :)

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