Page 74 - DLIS401_METHODOLOGY_OF_RESEARCH_AND_STATISTICAL_TECHNIQUES

Unit 4: Historical and Experimental Research Methods

open ended questions, newspaper articles, political party manifestoes, medical records or Notes
systematic observations in experiments can all be subject to systematic analysis of textual data.
By having contents of communication available in form of machine readable texts, the input
is analysed for frequencies and coded into categories for building up inferences. Robert Philip
Weber (1990) notes: “To make valid inferences from the text, it is important that the classification
procedure be reliable in the sense of being consistent: Different people should code the same
text in the same way”. The validity, inter-coder reliability and intra-coder reliability are subject
to intense methodological research efforts over long years.
One more distinction is between the manifest contents (of communication) and its latent meaning.
“Manifest” describes what (an author or speaker) definitely has written, while latent meaning
describes what an author intended to say/write. Normally, content analysis can only be applied
on manifest content; that is, the words, sentences, or texts themselves, rather than their meanings.

Did u know? Dermot McKeone (1995) has highlighted the difference between prescriptive
analysis and open analysis.

In prescriptive analysis, the context is a closely-defined set of communication parameters (e.g.
specific messages, subject matter); open analysis identifies the dominant messages and subject
matter within the text.
A further step in analysis is the distinction between dictionary-based (quantitative) approaches
and qualitative approaches. Dictionary-based approaches set up a list of categories derived
from the frequency list of words and control the distribution of words and their respective
categories over the texts.
While methods in quantitative content analysis in this way transform observations of found
categories into quantitative statistical data, the qualitative content analysis focuses more on
the intentionality and its implications.

4.6 Summary

• The historical method comprises the techniques and guidelines by which historians use
primary sources and other evidence to research and then to write histories in form of
accounts of the past.
• Experimental research designs are used for the controlled testing of causal processes.
The general procedure is one or more independent variables are manipulated to determine
their effect on a dependent variable.
• Case study research excels at bringing us to an understanding of a complex issue or
object and can extend experience or add strength to what is already known through
previous research.
• Content analysis is a methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of
communication. Earl Babbie defines it as “the study of recorded human communications,
such as books, websites, paintings and laws.”

4.7 Keywords

Factorial Design : This is similar to a classical design except additional samples are used.
Each group is exposed to a different experimental manipulation.
Content Analysis : It is a methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of
communication.

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