Geography 237 Geographic Research: Methods and Issues

1. Geography 237Geographic Research: Methods and Issues • Problems and Questions • Purpose(s) of Research • Causal Explanations • Units of Analysis Research Design (Babbie, Chapter 4) Geog 237

2. Research Problem • "The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution"! (Einstein) • quite general • form of a statement • e.g., Worldwide, millions of children die each year from diarrhea. • e.g., Some people recycle more than others. • e.g., People smoke, despite general scientific agreement that smoking has serious negative health effects. • e.g., The trucking industry has deregulated. Geog 237

3. Research Questions • more specific • some conceptual distinction • form of a question • e.g., Why do children in Grenada not receive simple, relatively cheap, treatments for diarrhea? • e.g., Do smokers know about the negative health effects of smoking? Do they believe what most scientists believe about negative health effects? If so, why do they still smoke? • e.g., What are the impacts of trucking deregulation on large, medium and small trucking companies? Geog 237

4. Exercise: • Out line a social research problem andsome research questions to accompany it. • State some specific hypotheses. e.g. the internet e.g. hurricanes e.g. other… Geog 237

5. Three Purposes of Research 1) Exploration • topic new to researcher • new topic entirely • often idiographic explanations • often “qualitative” • often lack representativeness (see sampling) • e.g., How do people perceive the risks from genetically modified foods? Geog 237

6. Three Purposes of Research 2) Description • patterns of phenomena • precise sampling and observation • often “quantitative” • little or no explanation of patterns • what?, where?, when? and how? • e.g., census • e.g., How widespread are genetically modified foods? Geog 237

7. Three Purposes of Research 3) Explanation • why? • nomothetic or idiographic explanations • e.g., Why do experts and laypeople seem to disagree on the risks posed by genetically modified foods? Geog 237

8. Nomothetic Causal Explanation(in the probabilistic sense) • Does A cause B? • E.g., Does drug addiction “cause” crime? Geog 237

9. Three Conditions forNomothetic Causal Explanation Correlation • A is associated with B • Drug users are often convicted of theft. Time Order • A precedes B • The thieves were drug users before they became thieves. Nonspuriousness • C does not cause A and B • The drug user thieves are also very poor – i.e., being poor correlates with both. Geog 237

10. Spurious Relationship Geog 237

11. Unfair Criticisms of Nomothetic Causality Complete causation • A is not the only cause of B Exceptional Cases • B does not always occur when A happens Majority of Cases • majority of A are not B • more likely is all that matters Geog 237

12. Types of Causal Variables Necessary • A must be present for B to happen • e.g., Geog 237 needed for Geog degree • e.g., female to get pregnant Geog 237

13. Necessary “Cause” Geog 237

14. Types of Causal Variables Sufficient • B happens in presence of A • other As may also be sufficient • e.g., 82% gets you into grad school • best explanatory variables are both • often explanatory variables are neither (e.g., drug use and crime) Geog 237

15. Sufficient “Cause” Geog 237

16. Units of Analysis • The level at which you want to make generalizations. individuals e.g., students, Canadians, hispanics groups e.g., families, households, census tracts organizations e.g., universities, banks social artifacts e.g., music, grades • usually unit = individuals Geog 237

17. Units of Analysis Geog 237

18. Units of Analysis 10 households 12 families 4/12 = 33% 2/10 = 20% Geog 237

19. Units of Analysis Exercise: What is the unit of analysis (see review chapter 4)? • This paper examines variation in job title structures across work roles. Analyzing 3,173 job titles in the California civil service system in 1985 we investigate how and why lines of work vary in the proliferation of job categories that differentiate ranks, functions, or particular organizational locations (Strang and Baron 1990: 479) Geog 237

20. Units of Analysis Exercise: What is the unit of analysis (see review chapter 4)? • Women watch tv more than men because they are likely to work fewer hours outside the home than men....Black people watch an average of approximately three-quarters of an hour more television per day than white people (Hughes 1980: 290) Geog 237

21. Units of Analysis Exercise: What is the unit of analysis (see review chapter 4)? • Of the 130 incorporated UW cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in 1960, 126 had at least two short-term nonproprietary general hospitals accredited by the American Hospital Association. (Turk 1980: 317) Geog 237

22. Dangers With Units of Analysis Ecological Fallacy • Drawing conclusions about individuals from studies done on groups • E.g., census tracts Reductionism • Explaining complex phenomena using a single, narrow set of concepts • E.g., sociologists vs geographers • But what about parsimony? Geog 237

23. Temporal Considerations in Research Design Cross-sectional • snapshot in time • e.g., surveys Longitudinal • observation at different points in time • e.g., analysis of multiple censuses • Longitudinal generally produce more convincing findings! Geog 237

24. Longitudinal Designs Trend • Changes within a population over time • e.g., national censuses over time Cohort • Follow specific subpopulations over time • e.g. baby boomers. Panel • Follow the exact same group over time • e.g., 50 farmers from Oxford county Geog 237

25. Something seem amiss? The COMMIT study incorporated both cohort and cross-sectional designs. In the case ofattitude measurement, cohorts of smokers and non-smokers identified in the 1988 baseline survey were resurveyed in 1989, 1991 and 1993 to determine their attitudes towards smoking before, during and after the intervention. In addition, a subset of respondents to the 1993 final prevalence survey was asked the same attitude questions. As a result, twoapproaches to examining community-level changes in attitudes were possible: (1) the cohort approach involving the comparison of attitudes across the three points in time and (2) the cross-sectional approach comparing the 1989 cohort survey data with the 1993 final prevalence survey. (Taylor et al. 1998: 111) Geog 237

26. (Nomothetic) Research Process Research Process Geog 237