PREVIOUS: Types of Primary Research
Introduction
Now that you have a sense of the types of primary research you might choose to work with, let’s look a little closer at some methods and strategies for gathering evidence. No matter what type of research you conduct, you will need to think about the best way to choose participants or artifacts and the best way to ask questions to collect the information you need for your project.
Interviews
One method that you will want to consider is conducting interviews. As discussed in the section on “Aligning Methods,” you will find—upon some consideration—that you may have people close by that can provide you with information and data that will be crucial to your research. Conducting an interview may seem intimidating at first, but once you get started you will discover many benefits to talking to an expert in person, rather than just reading something an expert has published. When you listen and open yourself to new ideas, you will find more than you expected. Often this includes not only data and information, but a new perspective and perhaps new questions to ask, or new ways of asking them. Experts can also often point you to additional resources that you would not have been exposed to otherwise.
Be sure to review the Ethics section of Ballpoint as you plan and conduct your interviews. Interviews are a great way to gather information, but you will need to be professional as you approach this part of your research, treating your subjects with courtesy and respect. Also keep in mind that you represent not only yourself, but your instructor and the university when conducting interviews as part of a class project.
Here is a sample interview. You will find some “hotspots” that you can click on, that offer commentary on specific aspects of the interview. Take a look!
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Handout
As you plan for your own interview, consult the following handout:
Surveys
Surveys are designed to gather information from a broad range of people. That doesn’t mean that surveys go to just anyone, though. You will want to consider how to distribute your survey and how that will affect who takes it. Do you need to target people with a certain background or interest? If so, how will you find them? Is there a specific message board or page that you can use to contact them? Is social media appropriate for distributing your survey?
The best tool for developing a survey at Ball State is Qualtrics. While Survey Monkey or Google Forms can work, Qualtrics is subscribed to by the University so you don’t have to pay to get all the features.
The very first question of your survey should always be a permissions question. Review the Ethics in Primary Research section for more information about what this should involve. This question should be mandatory, and you should eliminate any responses that say they do not give you permission to use their response. All other question should be optional.
Qualtrics allows you to use a variety of question types including multiple choice, scale questions, rank order questions, and text entry questions. For multiple choice questions, you want to consider whether your participants should be able to choose more than one answer. In the example below from our survey about Ball Point, it’s clear that no one would fall into more than one category, so we used radio boxes that appear as a circle. This allows each person only one answer.
If however, we wanted to allow multiple answers, we could use a multiple-answer multiple choice question that would appear with square check-boxes. The survey question below was used to find out what types of social media people might use. Since most people use multiple platforms, we used check-boxes to create the question.
Notice how we added an “other” answer that includes a text box. This option is helpful because your survey respondents might think of something you didn’t when drafting your question. Always put as many options as you can think of.
Did you know that this goes for demographic questions, too? Someone may not identify as male or female. They may be transgender, gender queer, or gender fluid. You want to be inclusive in your survey by offering multiple options, but also include options such as “prefer not to answer” for those that may feel uncomfortable giving such information.
Another common type of question is a scale question. These questions ask someone to select an answer from a scale. The scale might be a number, such as between 1-5. If so, be sure to tell which end of the scale is which. For example, “Rate your research skills on a scale of 1-5, 1 being low.” Your scale might also have a range such as strongly agree–strongly disagree. The example below shows how this might be used for people to select the time of day when they are most often on different social media platforms.
Another type of question you can use is one that asks participants to drag items into a list to show which they prefer. This ranking question type can be useful if you want participants to compare information, or if you want to see which of the different options is the most popular.
Finally, text entry questions are another option, but one that you should use sparingly. If you find yourself having many open-ended questions, you may consider whether a survey is really the way to go or whether an interview might be better. However, there are times when these questions are appropriate and necessary. They also provide a good opportunity for participants to add information that goes beyond what you thought to ask in the survey.
Tip: Using “skip logic” can really help your survey design. This feature, available on Qualtrics, allows you to direct people down different survey paths depending on their answer to a particular question. For example, if you want to make sure only college students take your survey, one of the first questions might be “Are you currently enrolled in a college or university?” If the answer is no, you can direct the survey to skip them straight to the end so they don’t taint your results if they ended up there by accident. Similarly, if you have follow up quesitons that don’t apply once a particular answer is selected, you can program Qualtrics to skip these. So, if a person answers “no” they don’t use any social media, they don’t get a question that then asks which ones they use most.
Observations
Observation is a research strategy used often by anthropologists, especially participant-observation, where the researcher participates in a community or culture. Although not as common in ENG 104, your instructor may guide you through Field Research where carefully observing, and accurately recording your observations, will be advantageous to understanding your research subjects.
As with all research, Ethics should be carefully considered in the planning phase. Consider whether the environment you are observing is public or private. Could anyone attend this event or be at this location? If not, your first step should be to gain the permission of the event organizer. For example, if you wanted to sit in on a club meeting but were not a member of the club, you would want to tell the president about your project and ask permission to attend.
Next, consider what you want to gain by doing your observation. Are you getting an overall impression of a place or event? Or are you looking for something in particular? Do you want to quantify a particular type of behavior? Consider your research question.
Let’s work through an example. Your research question is: “How do dog owners interact with their animals in public differently than in private?” You would want to follow the same dog owners in public settings and in private, visiting them in their homes, with permission. You might have a list of behaviors you expect to see: talking to the dog, petting the dog, giving the dog treats, scolding the dog, etc. You might create a checklist and count how many times the owner does each of these behaviors in both public and private settings. This type of list could help you see if the owner scolds the dog more in public and talks baby-talk to them more in private. However, keep your eye open for behaviors not on your list that may surprise you. Note-taking is key to good observation.
As with any research method, you will also want to be aware of any risks and drawbacks. Consider the study of dogs and dog owners. One risk is that your presence would likely change the behavior of the dog owner and the dog. In your planning, you would have to consider this, and make a plan for how to respond to this potential drawback. For example, perhaps you could at least minimize the observation effect by only selecting participants (including the furry ones) who are comfortable with you around them. Or, perhaps you could change your behavior, or your vantage point. Or perhaps spending more time with your subjects would allow for more “natural” behavior to be observed.
Artifact Analysis
If your topic is historical or you don’t have a way to get in contact with the type of people who could help you with your research, don’t despair! Artifact analysis can help you find a way to gather primary data.
The Ball State Library has an extensive archive, including both physical and digital artifacts. The Archives and Special Collections include things like historic photographs, maps, blueprints, and so much more! If you need a broader archive, try the Library of Congress digital collections. You can find letters from former presidents, old baseball cards, historic sheet music, and again, much, much more!
Artifacts can be timely and difficult to sort through, so gaining the aid of an archivist is invaluable. It is also important to use a finding aid. Finding aids list the artifacts available in certain collections. Archivists spend hours sorting through and categorizing artifacts so that you can more easily find them using a finding aid, and so that you know what you are looking at when you do find it. If you are working with physical artifacts, you will have to request a certain item from the aid be pulled and brought to you. Because artifacts can be delicate, they are not like books that you can simply pull off a shelf in the library. Special care is taken to preserve artifacts, and you should follow whatever rules the librarians that run the archive have, such as not photographing or copying the artifact without permission. Don’t let those cautions deter you, though! Rather, let those cautions lead you to plan carefully so you are prepared–that will allow for some original and even exciting discoveries.
Artifacts don’t always live in an archive, though. In fact, sometimes your role as a researcher is to create your own mini-archive. For example, if you wanted to follow the #metoo movement on Twitter to see what stories people shared, you could search for this and begin to build your own archive of tweets. You could then look for trends in your data to build a more complete picture of the topic you are studying. Many artifacts are available for your examination, study, and analysis that do not require dusty archives. However, even with such publicly available artifacts take care to proceed ethically, considering carefully where to give credit and how your research and reporting might affect your subjects and your audience.
Summary
This page outlined four different types of primary research: interviews, surveys, observations, and artifact analysis. However, you might end up combining more than one of these methods depending on the project you are working on. The next section will show how to organize and analyze all the great information you get from conducting your own primary research.
Next: Organizing Evidence (Primary)