[Social-sciences-list] Anthropology

[Szostak, Christine]

Hi Nora and All,
  Though I fully agree with the concerns mentioned below, since, if memory serves, this is for an undergrad honors project, I would not worry too much about these issues. If you are going on to graduate training, you will definitely want to take the below to heart. However, there is nothing wrong with soliciting further for the parts of your sample that are under-represented. In my research, I study both native and non-native speakers of American English and find myself often having to re-solicit to one group or the other so that I can properly balance my samples and match them as well as possible.

  This is unfortunately, for many of us, one of those things that you need to do to make sure  that your comparison groups are equally represented (e.g., if you carry out stats with groups of very different sizes, even summary stats like means) can be highly misrepresentative. Thus, I applaud your efforts to try to re-solicit to ensure your sample sizes are strong.

  When you go to write this up, what you will need to do, to deal with the below concerns, is state that your sample was a sample of convenience. For many of us in the social sciences this is what we constantly face and have to accept  given our means…
  In the future, one way to best describe this when talking with other researchers, would be to use phrases like statistical power  or to ensure that the data are more stable…
Best of luck with the project!
Chris

Dr. Christine M. Szostak
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Department of Social Sciences
Shorter University
Rome, Georgia
szostak.1 at osu.edu<mailto:szostak.1 at osu.edu>
cszostak at shorter.edu

From: Social-sciences-list [mailto:social-sciences-list-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Godfrey, Jonathan via Social-sciences-list
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2015 8:01 PM
To: Nora Goldberg; Blind Social Scientists List
Subject: Re: [Social-sciences-list] Anthropology

Hi there,

I’m a little concerned that you care about the mix of male to female participants when you don’t even have a random sampling scheme. Your ability to infer anything for a  population is limited anyway for so many reasons.

If you had suggested that your absolute number of males is less than what you want I would still be concerned but less so.

I know that many surveys are done using convenience sampling of some kind but I seriously hope your course staff are explaining how you can only make comments about your sample respondents and at most suggestive statements about the population the sample may have come from. In simple terms, your sample is biased and aside from a lack of gender balance, it will be very hard to know how it is biased.

Sorry if I sound a little harsh; poor sampling is a hobby horse of mine at present. I’m seeing too many postgraduate students who have not understood the limitations of their research findings because they do not have a random sample. They are not limited to social science students either by the way. Many students we see come to our statistical consulting service are looking at business-oriented research questions.

Jonathan


From: Social-sciences-list [mailto:social-sciences-list-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Nora Goldberg via Social-sciences-list
Sent: Saturday, 14 March 2015 12:49 p.m.
To: social-sciences-list at nfbnet.org<mailto:social-sciences-list at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [Social-sciences-list] Anthropology

Hi Social Science Leisters,

I wanted to let you know that tomorrow will be the last day to take my survey that I have been circulating for my Anthropology class.  For your convenience the link is below.  If you have any questions about the survey or the course that it is for please feel free to email me.  Roughly 3/4 of respondents so far have been female, so gentleman, please, help me out!  I want the data to paint the most balanced sketch possible.  And also feel free to share the survey link, either personally or via social media, with any friends and acquaintances who are blind or visually impaired.  The project has been very insightful, and I have really appreciated everyone's answers thus far.

The survey will be found here: http://goo.gl/UBHm7x

Thank you so much!

Sincerely,

Nora E. Goldberg
Urban Sustainability and Community Place making
Pennon Honours College
Drexel University, 2016
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