[Social-sciences-list] Anthropology

Sat Mar 14 15:05:31 UTC 2015

Hi Dr. Szostak, Dr. Godfrey, and all Social Science Listers,

Thanks for reaching out and for your concern, Dr. Godfrey.  I am completely
aware that my survey, and thus my ethnography itself, is biased.  The
reason I mentioned that the mix of male to female is 1:4 is because I
really want to get more male voices and male perspectives.  Or, statistical
power, as Dr. Szostak pointed out.  Another reason I made this distinction
is because using my data I have to come up with a series of hypotheses.
For example, "If a person is blind or visually impaired and is female, then
she will..."  I am also going to use age as a variable, and highest level
of education attained, etcetera.  But if there is only 1 male response for
every 4 female response then I really shouldn't be drawing any conclusions
by gender.  And yes, the absolute number of males is comparatively less
than females.

I could not have chosen this topic, and used a random sample, simply
because I do not know enough blind or visually impaired folks to be able to
acquire any sort of meaningful data.  I spoke with a number of people, all
blind or visually impaired, in person and on the phone before I even
considered surveying as my method of research.  It was the President of the
Pennsylvania chapter of the AFB suggested I contact people using the
Listserv.

Students in my class have a whole section of our ethnography about the
limitations of our method of data collection, so all this will be taken
into consideration.  And yes, only hypotheses can be made about the
respondents and not the community at large, and no direct conclusions can
be drawn.  Only speculations based on the interpretation of the data.

I am only an undergraduate student and this course is very low stakes--it
is merely an introductory course to ethnographic methods.  (I am in the
Honors College, although this is not for an honors class or project.)  I
could have chosen any culture or community to observe and I chose the blind
and visually impaired community.  In fact, at first it was not working out
because I had lots of trouble finding a cultural broker/informant, but I
persisted because I really wanted to pursue this topic.  Though meanwhile I
could have jumped ship any number of times.  If the ethnography was going
to be any more robust than it is, then I would have had more than 10 weeks
to choose site, learn how to effectively take field notes, choose a topic
within the site, operationalize the topic, create hypotheses, choose a
method(s) of data collection, gather data, analyze the data and complete
the writeup.  As Dr. Szostak and others along the way have pointed out, if
this were for a graduate course I would have had to gone about the project
much differently.  Personally that discrepancy bothers me, I don't know
about anyone else.

Thank you Dr. Godfrey and Dr. Szostak for your thought provoking questions
and comments.  For all the help that this Listserv is providing me with,
the least I can expect in return is to be given a run for my money :-)

Sincerely,

Nora

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 8:17 PM, Szostak, Christine via
Social-sciences-list <social-sciences-list at nfbnet.org> wrote:

>  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
>
> 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
> <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
> *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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-- 
Nora E. Goldberg
Environmental Policy, Economics & Public Health
Pennoni Honors College
Drexel University, 2016
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