[Social-sciences-list] Anthropology

Sat Mar 14 19:00:32 UTC 2015

Hi all, I agree with Christine. I am a postdoctoral researcher with
several years of stats training and research experience. Yet as a
rehabilitation researcher, studying very specialized populations like
the blind or people with spinal cord injuries, it is virtually
impossible to obtain a truly random sample. We attempt to oversample
certain groups (e.g. males, ethnic minorities, people from lower SES
backgrounds) for this reason. It is generally accepted in the field
that convenience sampling is the best we can find. We acknowledge this
as a limitation in our papers. So I don't see anything wrong with
re-soliciting to certain subgroups of people as Christine described.
Best, Arielle

On 3/14/15, Nora Goldberg via Social-sciences-list
<social-sciences-list at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 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
>