COMM-316 RESEARCH METHODS

Department of Communication University of Louisville Fall Semester 2009, Section 75 Professor: Greg Leichty Email: greg.leichty@louisville.eduOffice Phone-852-8175

Copyright 2009

Table of Contents

COMM-316 RESEARCH METHODS

Department of Communication University of Louisville Fall Semester 2090, Section 75 Professor: Greg Leichty Email: greg.leichty@louisville.edu ............................................................................................................1 Office Phone-852-8175 ..........................................................................................................................................................................1 Copyright 2009.................................................................................................................................................1 Course Introduction..........................................................................................................................................6 ..........................................................................................................................................................................6 Unit 1: Introduction to Communication Research ..........................................................................................................................................................................7 Ways of Knowing or Arguing.....................................................................................................................8 Types of Research.....................................................................................................................................10 What is Distinctive about Communication Research?..............................................................................11 Evaluating the Quality of Research Resources.........................................................................................12 Reading Communication Research Reports ...................................................................................................................................................................14 Publishing Communication Research.......................................................................................................16 Ethics and Communication Research.......................................................................................................17 Communication Research Paradigms.......................................................................................................18 Exercise: Which Research Paradigm?............................................................................................................21 Unit 2: The Interpretive Paradigm-Participant Observation...........................................................................22 Participant Observation.............................................................................................................................24 Recording Field Notes ...................................................................................................................................................................26 Unit 3: Interpretive Paradigm-The Depth Interview ........................................................................................................................................................................27 Planning for the Depth Interview ...................................................................................................................................................................30 Ethical Issues in Depth Interviewing........................................................................................................32 Focus Group Interviews ...................................................................................................................................................................33 Exercise: Self-Analysis-Generating Interview Topics ...................................................................................................................................................................35 Problematic Questions and Question Patterns in the Depth Interview.....................................................37 Developing Depth Interview Answers......................................................................................................39 Exercise: Question Development..............................................................................................................40 Exercise: Evaluating a Depth Interview Protocol ...................................................................................................................................................................41 How Many Interviews Are Needed?

...................................................................................................................................................................42 Unit 4-Evaluating Communication: Rhetorical Criticism and Critical Research...........................................42 Evaluating Communication.......................................................................................................................44 Rhetorical Criticism..................................................................................................................................45 Critical Theory..........................................................................................................................................47 Unit 5-Interpretive Paradigm: Analyzing the Depth Interview .....................................................................48 Analyzing the Depth Interview ...................................................................................................................................................................50 Unit 6: Objectivist Paradigm-Research Questions and Hypotheses...............................................................53 Research Questions and Hypotheses.........................................................................................................55 Exercise: Identifying Variables in Research Statements..........................................................................59 Types of Variables in Research Design....................................................................................................60 Exercise: Research Questions and Null Hypotheses.................................................................................62 Exercise: Identifying Variable Types.......................................................................................................63 ........................................................................................................................................................................64 The Spiral of a Research Study ...................................................................................................................................................................67 Research across Time: Stages and Methods.............................................................................................69 Exercise: Testing a Hypothesis.................................................................................................................71 Unit 7-Objectivist Paradigm-Basics of Measurement..............................................................................72 Developing Constructs ...................................................................................................................................................................73 Exercise: Construct Dimensions ...................................................................................................................................................................74 Levels of Measurement.............................................................................................................................75 Selecting a Measurement Level for an Operational Definition................................................................77 Exercise: Levels of Measurement.............................................................................................................78 Exercise: Levels of Measurement #2 One can measure the same construct in different ways. See several examples below. Identify the level of measurement for each question. Then select the operational definition which one you think that best measures each variable. Explain your reasoning.....................................................................................79 Desirable Measurement Attributes............................................................................................................80 Assessing Measurement Reliability..........................................................................................................81 Exercise: State or Trait? ...................................................................................................................................................................82 Exercise: Measurement Reliability ...................................................................................................................................................................83 Exercise: Content Analysis ...................................................................................................................................................................84 Assessing Measurement Validity ...................................................................................................................................................................88 Exercise: Measurement Validity ...................................................................................................................................................................90 Relating Measurement Reliability & Measurement Validity...................................................................91 Improving Measurement Reliability and Validity ...................................................................................................................................................................92 Unit 8: Descriptive Statistics..........................................................................................................................94 Describing a Distribution..........................................................................................................................96 Exercise: Constructing a Frequency Distribution...................................................................................100 Exercise: Constructing a Frequency Distribution Example 2.................................................................101 Standardized Scores................................................................................................................................102 Comparing Distributions Using Standardized Scores.............................................................................103 The Normal Curve..................................................................................................................................104 Is Grading on the Curve Really a Good Idea?........................................................................................107

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Exercise: Determining Proportions on the Normal Curve......................................................................108 Exercise: How Exceptional are Janelle's Performances?........................................................................109 Describing Variable Relationships..........................................................................................................110 Integrating Correlation and Regression..................................................................................................112 Multivariate Tools for Describing Variable Relationships.....................................................................114 Exercise: Choosing Measures of Association.........................................................................................117 Exercise: Correlation and Regression Problems .................................................................................................................................................................118 Exercise: Additional Correlation and Regression Problems .................................................................................................................................................................120 Perils in Describing Variable Relationships...........................................................................................121 Exercise: Charlie's Career Decision........................................................................................................122 Unit 9: Objectivist Paradigm-Inferential Statistics.......................................................................................122 Statistical Procedures for Testing Hypotheses........................................................................................124 Exercise: Hypothesis Testing-Linear Correlation...................................................................................127 Reference Sheet: Some Common Difference Statistics .................................................................................................................................................................132 Difference Testing Examples..................................................................................................................134 Multiple Regression: A Case Study........................................................................................................137 Exercise: Weighing Type I and Type II Error .................................................................................................................................................................142 Stories and Statistics .................................................................................................................................................................143 Statistical Malpractice: A Top 10 List .................................................................................................................................................................145 Unit 10: Objectivist Paradigm-Internal Validity and External Validity ......................................................................................................................................................................150 Correlation and Causation.......................................................................................................................152 Exercise: Identifying Causal Models .................................................................................................................................................................155 Identifying Artifacts that Compromise Internal Validity .................................................................................................................................................................156 Assessing External Validity....................................................................................................................163 External Validity Case Study..................................................................................................................167 Relating Internal Validity and External Validity .................................................................................................................................................................168 Unit 11: Objectivist Paradigm-Experiments ......................................................................................................................................................................169 Research Control in Experimental Design .................................................................................................................................................................170 Exercise: Identifying Design Structure .................................................................................................................................................................175 Estimating Population Parameters: Sources of Error..............................................................................178 Exercise: Drawing Confidence Intervals .................................................................................................................................................................180 Issues in Sampling .................................................................................................................................................................181 Question Formats .................................................................................................................................................................184 Survey Design Issues .................................................................................................................................................................187 Examples of Problematic Questions.......................................................................................................189 Exercise: Critiquing a Telephone Survey .................................................................................................................................................................190 Exercise: Dealing With Social Desirability Bias....................................................................................192 Survey Example: Parent Communication Survey

.................................................................................................................................................................193 Concept Glossary ......................................................................................................................................................................199 Subject Index................................................................................................................................................217

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Course IntroductionWelcome to Research Methods. This text is organized into units. Each unit contains learning objectives, readings, and class exercises. The first page of each unit lays out the learning objectives for the unit. Course examinations are based on these objectives. These pages are your study guides for examinations. A glossary and a concept index appear at the end of the text. You should check the glossary for definitions of important course concepts. Toward that end, bold italic concepts also appear in the glossary. An excerpt that appears in bold type indicates emphasis or and important principle. Words that appear in italics indicate secondary concepts-concepts that while important do not appear in the glossary. The text is intended to be a learning tool--please underline and write in the margins. You can't pass it on, because the content changes some each semester. However, this allows you to take notes in the book and really use it as a study aid. Best wishes for positive learning experience this summer session

Unit 1: Introduction to Communication ResearchThis unit introduces you to the conventions and standards of communication research. It compares empirical research with other ways of answering questions that we have about the world (i.e., ways of knowing or arguing). This unit also presents a brief overview of the history of communication research and describes the basic types of communication research practiced today.

Unit ObjectivesUpon completing this unit, you should be prepared: 1-1: To compare and contrast empirical research with other ways of knowing. 1-2: To describe concrete examples of the following types of research: academic research, proprietary research, basic research and applied research. 1-3: To explain the commonalities between communication research and other scholarly disciplines. 1-4: To explain the differences between communication research and other scholarly disciplines. 1-5: To discuss the ethical implications of communication competence for communication professionals. 1-6: To specify what kind of information can be found in each section of a research report. 1-7: To explain the role of peer review in research publication. 1-8: To apply relevant standards to judge the quality of research sources, including Internet sources. 1-9: To compare and contrast the three communication research traditions in terms of their goals and methods. 1-10: To explain the different role that theory plays in each research tradition. 1-11: To identify which research tradition a research study represents after reading a research abstract. 1-12: To describe the communication related research databases that are available in the University of Louisville library. 1-13: To locate specific information from relevant communication research databases, including the Social Sciences Citation Index.

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Ways of Knowing or ArguingIn everyday life, we try to persuade people and change their minds by making arguments. People sometimes ask, How do you know that? The question of how we know what we know is an area of philosophical study called epistemology. Epistemology is a deep subject, so here I am writing only about some common methods that we use to "certify" how we know something to be true. These methods are referred to as ways of knowing. Empirical research is one way of knowing. Research can be defined as a systematic inquiry as to the facts or truth about a matter. Something is empirical when it is based on observation. Empirical research then is an inquiry about some aspect of the natural world by means of our senses. Empirical research is limited to matters that we can observe or detect. Empirical research does not address questions of meaning, philosophical speculation or religious faith. Speculation about the "real" nature of things behind or beyond appearances is called metaphysics. People often appeal to tradition to settle an argument. An appeal to tradition says, We have always done it this way and it has worked well. The saying If it isnt broke, dont fix it, exemplifies this theme. In many cases argument by tradition is quite rational. A group's culture represents the hard learned lessons of trial and error experience. That which worked was retained; that which didn't work was discarded. Most new ideas fail when they are actually tested. If we turn our back on tradition and always embrace the new and novel, we will make many costly mistakes. Tradition can serve as a useful brake on unsound experimentation. However, too much deference to tradition stifles innovation and creativity. If we take tradition too seriously, cultural stagnation is likely to follow. Anthropologist Jared Diamond gives a good example of a setting in which an inherent conservatism and skepticism about new ideas is tied to a harsh and sensitive physical environment.1 The country of Iceland is sometimes known for its resistance to trying new technologies. Diamond writes that this conservative outlook is understandable because Iceland's physical environment is very fragile. "Icelanders have become conditioned by their long history of experience to conclude, that whatever change they tried to make, it was more likely to make things worse rather than better." (p. 202). When there is a very small margin for error, relying on conventional methods often makes a lot of sense. People sometimes appeal to intuition to certify an argument. Argument by intuition refers to an axiom that the communicator believes her listeners accept as a self-evident truth. When someone says, "Everyone knows X", the person is appealing to intuition. Mathematicians and philosophers perfected the art of the syllogism. They take a premise and then use deductive logic to develop the implications of the beginning a premise or axiom (e.g., geometry class). In the United States Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson appealed to intuition when he wrote, We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. If the listener shares this belief with you, you may well persuade her to your point of view. Appeals to intuition are powerful persuasive tools when the audience members share the communicators intuitions. However, there are relatively few universally shared self-evident beliefs. Perhaps someone has accused you of not listening when you simply disagreed with the person. The other person believes that if you had listened, you would surely have noticed the self-evident truth and its logical implications. If you find yourself in this situation, it is best to disengage as soon as possible because if you don't acknowledge the "truth", your will be treated as an "irrational" person. A third way to settle an argument is to appeal to an authority (i.e., a respected person or text). An appeal to authority asks the listener to believe something because a credible authority recommends it. In some cases, the cited authority may be a text such as the Talmud, the Bible, or the Koran. Complete religious systems and theologies are built upon arguments by authority. By appealing to authority, a communicator relies upon the competence, and character of the source. Appeals to authority are very common and necessary in a complex society. A person cant know everything, so we learn to trust people and complex technical systems. I know relatively little about investing my money for retirement, so I rely on mutual fund managers to manage my investments. I rely on my physician to diagnose my illnesses. In fact, we

cant sort through many issues without an appeal to authority. Appeals to authority have several useful features. First, they reduce the amount of complex information search and processing that one must do. Second, in many areas of life, we lack the knowledge to make informed judgments without the assistance of authorities (e.g., I rely on my brother who is a computer engineer when I have questions about computer hardware). Difficulties arise, however, if the authority one invokes is not a genuine authority (i.e. He doesn't know what he is doing or he has bad intentions). Appeals to authority are also ineffective when the listener does not hold the authority in high esteem. If someone does not believe that the Bible is sacred, quoting from the Bible will have little persuasive impact. In some cases, different authorities contradict each other. When authorities disagree, (e.g. Is global warming a reality or a fiction?), we face a quandary about how to resolve an issue. An appeal to personal experience or private knowledge is a very popular form of argument. If a person has had a unique experience, you have probably heard: If you knew what I knew, you would _______. This is a special case of an appeal to authority: an appeal to personal authority based upon one's experience(s). Since you have not had the same experience, you should defer to a person like me who really knows, because I have been there. Whether an appeal to personal experience or private knowledge is convincing, depends on the how competent and trustworthy the listener judges communicator to be. As with appeals to authority, people routinely disagree with each other about the adequacy of private knowledge. When personal experiences conflict, there are no effective mechanisms to resolve the impasse. The primary weakness of these ways of knowing is that they have no clear mechanism for testing opposing claims. In contrast an appeal to empirical inquiry provides a mechanism for handling disputes about questions of fact. Research investigates questions where competing ideas exist. Empirical research goes beyond existing premises, to test new ideas and principles. Systematic empirical research is an open-ended or inquiry. If two conflicting hypotheses or ideas exist, we can subject them both to empirical tests to see which framework works best. We observe and test under carefully controlled conditions to falsify our ideas about reality and thereby create new knowledge. Empirical research is so much an accepted part of our way of thinking that we are puzzled that people of previous generations were confused by things we consider to be self-evident truths. Before Galileo, people thought that heavier objects fell to earth faster than light objects. Oddly, no one had tested this belief experimentally. Galileo supposedly disproved this with an experiment at the Leaning Tower of Pisa in 1590. He dropped two cannon balls, one large and one small, and measured the time of their descent. When he found that they reached the ground at the same point, he postulated the Law of Falling Bodies. This law states that bodies regardless of their mass accelerate at the same rate when other things like air resistance are held constant. Today we wonder why no one ever actually tested the mistaken hypothesis in the 2000 years between Aristotle and Galileo. However, experimental comparison is recent cultural invention. What is common sense today is very different from what was common sense only a few generations ago. Common sense changes and evolves as cultural knowledge changes. Empirical inquiry is a valuable tool for answering questions of fact. Empirical research makes the process of human discovery conscious and intentional rather than accidental learning by trial and error. It speeds up the process of inquiry and makes it is less hazardous than trial and error learning. The secret of life is to learn from observation and experimentation. The alternative is to only learn from your own bruises. 1) Jared Diamond (2005). Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed. New York: Viking Press.

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Types of ResearchResearch falls into several different categories. One common distinction is between basic research and applied research. Basic research builds theory about a set of objects or phenomena. It is usually set up to discover relationships, test hypotheses, and to apply existing theories to new phenomena. Basic research extends what we know about empirical phenomena. The researcher may not have a practical end or application in mind for doing the research. Researchers know practical applications often develop out basic research, but these applications are not the reason for doing the research. Curiosity drives the researchers immediate interest rather than anticipated commercial applications. Applied research usually focuses on a particular question in a local context. The main goal of applied research is to answer a practical question such as Which method of instruction works best with this particular audience? The primary objective is not to develop theory. If theoretical development occurs, it is a secondary outcome of the research process. Evaluation research is one important type of applied research. Evaluation research investigates how well a particular program or intervention meets the goals that it was designed to meet. For three years I served as a program evaluator for a federally funded program that was designed to provide job training and counseling for people with disabilities. The goal of the program was to help trainees obtain full-time jobs with benefits. My job was to collect data and evaluate how well the program met the goals that were laid out in the original grant proposal. In practice, the distinction between basic and applied research is fuzzy. People who promote the value of basic research sometimes say, There is nothing as practical as a good theory. People with a more applied bent sometimes reply: There is nothing as theoretical as a good application. Applied researchers argue that if a theory isnt useful in application, it isnt a good theory. Both statements have merit. Applied research can advance our knowledge of general theories, by raising new research problems or by testing the generalizeability of theory (i.e., how widely a theory applies). In many cases, a study contributes both to theory development and to practical problem solving. Another second distinction is between academic research and proprietary research. Researchers at academic institutions conduct research as a part of their official duties. They share research results with the community of scholars studying a question. If research findings remain private, they do not contribute to the knowledge of the field. A scholar's contribution to her field can be assessed according to how often her published works are cited by others. Contributing to ones field of study is an important part of a professors job, hence the term, publish or perish. Proprietary research on the other hand, is the property of the person or institution sponsoring the research. The decision to disclose or not disclose the research findings is the prerogative of the research sponsor. Marketing research is a good example of proprietary research. No firm wants to share its research findings with its competitors. In practice, much proprietary research is applied research. However, some applied research is not proprietary. In most cases, proprietary research is not basic research (See recent Human Genome research as an exception to this statement). Proprietary research is usually conducted to solve a problem or to make a profit. Basic research on the other hand, has a longer time span or outlook. Basic research is sometimes characterized as the search for knowledge for its own sake. It satisfies human curiosity first without immediate concern for potential applications, especially commercial applications. One never knows ahead of time what the applications of basic research will be; sometimes there are none. In contrast, proprietary research usually focuses on moving to application within a short period of time.

What is Distinctive about Communication Research?Many different academic disciplines study human behavior and human culture. Communication research is complex because it analyzes behavior at multiple levels of analysis and utilizes multiple research traditions. Communication research has many similarities to political science research. Social science disciplines like psychology focus on one level of analysis. Psychology takes a micro-focus by looking at the individual, whereas sociology primarily takes a macro-focus and examines social institutions. These disciplines are sometimes called horizontal disciplines. In contrast, disciplines like communication and political science examine questions that cross-levels of analysis. Communication scholars look at communication at the individual, dyadic, small group, organizational, institutional, and societal levels. Communication and political science are sometimes called vertical disciplines Compared to other academic disciplines, communication researchers use more research methods. Psychology uses the experiment as its primary method. A research methods course in psychology usually focuses on experimental design. A research methods course in sociology usually focuses on how to design surveys. Communication research uses a wider variety of methods, with no single method gaining predominance. Communication researchers use both experiments and surveys. Communication researchers also do content analyses and various types of qualitative research. Communication research is sometimes classified as a social science, sometimes as a humanities, and sometimes as a profession. The first study of communication really began in Greece with the study of rhetoric. Rhetoric is a humanities-based discipline that examines public discourse in its historical context. Rhetoricians do research that is similar to what English professors do when they analyze a text (e.g., analyze the Chaucer's Canterbury Tales). Humanities based disciplines put great emphasis on the individual actor, history and context of action. The study of communication evolved toward a social science orientation in the 20th century. The social science tradition developed in speech communication beginning with World War I. An understanding of communication as a social science also developed out of the study of mass communication. Before World War II, scholars from many disciplines studied mass communication phenomena. With the arrival of World War II and the explosion of mass communications thereafter (e.g., television), academic departments specifically devoted to the study of mass communication emerged in American universities. A social science tradition also developed in journalism departments, which had a predominantly craft orientation (i.e., taught the conventions of professional journalists) prior to World War II. Today, communication research includes both humanities oriented scholarship and social science oriented scholarship. This class primarily focuses on the social science orientation to communication scholarship and the three main research traditions within communication social science research. However, the differences between the scientific approach and the "humanities approach" are less sharp than they once were. In particular, rhetorical scholarship has contributed to the emergence of interpretive social science and critical social science scholarship. In this course, we will examine research studies from the following three social science traditions, 1) objectivist oriented/social science research, 2) interpretive social science research, and 3) critical studies. Communication is more eclectic in its theories and methods than many other academic disciplines. On the negative side, the field sometimes seems to be very chaotic (i.e., very hard to describe).On the positive side, the communication research community has an openness new theories and methods. In fact, one frequent complaint about communication research it borrows all of its theories and methods from other fields. On the other hand, no matter what your philosophical and methodological preferences, you can easily find a home in communication research. It may not be simple or orderly, but it is very inclusive.

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Evaluating the Quality of Research ResourcesThe Internet is a great place to find information, but for purposes of well grounded research, it supplements the library; the Internet does not replace the library. We must sometimes dig much deeper than a Google search. Research libraries are the essential tool for doing systematic research. Much primary research material is still not accessible on the Internet. If you only use Internet sources, your research will be quick, easy and second rate. If you are doing a good literature review, there is no substitute for quality time spent with library resources. Here are five evaluation criteria that are traditionally used to judge the quality of resources. They can be used to judge the quality of both traditional library sources and web sources.1 -Authority: the extent to which the material is created by a person or organization that is recognized as having authoritative knowledge in a subject area. -Accuracy: the extent to which the information is reliable and free from errors. -Objectivity: The extent to which the material gives information and evaluations that is not distorted by personal feelings or other biases. -Currency: the extent to which the material can be identified as up to date. -Coverage: the breadth of the topic(s) covered in a source and the depth with which the topic(s) are covered. It is particularly important to scrutinize the authority, accuracy and objectivity of many Internet sources. The gold standard for empirical research is something called the "peer review process". Research that is "peer reviewed" is carefully examined by other researchers or experts in the particular field before it is published. If the research is judged to fall short of the quality standards in a particular area, it will not be published. Most research in research libraries is published in peer-reviewed journals. You can find peer reviewed journals in the Ekstrom library in the stacks on the third and fourth floors. There you can find thousands of volumes of peer reviewed journals, some going back for more than fifty years. When a research article appears in a peer-reviewed journal, the reader knows that it has been through a review process. The writer has sent the material to an editor of a research journal and the editor usually gets three or more experts in the topic area to review the manuscript for accuracy, objectivity, currency and coverage. In essence, the authority of the source is established the rigor of its peer review processes. In many cases, the reviewers will recommend that the study not be published because of methodological or theoretical problems. In other cases, they may recommend that the writer improve the article and resubmit it for further consideration (i.e., revise and resubmit). Peer review of research results is an important, though not infallible check on the quality of research. One potential advantage of Internet published research occurs under the standard of currency. It is possible to publish research in a much more timely way than it is possible under the rather laborious peer review process. The peer review process can take up to a year and a half if several revisions of an article are considered. However, currency is a high price to pay if it occurs at the expense of the four other standards of information quality, One might if it is really necessary to put research manuscripts through a quality review process? It would be possible to archive the materials of a discipline on an Internet site and let members of the discipline read the materials and evaluate it for themselves. In an ideal world, where we readers had lots of time, this might work, but it would require that each researcher shuffle through an extraordinary amount of material to find the pieces that are optimal quality. Even this overlooks the fact that the peer review process typically significantly improves the quality of the research that is finally published. In the end, the key question on information quality is not where you find the information, but the what review process the published research information has been through. Increasingly there are editions of

electronic research journals that go through a peer review process of blind review. In addition, many high quality print journals also now provide their journal contents through research databases such as Ebscohost that are available through research university libraries. At this time, the highest quality communication research publications tend to be available via online databases. However, one must be typically be associated with an academic or research institution to access materials in these databases. In 2006, the library is still the heart of the University as it always has been. A research library collects and catalogs the accumulated knowledge of the disciplines that make up the University. Textbooks and other secondary materials derive from primary research. If you want to go back to roots of what is known about something, you end up at the library-whether it involves shelves of books and periodicals or online databases. For better or worse, most primary or original research information is still available only in research libraries or electronic databases. This may not be an eternal truth, but it accurately describes how the world works in 2006. 1. Janet Tate & Marsha Ann Tate (1999). Web Wisdom: How to evaluate and create quality on the Web. .Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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Reading Communication Research ReportsWhen you read a communication research article, you may be a bit overwhelmed. Here are some tips to make your reading of a communication research article more efficient. Most communication research articles have six parts: research abstract, literature review, methods, results, discussion, and references. This structure closely follows the structure that you will find in Masters Theses and Doctoral dissertations. In some cases, the headings of the sections may differ, but most research reports follow this structure. We must first acknowledge that not all articles in research journals report the results of original research. Some articles are literature reviews. They summarize what is known about a particular topic at a given point in time. Other articles may address philosophical issues in communication research. Some articles may also critique research that has been done on a research topic. In addition, many communication journals also include book reviews. However, the majority of articles in communication journals involve reporting the results of original research. The structure of these articles tends to follow the following format fairly closely. The research abstract summarizes the article in 100 to 200 words. You should read the abstract to determine if the article is relevant to your subject. The research abstract is entered into on-line databases such as Ebscohost. The research abstract enables you to understand the focus of a study in a glance. You can usually determine if the article is relevant to your topic by reading the abstract. The literature review immediately follows the abstract. In this section, the researcher sets up his or her research problem. She describes what has been discovered about the topic in previous research. No matter the discipline, a researcher tries to show her study is on the cutting edge (i.e., it addresses an important research question or research hypothesis). This means that the question or hypothesis that has not been researched before, or that the study replicates and extends previous studies in an important way. The literature review shows how the researcher's study builds on previous research. There is no reason to investigate already answered questions. A good research article makes a new contribution to what we know. The researcher should write the literature review before she conducts the study. The research questions and hypotheses of the study often appear toward the end of this section. The methods section describes the procedures and methods that the researcher followed to investigate the research question. This section describes the sample employed in the study. It should also carefully describe 1) how the information was collected and how study variables were measured, 2) how measurement reliability and validity were assessed, and 3) how the data were analyzed. As you read a methods section, you may be surprised by how precisely some minute details of these procedures are described. These small details are provided so that the reader can assess the quality of the study. An astute reader can identify potential problems or limitations of the study by closely examining the methods section. For instance, if a researcher fails to include information about measurement reliability, it casts doubts on the measurement of one of more variables. The methods section also provides details that other researchers will need if they want to replicate the study. Without an exact description of the research sample, methods and procedures, researchers would have a great deal of difficulty in extending their knowledge of a subject or in comparing their results. The fourth section of a research report is the results section. This section reports what the researcher found concerning the research questions and research hypotheses. This section usually reports the results of the study in a straightforward way. It frequently includes tables and charts that visually summarize important study results. The discussion section usually follows the results. The discussion summarizes and interprets study results. It tells how the results fit with, extend, or change what we knew about a topic. It also discusses limitations of the study design. Toward the end of this section, the researcher often identifies new research questions/hypotheses arising from the study. A good research study often raises more questions than it answers, because new questions and hypotheses and emerge whenever we discover

something new. The final section of the article is usually the bibliography. The bibliography, also sometimes called the reference list, contains the works the author has cited in his or her research report. The reference list can be valuable to the reader because it identifies other works that the reader can read to get a full understanding of the research topic. Journals differ in how the citations are structured. Many journals list references alphabetically. If footnotes are used, the references are given in the order that they are used in the article. In some cases, the footnotes appear at the bottom of page, in other cases they appear in a separate section at the end of the research report. So how can you skim an article quickly and efficiently? With a little experience, you can get the gist of a research article in five minutes. You begin by reading the research abstract. In many cases, you can decide that they study is not directly relevant to your interests. If the abstract interests you in the study, then you should quickly read the actual research questions or hypotheses investigated in the study. Then you can usually look in the Tables or charts that summarize the study results to get a good idea about the findings of the study. If you want to get a judge the quality of the study, you should then check the methods section for a description of the sample, data collection and data analysis. If it appears that the article deserves further consideration, then you should read it in detail.

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Publishing Communication ResearchWhere does one find communication research? In the past, the answer to this question was "in peer reviewed journals in research libraries". A peer reviewed journal is a scholarly publication that is dedicated to publishing theory and research articles in a given field. A journal has an editor who receives manuscripts from scholars in the relevant field of study. The editor is responsible for choosing the material a journal publishes. Since the editor is seldom an expert in all facets of the field, an editorial board usually assists her. An editorial board is a group of experts in various parts of the field covered by the journal. The editor might review a submitted article to determine if it is relevant to the focus of the journal. If she decides it is, she ordinarily sends it to recognized experts in the field to get their recommendations. The reviewers judge merit of the submitted work on criteria such as its methodological rigor, its timeliness, and its overall contribution to the literature. Peer review means that other scholars and experts in the field carefully review manuscripts. The peer review process is an important quality control mechanism in the research community. Editors are dedicated to publishing the best research. The quality of a journal is reflected in the reputation of the editorial board that reviews manuscripts for the editor. The editorial board is usually printed somewhere in the journal. High quality journals publish only a small percentage of the submitted manuscripts. In the communication field, high quality journals ordinarily publish less than a quarter of the submitted manuscripts. When the editor receives the recommendations of the reviewers she makes a decision on what to do with the manuscript. In many cases, the editor will decide to reject the manuscript. In other cases, the editor may decide that while the study does not have enough merit to be published as it is, it has enough potential to invite the author to revise and resubmit. The author(s) are advised on changes that they need to make before the manuscript is resubmitted. This may entail collecting some new data, reanalyzing the existing data in a new way, and changing the written report. It is up to the author to decide whether she wants to make the required changes and resubmit the article for another round of reviews by the editorial board. In a few cases, the editor will accept the manuscript and publish it with only minor modifications. The process of editorial review and manuscript revision can take some time to complete. It may run up to 2 years between when a research study is submitted and when it appears in a research journal. The process of peer review can be tedious, but it maintains and enhances the quality of scholarship in a field of study. Many scholarly organizations publish research journals. In the field of communication, several scholarly research organizations publish peer reviewed research journals. The National Communication Association (NCA) is an organization of scholars in the fields of rhetoric and speech communication. The Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) has journals that publish in the areas of journalism and mass communication. The International Communication Association (ICA) is an international association that publishes journals includes both speech and mass communication scholars. Many smaller organizations, often regional or specialized topic areas, also publish research journals. You can find a list of the most important peer reviewed journals in communication in the Communication Abstracts database that indexes more than 42 journals from many fields in communication. Many of these journals are now available in an online format as well as in the traditional print format.

Ethics and Communication ResearchIf you plan to become a professional communicator, you have a special obligation to communicate and interpret information ethically and intelligently. In a democratic society, the quality of public discourse depends upon the truthfulness and dependability of public communications. If you lack credibility as a professional communicator, you have nothing. If you degrade or demean the integrity of societal communications, you undermine the very basis of your profession. There will always be people who lie, misinform and mislead. However, after you take this course, it will be harder for you to mislead others unintentionally. If you decide to misinform or mislead, I prefer that you to know what you are doing and to feel the weight on your conscience for doing so. Many, perhaps most, of the glaring examples of ethical malpractice among communication professionals (journalists, public relations practitioners, advertisers etc.), arise from professional ignorance, not ethical malfeasance. If you mislead or misinform members of the public due to carelessness or incompetence, the effect is same as if you had done so intentionally. If you communicate incompetently, you help build cynicism and mistrust among the public toward professional communicators and the institutions that you represent. These outcomes accumulate independent of your intentions. If, I must choose between an unethical communicator and an incompetent one, I will choose the unethical one. The unethical communicator knows what he is doing, and may be bothered enough by his conscience to do the right thing, or to repent. The incompetent communicator is unaware of what he is doing, and is therefore unable to change or make amends. If you claim to be a professional communicator, but do not follow the best ethical practices of your profession, then your practice of communication is unethical. If you practice ignorantly, you are an unwitting charlatan: you claim to be someone that you are not. If you claim to be a professional, you have an ethical obligation to practice as knowledgeably and ethically as you can. If you settle for less, you practice committed ignorance (I know I dont follow best practices, but I dont care). However, ignorance does not release you from your ethical obligations. We all make mistakes, but this does not excuse us from doing the best that we can with the available knowledge and resources. An ethical communicator is also a knowledgeable communicator. As professional communicators, you should be aware of some of the common logical fallacies that plague public argument in our society. You should be familiar with the mistakes communicators often make when they inform and persuade. You need to know how communicators sometimes use factually true statements to misinform and mislead. You also need to know what information you need to provide so that people consuming your messages can make informed and responsible choices. You also need to understand the limitations of our knowledge (statistics, projections etc.). Most of all, you need to know how to employ this knowledge as you create and evaluate messages. You will find it morally difficult to mislead others, and it will be very difficult for others to mislead you. Several courses in the communication curriculum such as argument in everyday life and research methods help you develop the critical faculties that are needed for competent and ethical communication.

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Communication Research ParadigmsThis course introduces three different approaches to communication research. Each research tradition has its goals, assumptions about the nature of the world (i.e., ontology), knowledge (i.e., epistemology) and human nature (i.e., philosophical anthropology), and typical research methods. Each research tradition is briefly summarized and described below.

The Objectivist ParadigmThe objectivist paradigm, sometimes referred to as the scientific approach to communication, was the dominant research paradigm in communication research in the 20th century. This paradigm also sometimes goes by the names of empiricism and/or logical positivism. The objectivist tradition assumes that the goal of research is to develop theories aimed at prediction and control. Objectivist researchers are interested in finding definitive answers to questions of cause and effect. Objectivist researchers investigate the commonalities that large numbers of people or events share. Objectivist research focuses on the general as opposed to the specific. From this perspective, the study of persuasion should lead to the discovery of the laws of persuasion: timeless truths about persuasion that apply across cultures and history. The objectivist paradigm assumes that the world has a relatively simple structure: a few underlying variables account for the seeming complexity of the world. All other things being equal, the best explanation of an event will be the simplest or most parsimonious. The objectivist paradigm assumes that fixed internal and external forces determine human behavior. The human organism responds to internal and external stimuli. Human beings only think that they have free will. The objectivist paradigm further assumes that observers can discover the underlying structure of reality by careful observation and systematic testing. Objectivist researchers give a great deal of attention to devising measuring technologies that attain objective measurement. Objective measures filter out the inaccuracies of human subjectivity. Objective measures enable different observers to get comparable results. Objectivists assume that disagreement between observers is measurement error. Objectivist researchers believe proper attention to method will lead to the truth about the underlying nature of reality. Experiments, surveys and content analyses are representative research methods of the objectivist paradigm. These are often described as quantitative research methods.

The Interpretive ParadigmThe interpretive paradigm usually defines itself in opposition to the objectivist paradigm. Rhetorical studies and other forms of humanities based research fall underneath this general heading. The goal of interpretive research is to develop the observer's understanding of the intentions and subjective viewpoints of communicators. In contrast to objectivist researchers, interpretive researchers give high priority to context. Interpretive researchers tend to focus on the unique features of people and context. The interpretive researcher looks for contextual truths rather than universal truths. The interpretive researcher assumes that the universe is relatively complex. Interpretive researchers do not deny the existence of cause and effect; they simply believe that many cause-effect relations are unique and nonrepeatable. As a result, interpretive researchers develop explanations that describe the subtleties and dynamics of context. For the interpretive researcher, the ideal research report is one that is rich in detail and captures the subtle nuances of the social and historical context. The interpretive paradigm also contrasts with the objectivist paradigm in how it regards human beings. Interpretive researchers assume that human behavior springs from creative interpretation of situational events and stimuli. Interpretive researchers give a great deal of attention to meaning. Human beings do not merely respond to events, they also use language and other symbolic resources to make sense of and give meaning to events in their environment. Interpretive researchers believe that humans have freewill, at least within the possibilities that they are able to conceive of. Interpretive researchers analyze symbol systems

that people use to make sense of life. These symbol systems help to constitute the culture of a group of people. Interpretive researchers study how language, art, rituals, myths and stories serve to create meaning. In some cases, the internal relations of symbol systems such as language are analyzed. Interpretive researchers begin with the proposition that it is understandable that two people will interpret the same situation differently. Where objectivist researchers regard disagreement among observers to be measurement error, interpretive researchers consider such differences to be worthy of investigation. Interpretive researchers embrace human subjectivity and attempt to understand it. Depth-interviews, participant -observation and textual analysis are common research methods employed by interpretive researchers. These research methods are often referred to as qualitative research methods.

The Critical ParadigmThe critical paradigm is the third general communication research paradigm. It is the most recent research paradigm to develop, and though it has gained considerable strength, it is not as entrenched the other two paradigms. Critical researchers overtly disclose their political goals and aspirations. Whereas the other two paradigms seek to understand, describe or predict events, critical research aims to restructure human consciousness and human society in the direction of providing human liberation. Critical researchers study the power relations that exist in a society. They trace the reciprocal relations between cultural systems and the power relations inherent in social, political and economic institutions. Critical researchers pay particular attention to the cultural devices that reproduce social institutions and the power relationships embedded in them. They study the topics of ideology and false consciousness. Ideology represents the ideas that powerful groups develop about the nature of reality and morality. Critical theorists believe that ideology legitimates the positions and interests of the power elite in society. False consciousness is the mirror image of ideology. It represents the distorted pictures that the non-elite groups in society come to accept about the nature of the world, social reality. The critical theorist analyzes the prevailing forms of ideology and false consciousness and shows how these false or distorted visions of reality serve to keep people pacify people. When Karl Marx said that religion was the opiate of the people, he meant that Christian religion diverted people's attention from the suffering of their daily lives. According to Marx, this made it less likely that they would act to change their lives in the present. Critical researchers believe a critique should be useful. It should ultimately promote a better awareness of the situation. Through critical reflection, people will discard the forms of false consciousness. Critical reflection will help people sort out those aspects of social reality that are fixed by natural law from those that are fixed by social ideology. By recognizing the possibilities of human action, human beings can pursue collective changes that are in the best interest of their social class or group. Moreover, they tend to believe that the resulting "enlightened consciousness" will lead people to embrace a program of radical social change that reduces social inequalities and equalizes social power. Given its overt political orientation, critical theory is more controversial than the other research paradigms. The critical paradigm blends the concerns of the other two paradigms in unique ways. Critical researchers share with interpretive researchers the recognition that several defensible interpretations of social reality can exist. However, critical researchers also believe that some interpretations are much better than others are. Specifically, the enlightened consciousness promoted by social critique is superior to the distortions and partial truths of the dominant societal ideologies. In terms of method, critical researchers use both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Compared to the other paradigms, the critical paradigm gives a higher priority to historical research.

The Role of Theory in Each Research ParadigmEach paradigm has a qualitatively different idea about what communication theory should be. In the objectivist paradigm, theory serves the interests of prediction and control. A theory spells out how

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variables in the real world relate to each other. A good theory predicts variable relationships better than any other theory. A predictive theory enables strategic interventions to control the course of events. For instance, a predictive theory of persuasion should enable message designers to design messages that are effective in informing or persuading target audiences. We know that messages that discuss the pros and cons of a proposal are more persuasive for audiences that hold different opinions than the communicator. On the other hand, messages that only present the pros for a proposal are more effective when audience members have not already formed a strong opinion on a proposition. Knowledge about audience attitudes on a topic enables one to choose the message form will have the greatest persuasive impact. The objectivist version of theory is the most common one in communication theory. Because interpretive researchers believe that context is very important, they believe that predictive theories are often of limited value. For instance, historians have traditionally held that the proper role of historical research is to describe and interpret what happened, rather than to predict where history is going next. Cause and effect operate, but they must take into account the processes of human interpretation. More importantly, many cause-effect sequences are one-time events, because of the complexities of situations and human interpretation. For interpretive theorists, a good theory provides analytical categories that can be broadly applied to describe and analyze communication situations and interpretations. Rhetorical theorists use Burkes dramatistic pentad to describe and analyze persuasive events. The pentad consists of five components that rhetorical theorists employ to describe and interpret what took place (i.e., act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose). Likewise, Penelope Brown and Steven Levinson, two communication ethnographers, developed an interpretive theory of politeness. The theory was derived from an analysis of politeness rituals from three different cultures. Although each culture has different politeness rituals, Brown and Levinson argued that politeness theory has both descriptive and analytical power: its concepts can accurately describe any politeness ritual in any society. For an interpretive researcher, a good theory is one that enables the researcher to describe and analyze the particulars of communication in many different communication situations. Critical researchers believe that a good theory enables activists to analyze social and economic structures that perpetuate social inequality. A good theory raises the consciousness of those who are oppressed and enables them to see their situation more objectively. This is done by showing how communication structures and rituals create interpretive frameworks that keep people from accurately understanding their situation (i.e., create forms of false consciousness). A critical theorist often does a dialectical analysis to expose the contradictions within the existing social-economic and cultural ideologies. Critical researchers fault objectivist theory for containing many elements of false consciousness. According to this critique, objectivist theories often fail to differentiate between the way things are, and the way things could be. In this respect, the critical paradigm shares concerns and methods with interpretive paradigm that also stresses the importance of human interpretation and choice. The very strong deterministic world view of objectivist researchers obscures the fact that the structures of society can indeed be changed to be more just and equitable. Critical researchers often do detailed historical analyses to show how dominant groups create ideologies to make current social arrangements appear to be natural and inevitable. Recently, some communication researchers have criticized research on male and female differences in communication. They maintain that communication researchers have focused too much attention on differences between the sexes and have given too little attention to commonalities in communication preferences among men and women1. When examined from another angle, the differences between men and women in their communication preferences and behaviors are rather small. Much past research has functioned to create the illusion of very large discrepancies between the communication styles of men and women. This

reinforces sex-role stereotypes and thereby supports social and economic inequalities between men and women in our society. Men and women are definitely not from different planets, popular press books to the contrary.2 Critical theorists do not deny that some sex differences in communication exist, but they insist that the differences are much less important than the commonalities.

Critical theorists also fault with the theoretical stance of interpretive researchers. Karl Marx complained that historical research was of little use because it was only backward looking. From the perspective of Karl Marx and other critical theorists, a theory is good to the extent that it works or helps change the world in the direction of greater justice and social equality. In this respect, critical research shares the forward-looking intent of the objectivist paradigm. Good theory enables one to design effective interventions that actually change the world. As reiterated earlier, the distinguishing feature of critical theory is that it is overtly political in its orientation: it seeks to change the world in a particular direction.

ConclusionThis brief description of research paradigms in communication glosses over the considerable complexity and diversity of research approaches within each research tradition3. You will see some of this diversity in the research articles that we read and analyze this semester.

Footnotes. See Daniel Canary & Tara Emmers-Sommer (1997). Sex and Gender Differences in Personal Relationships. New York: Guilford Press. 2. See the following for a popular press best seller that magnifies sex differences in the way described here. John Gray (1992). Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. New York: Harper Collins. 3. See the following text to find out how much many types of theory exist within each research paradigm. Steven Littlejohn (2005) Theories of Human Communication (9th Edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Exercise: Which Research Paradigm?Which research tradition do you think each of the following research abstracts represents? Each was abstract was taken from a recently published Communication publication. Explain your answer below each abstract. 1) This ethnographic inquiry reports on an African American Pentecostal Church in the southern U.S. This site is important to communication scholars because the church is an essential institution in Black communities and is involved in the communication of important values, behaviors and attitudes. This study finds that this church plays a vital role in the lives of its members and acts as an important site of community involvement, education and spiritual worship. Furthermore, the membership culture provides a powerful corrective to the racist communication of the dominant white society by providing a spiritual community that stands in opposition to racism.

2) Recent articles on the quality of health information on the Internet reveal 2 critical criteria: completeness and credibility. This article investigates the effect of Web use motivation on the relationship between

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completeness and consumer perceptions of credibility. Based on a 2 x 3 experiment conducted with 246 respondents, the article demonstrates that the extent of completeness of health information on the Internet impacts consumer assessment of source and website credibility. In contrast to extant research on the orthogonality of content and source characteristics, this research demonstrates their interaction.

3) This article examines the role of whiteness as a structuring absence to ethnographic audience research. After ignoring whiteness altogether, media ethnographers have tended to essentialize whiteness within narratives of structural dominance or individual vulnerability. Using poststructuralist theories of language, whiteness, and hegemony, the author argues that these narratives for whiteness can be traced to experiences in the field that are shaped by historical and institutional forces outside the field. Researchers both perform whiteness in the field, by claiming its privilege and hiding its visibility, and codify whiteness for others to identify outside the field. To illustrate, the author examines "narcissistic whiteness" and "defensive whiteness" as two articulations that are visible in her field notes, interpreted through unifying narratives and rearticulated through an alternative reading of the notes.

Unit 2: The Interpretive Paradigm-Participant ObservationThe interpretive paradigm primarily utilizes qualitative research methods that investigate culture and meaning. Qualitative research methods in communication research share a concern for capturing the complexities of communication in natural contexts. Some researchers prefer the term naturalistic research to the term of qualitative research. Where objectivist research seeks the most parsimonious explanations for empirical phenomena, the naturalistic researcher prefers to investigate the complexity of naturally occurring events. The naturalistic researcher believes that "objective measurement" can lead to serious distortions in our representation and understanding of communication. Naturalistic researchers share the conviction that communication is highly contextualized (i.e., it depends upon the specific situation). They maintain that something important is lost when researchers try to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator of basic elements and relationships. Instead of investigating how people to adapt to researcher-constructed tasks, naturalistic researchers observe communication in naturally occurring situations to identity the communication regularities and cultural understandings that they demonstrate. In participant observation the observer participates in naturally occurring interaction and records her observations. An observer becomes a competent observer, when she can meaningfully participate in communication in the scene of observation.

Unit ObjectivesUpon completing this unit, you should be able:

2-1: To describe the kinds of research questions addressed in interpretive research studies. 2-2: To explain what participant observation is. 2-3: To discuss the advantages and disadvantages of participant observation as a research method. 2-4: To discuss the how the researchers role affects the research process. 2-5: To discuss how researcher characteristics (e.g., gender and age) affect what a participant observer sees and hears. 2-6: To explain the relationship between participant observation and ethnography. 2-7: To match specific research problems with the most appropriate participant-observer role. 2-8: To explain the functions of the different types of field-note entries. 2-9: To explain how a participant observer should organize field notes to document the researchers learning process. 2-10: To compare and contrast deductive and inductive methods of analyzing field notes. 2-11: To discuss the practical problems that participant observers typically face. 2-12: To discuss ethical issues that participant observer researchers typically face.

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Participant ObservationParticipant observation is a primary research tool of naturalistic researchers. Participant observation is a modest idea. The researcher immerses himself in the event. The researcher participates, observes and reflects on what he has seen, heard and experienced. Through this process, the researcher becomes an intimately familiar with all of the subtleties and nuances of the communication situation. Participant observation is the preferred mode for learning about and describing the cultural practices of a group. The researcher is usually an outsider to the situation or group that he is investigating. As such, he encounters much that is strange and experiences considerable uncertainty as he tries to understand what is happening. As he goes from being a cultural outsider to a cultural insider, the researcher learns about the culture through an ongoing process of trial and error. The pragmatic test of whether the researcher has been successful in learning the culture is his ability to communicate appropriately and effectively in that situation. The participant-observer then documents what he learns as the process of his acculturation unfolds. In other words, the researcher is the research instrument in participant observation. Each of you has been through the process of cultural accommodation many times in your life. In fact, each new class that you take in your university career involves important cultural adaptations on your part. In each class you learn a new vocabulary and learn how to use it appropriately. The difference between everyday learning and the learning of s participant observer is that the participant observer observes and records his findings in a much more systematic way than we typically do in everyday life. In summary, a participant observer systematically observes and describes what he sees, hears and concludes as he encounters a culture. Students sometimes confuse participant-observation with ethnography. Ethnography involves intimate study and description of a culture or setting over a long period (typically a year or more). Participant-observation is a primary research tool for ethnographers, but they also use other research tools such as depth interviewing, textual analysis and surveys. Therefore, it is important to differentiate between participant observation as a research method, and ethnography as a long-term project of cultural description. So far, I have implied that participant observation is a standardized research method. In fact, there is an observer-----participant continuum reflecting various options in terms of how one can structure the researchers role. The roles are ordered in terms of how much attention the researcher is able to devote to observation and description in the research situation as portrayed in the figure below.

Observer Participant Complete as as Participa Participa Observer nt nt Observation dominates------------------------------------------------Participation Dominates

Complete Observer

On observation end of the continuum is the research role of complete observer. In this role the researcher observes other people in communication: but he has little or no interaction with people in the scene. His behavior has little impact upon how the situation progresses. This role allows the researcher to focus all of his energies on observation. This can be an advantage when one wants to develop a very precise description of the situation and events. A disadvantage of this approach is that it leaves the researcher looking in from the outside. He may interpret certain communications incorrectly or arrive at distorted interpretations of what is happening. This is sometimes described as experience distant description. Other than observing communication in a natural context, this approach is similar to objectivist research. It is not widely used observer role in naturalistic studies. A second observer role is the observer as participant. This role combines both participation and observation and thus requires that a researcher develop a double consciousness. The researcher has a role to play in the situation, but he must also keep his research role in mind as the situation unfolds. In this role, observation is of primary importance, but the researcher must participate in the scene to some extent. The researcher usually has a peripheral role in the situation. This approach offers the advantages of careful description and self-learning gained from the researchers participation in the scene. In addition, the researchers behavior does not substantially influence what happens in the situation. However, the degree of participation may not provide the researcher with insight into things that are happening in backstage areas that he does not have access to. The third observer role is participant as observer. This role requires a lot of time and concentration so observation is a subordinate part of the role. The researcher typically plays a central role in the observational situation. This role opens up many opportunities for discovery and learning. The researcher will be more likely gain access to backstage settings and view to a wide variety of communication events and communication practices. However, this is also likely to prevent the researcher from developing very careful descriptions of the scene. He has more things to write about, but less opportunity to do so. This difficulty can be diminished if the researcher carefully records his field notes very soon (i.e., within 24 hours) after the observation. Another concern with this role is that the researcher may significantly affect the communication that takes place in the setting. This role is also raises some touchy ethical issues, as the researcher decides what to disclose and how to disclose it. On the last slot on the participant side of the continuum, the researcher plays the role of complete participant. Here the role is so consuming that the person is only able to reflect upon his experiences and describe them after the fact (e.g., John Walker: My Life as a Taliban Warrior). This role has the serious disadvantage that it relies upon the researchers memory for a description or account of the situation. As a result, this kind of role is probably best reserved for describing experiences that are very memorable and not subject to distortion over time (i.e., epiphanies). If the persons experiences and memories can be compared with other people who were present at the event, this role can be productive. The retrospective role is also useful in situations when the significance of the event is not ascertained until after it takes place. By now you are probably asking which of these observational roles is best. There is not one correct answer. Which observational role is best depends on the goals of the researcher and the importance of the events. The complete observer role is probably best when one wants a detailed description of a particular communication episode. The two roles on the inside of the continuum are best adapted for studies in which one wants to understand the intricacies of a culture. Finally, the complete observer role is the only way that some events can be described and assessed. In the end, doing participant observation is a bit like writing a novel: the study is only as good as the observation, interpretation and writing skills of the researcher(s) who did the participant observation. Participant observation is a very personal method of research. It requires that the researcher have a great deal of personal awareness and self-reflection. It is also a research technique that some people have difficulty mastering. It is more difficult to teach people how to observe and be good listeners than it is to teach people how to design an experiment. For this reason, some observers say that participant observation research is as much an art as it is a science.

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Recording Field NotesJust as a journalist takes notes on what she sees or hears so that she can later write up the story, the participant observer also records notes about what he sees, hears, and infers so that he can write up a research report later. These observational notes are called field notes (i.e., notes collected while observing in the field). Over the research project the researcher builds an archive of these field notes. These field notes become the data that the researcher examines in the data analysis phase of the project. This reading outlines some essentials for writing accurate and useful field notes. Field notes are the record of the participant observer's experience in a naturalistic context. In her field notes, the researcher records what she heard, descriptions of what she has seen or witnessed, and her interpretations of what she has seen and heard. The recorded interpretations focus on the meanings that she attributes to the actions at the time. The first truism of fieldwork is that it ordinarily involves immersion in a culture. Good field notes distinguish the researcher's time in the field from any other participant in a different place or culture. Naturalistic researchers ordinarily take many notes. A year in the field might yield with more than 1500 -2000 pages of field notes. These notes are systematically analyzed. With such a volume of data, it is important to collect and organize ones field notes in an orderly way. There are several simple but important steps to follow in writing field notes. First, the entries should be legibly recorded, so they are intelligible to the researcher later on. It is also important to date the notes because it preserves information about the observers learning process. This is important because many important discoveries that the observer makes early in the process, become so obvious and automatic in the observer's mind that she will have forgotten the importance that the early discoveries. It is also important for the researcher to describe the scene and to note her role in the scene. Information about the nature of the setting and one's physical position in the scene provides important information about how the researcher's observation may have been influenced or constrained by these situational factors. Many fieldworkers draw pictures or take photographs to help documents these factors. It is important that the observer describe her observational role as it fits on the observation and participation continuum. There are some trade offs between participation and observation. When the observer is deeply involved in the action, she ordinarily has less time and attention to devote to observing and recording her observations. The demands of participation may overwhelm her cognitive and emotional resources. On the other hand, deep participation often enables the person to get "backstage" and gain access to ordinarily inaccessible events. It is also possible for the researcher to vary her levels of participation and observation at different points during the research process. However, it is very useful to have information on the depth of the researcher's observation/participation at the time of the observation. It is also important to differentiate the types of data in ones field notes. The notes should distinguish between things 1) things the observer directly saw or heard, 2) eye-witness descriptions of events, 3) second hand news and 4) explanations or accounts that people give for why certain things happened. This information helps the researcher judge the credibility of information. The observer should also record details about who, what, where and when and how the event unfolded. The observer should make explicit notes about research procedures, sources, and inferences that the observer made. Recording small details documents the learning process and helps the researcher establish the credibility of her research findings. Research writers often recommend that participant observer record his own thoughts and feelings in the field notes. The observer should identify his expectations upon entering the scene as well as his thoughts, feelings and emotions in the situation. The notes should also identify any surprises that she experienced, as well as record h