Questions – Chapter 8 – content analysis and document study

Do not hand in the answers to these questions. They are for study purposes only.

1. Under what circumstances would unobtrusive measures give more valid results than direct measures, such as questionnaires?

2. Give some examples where unobtrusive measures are the only measure available in a research program.

3. What are the limitations of using unobtrusive measures?

4. What is meant by the term “content analysis”?

5. How could one go about creating a coding sheet for content analysis?

6. What would be measured?

7. How could content be sampled prior to analysis?

8. Describe quantitative content analysis.

9. Describe qualitative content analysis.

10. What are the advantages and disadvantages of content analysis?

11. What is meant by the terms “primary data” and “secondary data”?

12. Give some examples of each.

13. What is meant by “secondary data analysis”?

14. Give some examples of research projects involving secondary data analysis that would use different data sources.

15. What advantages are there to using existing data?

16. What disadvantages are there?

17. What publicly available data sources exist that would be useful for research in your area (e.g. psychology, economics, etc.)?