PE Researcher -- Seeking Interviewees for Book

Dear Scott, could you post your questionnaire?, it would be illuminating for us.

Thanks.

Strict questionnaires are more often found with quantitative research. It would be unlikely to not have a set of questions as a skeleton but the point of qualitative research is to find stuff you haven’t thought of yet and there isn’t a question for that. Drawing conclusions from qualitative research based on a few interviews is also a little suspect. In this case, Scott is asking for participation, so his interviewees will be limited to the kind of person willing to participate. This may be far from representative but there may be some common motivations. Qualitative research will often try to create a narrative though and that is where the desires for the work of the researcher show, which I think is what worries a number of contributors to this thread.

Marinera,

What I meant was Scott may find me assuming his hypothesis offensive. The whole point of my whole hypothesis rant was not intended to question his methods, but rather get the opinion of someone who studies masculinity.

Mizguy – I think memento’s post (#32) and my reply to it speak to your concerns.

Marinera – I’m having a hard time understanding how PE is analogous to UFOs. Correct me if I’m misinterpreting, but are you suggesting that as a researcher I might be as skeptical of PE as I would be of people who claim to see UFOs?

If so, first, I’m interested in whether PE works only insofar as it affects the people who do it. Second, I’m much more interested in what motivates men to seek out PE sites and do the exercises. I’m not an investigative journalist doing an expose on PE sites or products, so whether or not the exercises work just isn’t that important for my research. (Also, it would be an incredibly elaborate conspiracy if PE was a hoax, and you guys spend all this time on the site because… well, why?)

Scott Melzer
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Anthropology & Sociology
Albion College
Smelzer@albion.edu

I do it for the free nachos.

Peaveyspecial — As memento says, I’m not using a questionnaire. By that, I mean a survey instrument with closed-ended questions. For example: “How many days per week do you do exercises?: 0, 1-2, 3-4, 5-7.” “I find PE exercises to be effective: 1=Strongly Agree, 2=Agree, 3=Disagree, 4=Strongly Disagree.”

I do semi-structured interviews. Again, memento is spot on. I have a series of topics and some (really open-ended) questions which are more like prompts. Most of my questions are follow-ups to what the interview participant says. This is why qualitative research is inductive (building up from data) rather than deductive. This is also why I don’t have hypotheses. Like any researcher, I regularly encounter unexpected information that would’ve been excluded from a survey. If the question isn’t included on the survey, those data are never collected.

Here are some sample questions and topics from my semi-structured interview guide: Childhood/youth — Thinking back to when you were younger, do you remember when you first began thinking about your body image and penis size? (Follow-up questions ensue based on response.) What motivated you to do PE exercises? To join the forum? Has doing PE exercises affected your sense of self (if so, how)? [I hope you can see where most of my questions would be follow-ups to initial responses.]

Now some may argue this isn’t science. That’s fine. There are heated debates within and outside of sociology (and within and outside of the social sciences) whether what any of what we do is science. Some qualitative researchers would reject the label “scientist” and call b.s. On those who embrace it. Likewise, there are plenty of legitimate critiques of the natural sciences’ claims of objectivity.

What I do when I conduct qualitative research is systematically code and analyze my data — interviews, field notes, forum posts, documents, whatever. There are a variety of qualitative coding techniques (and software, though I prefer to do the coding myself). What they all attempt to accomplish is to identify patterns and exceptions to them, and allow the themes/insights to emerge from the data. Beginning with hypotheses undermines this approach. Is qualitative research scientific? I’d argue no more or less so than quantitative research. Survey questions are written by people, distributed by people, and interpreted and responded to (or ignored) by people. Just because the end result is a statistic doesn’t make it better research.

Speaking of themes, I see one emerging — forum members don’t want me to do a crappy job and misrepresent them/PE. I share that goal. Thanks to those of you who’ve contacted me expressing interest in participating in my research. The more of you who do so, the more robust will be my research, and perhaps the more at ease some of you will feel.

Scott Melzer
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Anthropology & Sociology
Albion College
Smelzer@albion.edu

Conspiracy solved!

Scott Melzer
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Anthropology & Sociology
Albion College
Smelzer@albion.edu

I don’t want you to do a crappy job and misrepresent masculinity.

Scott, thanks for the explanation, I’m actually not so naive, I only wanted to see your way of researching , just curious…

Thanks and good luck.

Memento, I have lived in the U.K. for about 10 years, I thought you would get it, but that was my mistake, I try to imply some staff…. as you know.

Cheers mate, because I’m Chilean it doesn’t mean I’m not

informed,

by the way I actually consider myself slow, kill me……!!!

peaveyspecial,

If you think my answer was condescending, that was not my intent. We all have different areas of knowledge and there are plenty of posts that are a basic description of how something works which enlighten me because they are outside of my knowledge. The only thing I’m likely to assume by you having Chile in your location is that you decided to put that in when you registered. I’m afraid Chile is outside my area of knowledge, so I do not know the state of social science in the country and as you point out just because someone is in a particular country at a particular point, it does not mean they haven’t been in other countries or indeed that their education is limited by their location.

Your post simply indicated that you thought Scott would be using a questionnaire, so I explained why I thought that was unlikely.

I don’t know what you where trying to imply by your post and I still don’t, so if you want me to understand you’ll have to be a little more explicit.

Scott,

Beginning with a hypothesis does not undermine science. Designing ineffective methods to objectively measure the output (in your case opinions of members) of your experiments undermines science. One critique I often see of your work is that you cherry pick portions of each interview to support your conclusions. Do you publish your interview transcripts and systematic coding and analysis parameters? Because I believe if your science is sound no one can claim bias, you are simply reporting facts and giving your opinion on results.

I now understand why you won’t state your hypothesis. I guess I will have to wait for the book.

Hey mizguy — I never said that beginning with a hypothesis undermines science. I’m suggesting it would undermine the efficacy of my current study. I’ve done quantitative, hypothesis-testing research before. Probably will do so again when it’s appropriate. My non-controversial position is that all research methods have their strengths and weaknesses, and which methods a researcher uses is based in no small part on the topic of study.

My first book was peer-reviewed and endorsed by leading scholars in sociology, political science, and American studies. It was also reviewed (in professional journals) by sociologists and political scientists who study gun politics and social movements. I don’t cherry pick portions of interviews, regardless of what some anonymous amazon reviewer/NRA member claims. (Also, it’s an odd point — even if I did cherry pick my data, how would anyone know? No one else sees my data.)

Researchers can’t publish interview transcripts because there’s no way we could protect people’s confidentiality if we did. What’s great about science/any research, though, is it’s replicable. I was the first sociologist to study the modern NRA, but not the first scholar and not the last sociologist. Several others have examined the organization (using similar methods) since, and they’ve drawn similar conclusions.

I’d encourage you to read my book — which includes a summary of my methods and data — and decide for yourself.

Scott Melzer
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Anthropology & Sociology
Albion College
Smelzer@albion.edu

Scott,

Your first two statements seem contradictory if you are claiming your work is science. Also, I have no qualms with doing qualitative research, but I am sensing that many question it’s validity due to the repeated defenses of your methodology.

What I am saying is that it is absurd for you to tell me you do not have a hypothesis. Why did you choose this subject if you did not have a theory you wished to test? It is ok to have a hypothesis, provided your methods are valid and you report the data in a non-biased manner.

I only asked about whether your results were published because that would surely quiet any speculation that you cherry pick data to support only your conclusions. I understand the point of a book is to condense the information and give your expert take on the evidence, however supplemental information could prove your lack of via. Personally I think just publishing the questions you ask as your interview progresses would be sufficient.

Anyways, I realize I am beating a dead horse so I won’t continue my hypothesis crusade. I sincerely wish you the best of luck and can’t wait to see the results.