Unobtrusive research

Last updated November 21, 2019

Unobtrusive research (or unobtrusive measures) is a method of data collection used primarily in the social sciences. The term "unobtrusive measures" was first coined by Webb, Campbell, Schwartz, & Sechrest in a 1966 book titled Unobtrusive Measures: nonreactive research in the social sciences.^[1] The authors described methodologies which do not involve direct elicitation of data from the research subjects. Unobtrusive measures are contrasted with interviews and questionnaires, in that they try to find indirect ways to obtain the necessary data. The unobtrusive approach often seeks unusual data sources, such as garbage, graffiti and obituaries, as well as more conventional ones such as published statistics.

An elicitation technique is any of a number of data collection techniques used in anthropology, cognitive science, counseling, education, knowledge engineering, linguistics, management, philosophy, psychology, or other fields to gather knowledge or information from people. Elicitation, in which knowledge is sought directly from human beings, is usually distinguished from indirect methods such as gathering information from written sources.

Graffiti is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually as a form of artistic expression, without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.

Unobtrusive measures should not be perceived as an alternative to more reactive methods such as interviews, surveys and experiments, but rather as an additional tool in the tool chest of the social researcher. Unobtrusive measures can assist in tackling known biases such as selection bias and experimenter's bias. Webb and his colleagues emphasize the importance of triangulating the results obtained through various methodologies, each with its own unique set of (usually unknown) biases.

An experiment is a procedure carried out to support, refute, or validate a hypothesis. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Experiments vary greatly in goal and scale, but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results. There also exists natural experimental studies.

Selection bias is the bias introduced by the selection of individuals, groups or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved, thereby ensuring that the sample obtained is not representative of the population intended to be analyzed. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. The phrase "selection bias" most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, resulting from the method of collecting samples. If the selection bias is not taken into account, then some conclusions of the study may be false.

The proliferation of digital media opened a new era for communication researchers in search of unobtrusively obtained data sources. Online communication creates digital footprints that can allow an analysis of data that are obtained through unobtrusive methods, and are also massively larger than any corpora obtained via elicitation and human transcription. These footprints can now be used to analyze topics such as the content of communication events, the process of communication, and the structure of the communicative network. The surge of Internet-sourced research data rekindled the discussion of the ethical aspects of using unobtrusively obtained data. For example, can all data collected in the public domain be used for research purposes? When should we seek consent, and is it realistic to require informed consent from sources of unobtrusively collected data? These questions do not have a simple answer, and the solution is a result of a careful and ongoing dialog between researchers, and between researchers and society.^[2]

Digital media are any media that are encoded in machine-readable formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified and preserved on digital electronics devices.

Digital footprint or digital shadow refers to one's unique set of traceable digital activities, actions, contributions and communications manifested on the Internet or on digital devices. On the World Wide Web, the internet footprint; also known as cyber shadow, electronic footprint, or digital shadow, is the information left behind as a result of a user's web-browsing and stored as cookies. The term usually applies to an individual person, but can also refer to a business, organization and corporation.

Corpus linguistics is the study of language as expressed in corpora (samples) of "real world" text. Corpus linguistics proposes that reliable language analysis is more feasible with corpora collected in the field in its natural context ("realia"), and with minimal experimental-interference.

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A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analysis can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting measurements that are expected to have some degree of error. The aim then is to use approaches from statistics to derive a pooled estimate closest to the unknown common truth based on how this error is perceived. Existing methods for meta-analysis yield a weighted average from the results of the individual studies, and what differs is the manner in which these weights are allocated and also the manner in which the uncertainty is computed around the point estimate thus generated. In addition to providing an estimate of the unknown common truth, meta-analysis has the capacity to contrast results from different studies and identify patterns among study results, sources of disagreement among those results, or other interesting relationships that may come to light in the context of multiple studies.

The Delphi method is a structured communication technique or method, originally developed as a systematic, interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts. The technique can also be adapted for use in face-to-face meetings, and is then called mini-Delphi or Estimate-Talk-Estimate (ETE). Delphi has been widely used for business forecasting and has certain advantages over another structured forecasting approach, prediction markets.

Multimethodology or multimethod research includes the use of more than one method of data collection or research in a research study or set of related studies. Mixed methods research is more specific in that it includes the mixing of qualitative and quantitative data, methods, methodologies, and/or paradigms in a research study or set of related studies. One could argue that mixed methods research is a special case of multimethod research. Another applicable, but less often used label, for multi or mixed research is methodological pluralism. All of these approaches to professional and academic research emphasize that monomethod research can be improved through the use of multiple data sources, methods, research methodologies, perspectives, standpoints, and paradigms.

Participant observation by scholar practitioners is one type of data collection method typically used in qualitative research and ethnography. It is a widely used methodology in many disciplines, particularly cultural anthropology, European ethnology, sociology, communication studies, human geography and social psychology. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time.

Content analysis is a research method for studying documents and communication artifacts, which might be texts of various formats, pictures, audio or video. Social scientists use content analysis to examine patterns in communication in a replicable and systematic manner. One of the key advantages of using content analysis to analyse social phenomena is its non-invasive nature, in contrast to simulating social experiences or collecting survey answers.

Response bias is a general term for a wide range of tendencies for participants to respond inaccurately or falsely to questions. These biases are prevalent in research involving participant self-report, such as structured interviews or surveys. Response biases can have a large impact on the validity of questionnaires or surveys.

Field experiments, like lab experiments, randomly assign subjects to either treatment or control groups in order to test claims of causal relationships. Random assignment helps establish the comparability of the treatment and control group, so that any differences between them that emerge after the treatment has been administered plausibly reflect the influence of the treatment rather than pre-existing differences between the groups. The distinguishing characteristics of field experiments are that they are conducted real-world settings and often unobtrusively. This is in contrast to laboratory experiments, which enforce scientific control by testing a hypothesis in the artificial and highly controlled setting of a laboratory. Field experiments have some contextual differences as well from naturally-occurring experiments and quasi-experiments. While naturally-occurring experiments rely on an external force controlling the randomization treatment assignment and implementation, field experiments require researchers to retain control over randomization and implementation. Quasi-experiments occur when treatments are administered as-if randomly.

Visual sociology is an area of sociology concerned with the visual dimensions of social life. This subdiscipline is nurtured by the International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA), which holds annual conferences and publishes the journal, Visual Studies.

Systematic reviews are a type of literature review that uses systematic methods to collect secondary data, critically appraise research studies, and synthesize findings qualitatively or quantitatively.^{Systematic reviews formulate research questions that are broad or narrow in scope, and identify and synthesize studies that directly relate to the systematic review question. They are designed to provide a complete, exhaustive summary of current evidence relevant to a research question. For example, systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials are key to the practice of evidence-based medicine, and a review of existing studies is often quicker and cheaper than embarking on a new study.}

A methodological advisor or consultant provides methodological and statistical advice and guidance to clients interested in making decisions regarding the design of studies, the collection and analysis of data, and the presentation and dissemination of research findings. Trained in both methods and statistics and communication skills, advisors may work in academia, industry, or the public sector.

Quantitative methods provide the primary research methods for studying the distribution and causes of crime. Quantitative methods provide numerous ways to obtain data that are useful to many aspects of society. The use of quantitative methods such as survey research, field research, and evaluation research as well as others, help criminologists to gather reliable and valid data helpful in the field of criminology. The data can, and is often, used by criminologists and other social scientists in making causal statements about variables being researched.

Reactivity is a phenomenon that occurs when individuals alter their performance or behavior due to the awareness that they are being observed. The change may be positive or negative, and depends on the situation. It is a significant threat to a research study's external validity and is typically controlled for using blind experiment designs.

Psychological research refers to research that psychologists conduct for systematic study and for analysis of the experiences and behaviours of individuals or groups. Their research can have educational, occupational and clinical applications.

Netnography, an online research method originating in ethnography, is understanding social interaction in contemporary digital communications contexts. Netnography is a specific set of research practices related to data collection, analysis, research ethics, and representation, rooted in participant observation. In netnography, a significant amount of the data originates in and manifests through the digital traces of naturally occurring public conversations recorded by contemporary communications networks. Netnography uses these conversations as data. It is an interpretive research method that adapts the traditional, in-person participant observation techniques of anthropology to the study of interactions and experiences manifesting through digital communications.

Diary studies is a research method that collects qualitative information by having participants record entries about their everyday lives in a log, diary or journal about the activity or experience being studied. This collection of data uses a longitudinal technique, meaning that it is reported by the participants over a period of time ranging from some days to more a few months, meaning that it studies the same variables over a period of time. This research tool, although not being able to provide results as detailed as a true field study, can still offer a vast amount of contextual information without the costs of a true field study. Diary studies are also known as experience sampling or ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methodology.

Observational methods in psychological research entail the observation and description of a subject's behavior. Researchers utilizing the observational method can exert varying amounts of control over the environment in which the observation takes place. This makes observational research a sort of middle ground between the highly controlled method of experimental design and the less structured approach of conducting interviews.

Visual research is a qualitative research methodology that relies on the use of artistic mediums to "produce and represent knowledge." These artistic mediums include, but are not limited to: film, photography, drawings, paintings, and sculptures. The artistic mediums provide a rich source of information that has the ability of capturing reality. They also reveal information about what the medium captures, but the artist or the creator behind the medium. Using photography as an example, the photographs taken illustrate reality and give information about the photographer through the angle, focus of the image, and the moment in which the photograph was taken.

Media Bias/Fact Check is a web site that rates factual accuracy and political bias in news media. The site classifies media sources on a political bias spectrum, as well as on the accuracy of their factual reporting. The site is run by founder and editor Dave Van Zandt.

References

↑ Webb, Eugene J. et al. Unobtrusive Measures: nonreactive research in the social sciences. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966
↑ AoIR. "Association of Internet Researchers Ethics Guide".

Lee, R. M. (2000). Unobtrusive Methods in Social Research . Open University Press.
Webb, E. J.; Campbell, D. T.; Schwartz, R. D. & Sechrest, L. (2000). Unobtrusive Measures; revised edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Inc. ISBN 0-7619-2011-0

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[1] Webb, Eugene J. et al. Unobtrusive Measures: nonreactive research in the social sciences. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966

[2] AoIR. "Association of Internet Researchers Ethics Guide".