[PEN-L:12023] Re: Surveys

[knowware@xxxxxxxx (Tom Walker)]

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote,

>any research methodology that ultimately depends on engaging the
>respondent in a simulated interaction to elicit responses . . .
> is like drawing conclusions on
>the behaviour of wild animals from observations made in a zoo.

Agreed. But you can learn *some* things about animal behaviour from
observations in a zoo. Not all are generalizable to natural conditions but
some of them are.

>Aside my rather serious reservations about the validity of factor analytic
>techniques (factor does not discover any patterns; at the very best, it only
>tells us whether the data do not violate the researcher's preconceptions) --
>my critique aims at the epistemological foundations underlying the survey
>methodology, rather  than technical accuracy of this or that method of
>asking questions.

In _Political Subjectivity_, Steven Brown echoes your epistemological
suspicion of "technique". In the final analysis, it is the researcher and
his/her theory who shapes the research questions, etc. However, the factor
analysis *does* allow for the discovery of patterns other than those
anticipated by the researcher.

>Suppose that we do find a way to elicit the exact content of the R's
>consciousness at a given moment in time. But that finding is virtually
>worthless, unless we make an additional assumption that the knowledge we
>discovered is some kind of a benchmark, criterion that reveals to us the
>"nature of human behaviour/relations." In other words, the survey-generated
>knowledge can be considered valid only when we assume the existence of some
>reified "human nature" "psyche" or "cognitive essence" that does not change
>under different circumstances.

This would be true if what we wanted to find out was the "content of the
respondent's consciousness". But that's not what we're looking for. What we
are seeking is something more like "currents of thought" that groups of
people share. Or, what might be termed in classical rhetoric "commonplaces".

>As soon as we assume that if there is anything like a "human nature," it is
>something dynamic rather than static, interactive rather than predetermined,
>and reflecting the social relations in which the individual finctions rather
>than innate, essentialist psychic structures -- the survey becomes a rather
>useless way of generating knowledge.

Q methodology assumes all of the above, i.e. dynamic, interactive, and
socially situated human nature.

>Why?
> . . . we can measure the
>"ideological temperature" of the environment (specific communities) to know
>what individual members on average think.

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here. But "the ideological
temperature of individuals on average" doesn't sound like information I'd be
particularly interested in.

>But even if surveys were to tell us something that we do not already know,
>what does that knowledge mean?  Suppose that we discovered that the majority
>of people support this and oppose that.

I can only reiterate that Q methodology isn't in the slightest interested in
what the "majority" of people support or even in what some given proportion
of people think. Q methodology seeks to interpret coherent varieties of
opinion on an issue.

> Q-methodology would fail on that account as well, for it depends on
>pre-determined formulations rather than interactively elicits formulatin of
Rs).

The collection of statements for a q study is typically "naturalistic" in
that statements are drawn from popular sources (e.g. newspaper editorials,
letters to the editor, postings to discussion groups, pamphlets, etc.) or
directly from conversations with the participants, as in a focus group. The
problem with focus groups is that ultimately the researcher has to impose an
order on the participants' inchoate views. Whether or not that order is
"critical", it is still imposed. By relying on statistical comparison to try
to elicit the structure of views -- as well as the views, themselves -- q
methodology doesn't evade the requirement to impose an order. But it does
help the researcher become conscious (and potentially critical) of the way
in which that order has been imposed.

>(BTW, [Touraine's sociological interventon]is something very similar to the
>dialectical methods used by Socrates, as described in Plato's dialgues).

IMHO, Rousseau's naturalistic education of Emile is the only thing in the
western canon as *contrived* as Plato's Socratic dialogues. Although I'm not
familiar with Touraine's work, it sounds like it has more in common with
Freire than Plato. I've certainly seen enough focus group (shouldn't that be
grope?) to lament along with you the bastardization of such approaches. I
guess I would call them "ethnomethodological"


Regards,

Tom Walker
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