H. Russell Bernard

Techniques to Identify Themes

Theme identification is one of the most fundamental tasks in qualitative research. It also is one of the most mysterious. Explicit descriptions of theme discovery are rarely found in articles and reports, and when they are, they are often relegated to appendices or footnotes. Techniques are shared among small groups of social scientists, but sharing is impeded by disciplinary or epistemological boundaries. The techniques described here are drawn from across epistemological and disciplinary boundaries. They include both observational and manipulative techniques and range from quick word counts to laborious, in-depth, line-by-line scrutiny. Techniques are compared on six dimensions: (1) appropriateness for data types, (2) required labor, (3) required expertise, (4) stage of analysis, (5) number and types of themes to be generated, and (6) issues of reliability and validity.

Informant accuracy in social-network data V. An experimental attempt to predict actual communication from recall data

Abstract This paper seeks to discover whether the known inaccuracy of informant recall about their communication behavior can be accounted for by experimentally varying the time period over which recall takes place. The experiment took advantage of a new communications medium (computer conferencing) which enabled us to monitor automatically all the interactions involving a subset of the computer network. The experiment itself was administered entirely by the computer, which interviewed informants and recorded their responses. Variations in time period failed to account for much of the inaccuracy, which continues, as in previous experiments at an unacceptably high level. One positive finding did emerge: although the informants did not know with whom they communicated, the informants en masse seemed to know certain broad facts about the communication pattern. All other findings were negative. For example, it is impossible to predict the people an informant claimed to communicate with but did not; and it is impossible to predict who the five people are that an informant forgot to mention that she or he had communication with. Thus, despite their presumed good intentions, our findings here confirm what we have learned from six previous experiments: What people say about their communications bears no resemblance to their behavior. This suggests that other forms of data gathering, based on questions which require that informants recall their behavior, may well be suspect.

COMPARING FOUR DIFFERENT METHODS FOR MEASURING PERSONAL SOCIAL NETWORKS

Like many researchers, we want to know the rules that govern the formation of human social networks, their persistence and disappearance, and their effects (if any) on human behavior and thought. Even if it turns out that the rules governing social network formation and decay are relatively simple, the outcome of those rules is very complex. It is so complex, in fact, that at this stage of the effort we are still concentrating on basic questions like: How many people are there in

Estimating the size of personal networks

Abstract Some methods for estimating the total size of personal communication networks are presented. All involve the scaling-up of a reported network size by a factor proportional to the number of people whom informants can recall when they are presented with a representative list of last names from a telephone directory. Estimates from Jacksonville, Florida give network sizes of 1700±400; reevaluations of an estimate made for Orange County give 2025; and estimates from Mexico City give network sizes of about 600. The difficulties, and sources of error, in these estimates, are discussed. The estimates are compared with independent estimates based on the likelihood of informants knowing members of a small, countable subpopulation, which suggests for U.S. informants a network size of 1526. Thus consistent numbers are beginning to emerge, at least for U.S. informants.

Informant accuracy in social network data III: A comparison of triadic structure in behavioral and cognitive data

Abstract This paper provides a comparison of the triadic-level structure inherent in behavioral and cognitive social network data taken on the same group, using a variety of groups whose communication could easily be monitored. It is found that many types of structure occur significantly more or less than chance in both behavioral and cognitive data, and providing that these are treated in similar ways, there is good agreement between the two structures. However, there are several ways to treat behavioral data, and these produce at least two essentially different structures. If cognitive and behavioral triads are compared, triad by triad, then there is virtually no agreement between them (even though they may both display the same structure on an overall triad census). Finally, as a demonstration of the dangers of relying solely on cognitive data, an unlikely null hypothesis is proposed. This asserts — for demonstration purposes — that, under many circumstances, behavioral structure never alters. Change in structure over time apparently occurs because of informant error in the reporting of the cognitive data. A pseudo-transition matrix, giving the probability that a triad is reported as one type when data are first taken, and a different type at a later date, is calculated. This compares reasonably with a genuine transition matrix evaluated for longitudinal cognitive data. It is believed that no data currently exist which can disprove this hypothesis, unlikely though it is. Much more accurate data are therefore necessary if any reliable theory of social structure is to be produced.

Measuring Patterns of Acquaintanceship [and Comments and Reply]

This paper examines some of the factors which determine how people know each other and is a preliminary attempt to discover the rules which govern such interactions. An informant-defined experiment was conducted to elicit the information about a person needed by individuals in a small U.S. university town to choose which of their acquaintances was most likely to know that person. We found, as with a previous experiment, that knowledge of the persons location, occupation, hobbies, organizations, age, sex, and marital status was sufficient for this task. These seven facts were then provided for 500 mythical persons spread evenly around the world except that 100 of them supposedly lived in the United States. Forty informants then told us, for each name on the list, whom they knew who was most likely to know that person and why. We found that the data differed little from those of our previous studies in other parts of the United States, suggesting that the instruments is reliable. Of the choices, 86% were friends, 64% male; choices were predominantly made on the basis of the listed persons location or occupation. Factor analysis of similarity matrices based on informant response has allowed categorization for world locations, occupations, and hobbies. Some 23 location categories, 12 ocupation categories, and 13 hobby categories were found. The implications of our findings are discussed in the framework of work in other cultures.

On the social structure of an ocean-going research vessel and other important things

Two essentially different problems are studied in this paper. The first, as the title suggests, is a description of the social structure and conflict aboard an oceanographic research vessel. This structure is described both by ethnographic data and by a new numerical method, which is explained and discussed in detail. The second problem, more in the nature of a preliminary report, is the more abstract one of general human groups. The properties of random and slightly nonrandom groups are discussed, using the above methods, with reference to the interaction of psychological and mathematical limitations on the ability of a person to comprehend fully a large, structured group.

A social network approach to corroborating the number of AIDS/HIV+ victims in the US °

Accurate estimates of the sizes of certain subpopulations are needed to inform important public policy decisions in the US. Laumann et al. (1989, 1993) have attempted to assess the accuracy of the reported data on the incidence of AIDS in the US, collected by the Centers for Disease Control and published in the AIDS Weekly Surveillance Reports (AWSR) and HIV/AIDS Surveillance Reports (HASR), by comparing these data with response data from the 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991 General Social Surveys (GSSs). To establish reference comparison subpopulations, they did a similar assessment of the reported numbers of homicides during previous 12-month periods, published in the Unified Crime Report (UCR) and the Vital Statistics of the United States (VSUS), comparing these data with other response data from these same GSSs. The GSS data were compared with the AWSR, HASR, UCR and VSUS figures by sex, race, ethnicity, age, and region of the US. Their results for homicide victims are reasonably similar to the UCR and VSUS figures for these categories, while their results for AIDS victims are reasonably similar to the AWSR and HASR figures only for sex and age. There is then the question of whether reported total figures for the incidence of homicides and AIDS (as well as suicides during a previous 12-month period) are reasonably accurate. There is concern that there is significant undercounting of the total incidence of

The accuracy of small world chains in social networks

We analyse 10,920 shortest path connections between 105 members of an interviewing bureau, together with the equivalent conceptual, or ‘small world’ routes, which use individuals’ selections of intermediaries. This permits the first study of the impact of accuracy within small world chains. The mean small world path length (3.23) is 40% longer than the mean of the actual shortest paths (2.30), showing that mistakes are prevalent. A Markov model with a probability of simply guessing an intermediary of 0.52 gives an excellent fit to the observations, suggesting that people make the wrong small world choice more than half the time.

Two interpretations of reports of knowledge of subpopulation sizes

We asked respondents how many people they knew in many subpopulations. These numbers, averaged over large representative samples, should vary proportionally to the size of the subpopulations. In fact, they do not. We give two different interpretations of this finding. The first interpretation notes that the responses are linear in subpopulation size for small subpopulations, but with a non-zero offset, and become noisier for larger subpopulations. Our explanation assumes that respondents both invent and forget members of their networks in the subpopulations, in addition to guessing when the number concerned becomes large. The second interpretation notes that the responses are well described by a power law response, in which the mean number of subpopulation members reported known varies as the square root of the subpopulation size. Despite the apparent implausibility of this, we suggest a psychological mechanism and a model which is able to reproduce the behaviour. Other recall data are shown to have similar properties, thus widening the relevance of the findings.