Points to remember
The following are the major points introduced in this chapter. Ensure that you are very confident with their meaning, content, context and significance.
1
Documentary methods are those that help gather data without direct participation
of the respondents. They are also called unobtrusive methods or indirect
methods.
2
Examples of documentary methods are document analysis, content analysis and text
analysis.
3
Documentary studies involve a secondary analysis.
4
Meta-analysis is a type of secondary analysis that attempts to standardise
existing findings so that they can offer an integrated answer to the research
question.
5
The biographical method refers to the study of personal and biographical
documents, which intentionally or unintentionally offer information about
structure, dynamics and function of the consciousness of the writer.
6
Documentary methods examine documents to determine behaviours and attitudes of
people reported in the content of these documents.
7
Such documents are public documents, archival records, personal documents,
administrative documents, formal studies and reports.
8
Documentary methods are very useful because of the following properties:
retrospectivity, accessibility, spontaneity, low costs, high quality,
possibility of re-testing and non-reactivity.
9
Documentary methods do have certain limitations, which the researcher must be
aware of when deciding to include them in a project.
10 The
biographical method entails the study of personal and biographical documents.
11
Biographical (and other) documents are analysed by means of one (or more) of the
following: holistic method, particularistic method, comparative method, content
analysis, quantitative method and classification method.
12
Content analysis is a documentary method that examines the (manifest or latent)
content of documents.
13 In
content analysis, data collection concentrates on presence, frequency,
prominence, direction and intensity of the research units.
14 In
content analysis, data collection is facilitated by means of categories.
15 In
content analysis, quantitative data analysis is conducted by means of a
descriptive analysis, categorical analysis, valence and intensity analysis,
contingency analysis and contextual analysis.
16 In
content analysis, qualitative data analysis is conducted by means of an analysis
based on summary, explication, structuration, objective hermeneutics and latent
structures of meaning.
17 The
purpose of discourse analysis is to examine the way in which meanings of social
phenomena, as they are employed by people to make sense of their lives, are
constructed.
18
Indirect methods are employed as the only methods of study or in conjunction
with other methods.