Bouncers

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Bouncers

• An Introduction to Quantitative and Qualitative
  Research
• David E Gray

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Some issues ..
Bouncers left to police cities Night club
bouncers are becoming the main law enforcers in
inner-city areas with the police too stretched to
cope with drunken louts. Fred Broughton, chairman
of the police federation, . said the situation
was out of control. BBC News website, 17th July,
2000
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Some issues ..
Bouncer jailed for blinding student A nightclub
bouncer has been jailed for five years after
pushing his walkie-talkie into a students face
so hard his eyeball burst open BBC News website,
13th February, 2004
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More issues..

• A survey of 476 door supervisors found
• 3 had convictions for murder or manslaugher
• 2 had firearms convictions
• 101 had convictions for assault
• 97 were claiming unemployment benefit while
  working

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How do we go about researching this issue?

• Is it worth researching?
• Do we have the time/resources?
• Do we have access?
• Is it safe?

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The research approach?

• Quantitative
• Qualitative

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A quantitative approach design
DEDUCTIVE APPROACH
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Research questions criteria

• Express a relationship between two variables
  (e.g. bouncer training and nightclub violence)
• Are stated in unambiguous terms in a question
  format
• Contain concepts that can be operationally
  defined within the research (e.g. a bouncer is
  )
• End in a ?

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Research questions types

• Descriptive (How common is violence at
  nightclubs?)
• Normative (How serious is violence at
  nightclubs?)
• Correlation (What is the relationship between
  bouncer training and levels of violence at
  nightclubs?)
• Impact (Has nightclub bouncer training had any
  effect?)

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The quantitative approach sample

• Random selection from population of nightclubs
• What is a nightclub?
• Access to sampling frames
• Sampling approach
• Response rates

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The quantitative approach data gathering (closed
questions)

• National Survey
• Bouncer Training
• Do your door staff undergo any form of customer
  care training?
• Would you describe the training as Very
  effective, Effective, Ineffective, Very
  ineffective?
• Do you vet that your door staff do not have
  criminal convictions?

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Collect and analyse data

• Store data (e.g. questionnaires)
• Input into SPSS
• Conduct statistical analysis
• Hey presto results!!

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Quantitative approach problems

• Researchers issues/bias
• Not everything that can be measured is worth
  measuring
• Low response rates nightclubs not want to be
  interviewed
• Socially desirable responses (SDRs) we never
  have any trouble here
• The So what? effect

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So.

• What about the qualitative approach?

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Characteristics of qualitative research

• Collected in real field settings
• Focus is to understand why people act and account
  for their actions
• Contain multiple interpretations

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Qualitative v Quantitative approaches - tendencies

• Qualitative
• World is socially constructed
• Researcher part of context
• Focus on meanings
• Understand what is happening
• Text
• Inductive
• Analysis thematic exploration

• Quantitative
• World is external/objective
• Independent researcher
• Focus on facts
• Causality between variables
• Numbers
• Deductive
• Analysis statistics

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Characteristics of qualitative research

• Exploratory/descriptive
• Intense contact in the field
• Gaining the understanding of the actors

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Qualitative design
Data analysis
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Research questions
Pre-specified research questions Tightly
structured design Pre-structured data
General questions Loosely structured
design Data not pre-structured
Qualitativeresearch
Quantitativeresearch
Be open to surprise
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Design sampling strategies
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Sampling strategies include

• Snowball sampling
• Critical case sampling
• Typical case sampling
• Maximum variation sampling

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Design research questions
Inductive
Deductive
Volume of data
Tight research questions
Tentative formulation of issues
Provisional research questions
No research questions
Specificity of research questions
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Data collection methods

• Field notes
• Unstructured or semi-structured interviews
• Qualitative survey (questionnaire)
• Observations (overt/covert)
• Focus groups
• Reflective diaries (of respondents and/or
  researcher)
• Documents (emails, memos, reports etc)

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Qualitative approach illustration
Data collection
5 nightclubs semi-structured interviews
Tentative question
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Qualitative design illustration
Concepts/categories
Data analysis
Data collection
10 nightclubs semi-structured interviews 5
observations
Tentative question
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Qualitative data analysis text

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  ewe a as asa asa dfd df df ghghghghg. Self
  control Sds asd asda asdas as.

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Qualitative data analysis coding

• Dere lkl ewe a Dere lkl ewe a as asa asa dfd df
  df ghghghghg. Dere lkl ewe a Dere lkl ewe a as
  asa asa dfd df df ghghghghg. Dere lkl ewe a Dere
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  lkl ewe a Dere lkl ewe a as asa asa dfd df df
  ghghghghg. Dere lkl ewe a Dere lkl ewe a as asa
  control the customers asa dfd df df ghghghghg.
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  df ghghghghg.
• Dere lkl ewe a Dere lkl ewe a as asa asa dfd df
  df ghghghghg. Dere lkl ewe a Dere lkl ewe a as
  asa asa dfd df df ghghghghg. Dere lkl ewe a Dere
  lkl ewe a customer control as asa asa dfd df df
  ghghghghg. Dere lkl ewe a Dere lkl ewe a as asa
  asa dfd df df ghghghghg. Dere lkl ewe a Dere lkl
  ewe a as asa asa dfd df df ghghghghg. Self
  control Sds asd asda asdas as.

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Analysing qualitative data content analysis
Symbolic interactionismActor Network Theory
Theoreticalclasses

• Control
• Crowd control
• Self control professional pride

Classes/categories
Data
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Criticism of qualitative approach

• It seems subjective
• Bias of the researcher
• Unreliable small samples
• How can you generalise (external validity)?

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Generalising external validity
Theory or set of questions
Accept/reject theory or set of questions
Sampling/comparing
Sampling/comparing
Data saturation
Sampling/comparing
Replication through multiple cases (Yin, R.K)
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Reliability triangulation

• Multiple sources of evidence (many nightclub
  managers/bouncer interviews)
• Multiple data gathering techniques (survey,
  interviews, focus groups, observations, etc.)

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Reliability data analysis

• Check transcripts with respondents
• Check analysis with respondents (verification)
• Intra-judge reliability (analyse bouncer
  responses two weeks apart do I get the same
  answers?)
• Inter-judge reliability (please analyse this text
  do you get the same answers as me?)

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Qualitative research seeks to be..

• Credible
• Authentic
• Honest
• Empathetic

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Health warnings

• It takes about 10 hours to transcribe a 1 hour
  interview
• Can generate masses of data
• Reliability issues

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Qualitative analysis software

• See the Sage website at
• http//www.scolari.co.uk/

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Combining methods

• Questionnaire quantitative (closed questions)
  and qualitative (open questions)
• Quantitative questionnaire and qualitative
  interviews/observations (triangulation)

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Bouncer research its been done!

• University of Durham study
• 2 years, funded by ESRC
• Interviews with bouncers, police, councils,
  trainers, venue managers
• 3 of the team trained as bouncers
• 1 member worked under cover as a bouncer!!

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Recommended sources

• Silverman, D. (2000) Doing Qualitative Research
  London Sage
• Gray, D.E. (2004) Doing Research in the Real
  World London Sage

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Finally - be careful out there!!