Other units of analysis

Although most social research is based on the kinds of units of analysis just mentioned, other things may be selected for analysis. These include the contents of newspapers and magazines (Badri and Osama, 1995; Swanjord, 1989); rural development projects (Rao,1981); and folk tales (Mathews, 1985).

Box 5.1 summarizes frequently used units of analysis.

Box 5.1. Some frequently used units of analysis Individuals - by far the most frequently used Groups- husband-wife pairs, social groups Organizations—businesses, offices, factories, government ministries Classrooms, schools, university student bodies or groups Geographical areas- villages, communities, cities, regions of a country, entire countries Mass media materials- newspapers, magazines, television shows

Deciding on the unit of analysis

Most likely the unit of analysis you will use in a study will be clear from the way you defined your problem. If you have any doubts about the unit you should use, you will need to resolve this confusion before going on. Otherwise, you may not analyze your data properly and your entire study could be jeopardized. Ask yourself what unit you will base your analysis on. This is, as the term implies, your unit of analysis. Also, in the process of analyzing your data, you may shift from one unit to another. In the study by Gimbel and associates (2002) mentioned under organizations as the unit of analysis, the authors used organizations as the unit of analysis. However, since they collected data from employees, they could have undertaken other analyses as well. For example, they might have become interested in the level of morale among employees and the length of time each worked for one of the organizations. In this case, they would have shifted to employees as the unit of analysis. Our point is simple: just be sure of your unit of analysis and that you have data appropriate to that unit.

Collecting data at the lowest possible unit

Also, remember an important rule: Regardless of what you are studying, always obtain data in terms of the lowest unit of analysis possible. There is a simple reason for this. You can usually combine data collected at a lower level into a higher level for analysis, but it won't work the other way around. For example, if you intended to analyze data about the production of things by households, collect data about the production activities for each member of the household. Then you can combine the data from each household member for analysis at the level of the entire household. This way you can still do other analyses at the level of members of the household, such as what wives and daughters produced in contrast to husbands and sons, as well as for the entire household. But if you asked only for production of the household as a whole, you would not be able to describe production by separate members of the household.

Design alternatives

Designing research is a creative process. Designs can be put together in a number of ways. By describing some of

the more frequently used designs, we hope you will get an idea of the various kinds of research questions you can ask and designs you can use in answering them. To start, designs can be developed for: (1) describing variables as they currently exist (present time); (2) for describing changes that have occurred (looking at the past); and (3) for describing changes as they occur (present into the future). These time dimensions are illustrated in Figure 5.1. We start with the typical survey design, shown by Illustration A in Figure 5.1.