NONREACTIVE RESEARCH

I. Nonreactive measurement :
Both of the experiment and survey are reactive. This mean the people who are being studied are aware of that fact. On the contrary, in nonreactive, those are being studied are not aware that they are a part of a research project. Nonreactive is also called unobtrusive measures.
After observing, the researchers will have a result and they rule out a reason. The example of nonreactive measure:
Physical trace: If the toy has been used in a long time, this leads to worn-out toys.
ð Erosion: wear suggests greater use.
II. Content analysis:
- Content analysis is a technique for gathering and analyzing the content of text.
- The researcher can probe and discover the content in a different way from the ordinary way of reading a book or watching a television program.
- They compare content across many texts and analyze it.
Topic appropriate for content analysis:
- Researchers have used content analysis for many purposes.
- Content analysis cannot determine the truthfulness of an assertion the quality of literature.
- Content analysis is useful for three types of research problem:
+ For problem in a large volume of a text, for example, years of newspaper article.
+When a topic must be studied at a distance, for example, researcher can use historical documents whose authors have died, or broadcasts in a hostile foreign country.
+Content analysis can reveal messages in a text that are difficult to see with a casual observation.
III.Existing statistic/document and secondary analysis
Primary information: researchers investigate directly or test, then collect data. This is primary data or direct data.
Secondary information: after editing information from other sources, it is called secondary data.
Types of secondary document:
- From the analysis of government.
- From public or private organization, they gather many type of information.
- From independent researchers (they present publicly their results)
Appropriate topic:
- Information is collected over a long time period.
- Research in a long time
- Research is extended in many countries.
IV.The issues of inference and theory testing:
The limitation of nonreactive data:
- It is difficult to establish temporal order and eliminate alternative explanations.
- Unlike the survey research, a researcher can ask respondents direct question.
Ethical concern:
- Ethical concern is the privacy and confidentially.
- Another one is that official statistics are social and political products.
- Political and social values influence decisions about which existing statistics to collect.