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HISTORICAL-COMPARATIVE RESEARCH (Contd.):Locating Evidence

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Lesson 41
HISTORICAL-COMPARATIVE RESEARCH (Contd.)
Conducting historical-comparative research does not involve a rigid set of steps and, with only a few
exceptions; it does not use complex or specialized techniques. Nevertheless, some guideline for doing
historical-comparative research may be provided.
Conceptualizing the Object of Inquiry
An H-C researcher begins by becoming familiar with the setting and conceptualizes what is being
studied. He or she may start with a loose model or set of preliminary concepts and apply them to
specific setting. The provisional concepts contain implicit assumptions or organizing categories that he
or she uses to see the world, "package" observations, and search through evidence.
Decide on the historical era or comparative settings (nations or units). If the researcher is not already
familiar with historical era or comparative settings, he or she conducts an orientation reading (reading
several general works). This will help the researcher grasp the specific setting, assemble organizing
concepts, subdivide the main issue, and develop lists of questions relating to specific issue.
Locating Evidence
The researcher locates and gathers evidence through extensive bibliographic work. A researcher uses
many indexes, catalogs, and reference works that list what libraries contain. For comparative research,
this means focusing on specific nations or units and on particular kinds of evidence within each. The
researcher frequently spends weeks searching for sources in libraries, travels to several different
specialized research libraries, and reads dozens of books and articles. Comparative research often
involves learning one or more foreign languages.
As the researcher masters the literature and takes numerous detailed notes, he or she completes many
specific tasks: creating a bibliography list (on cards or on computer) with complete citations, taking
notes that are neither too skimpy nor too extensive, leaving margins on note cards for adding themes
later on, taking all note in the same format, and developing a file on themes or working hypothesis.
A researcher adjusts initial concepts, questions, or focus on the basis of what he or she discovers in the
evidence. New issues and questions arise as he or she reads and considers a range of research reports at
different levels of analysis (e.g., general context and detailed narratives on specific topic), and multiple
studies on a topic, crossing topic boundaries.
Evaluating Quality of Evidence
As the H-C researcher gathers evidence, he or she asks two questions: Hoe relevant is the evidence to
emerging research questions and evolving concepts? How accurate and strong is the evidence?
The question of relevance is difficult one. All documents may not be equally valuable in reconstructing
the past. As the focus of research shifts, evidence that was not relevant can become relevant. Likewise,
some evidence may stimulate new avenues of inquiry and search for additional confirming evidence.
Accuracy of evidence may be looked at for three things: the implicit conceptual framework, particular
details that are required and empirical generalizations.  H-C researcher evaluates alternative
interpretations of evidence and looks for "silences," of cases where the evidence fails to address an
event, topic, or issue.
Researchers try to avoid possible fallacies in the evidence. For example, a fallacy of pseudo proof is
failure to place something into its full context. The evidence might state that that there was a 50 percent
increase in income taxes, but it is not meaningful outside of a context. The researcher must ask: Did
other taxes decline? Did income increase? Did the tax incase apply to all income? Was everyone
affected equally?
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Organizing Evidence
As a researcher gathers evidence and locates new sources, he or she begins to organize the data.
Obviously, it is unwise to take notes madly and let them pile up haphazardly. A researcher usually
begins a preliminary analysis by noting low-level generalizations or themes. For example, in a study of
revolution, a researcher develops a theme: The rich peasants supported the old regime. He or she can
record this theme in his or her notes and later assign to significance.
Researcher organizes evidence, using theoretical insights to stimulate new ways to organize data and for
new questions to ask of evidence. The interaction of data and theory means that a researcher goes
beyond a surface examination of the evidence based on theory. For example, a researcher reads a mass
of evidence about a protest movement. The preliminary analysis organizes the evidence into a theme:
People who are active in protest interact with each other and develop shared cultural meanings. He or
she examines theories of culture and movements, then formulates new concept: "oppositional movement
subculture." The researcher then uses this concept to re-examine the evidence.
Synthesizing
The researcher refines concepts and moves toward a general explanatory model after most of the
evidence is in. Old themes or concepts are discussed or revised, and new ones are created. Concrete
events are used to give meaning to concepts.
The researcher looks for patterns across time or units, and draws out similarities and differences with
analogies. He or she organizes divergent events into sequences and groups them together to create a
larger picture. Plausible explanations are then developed that subsume both concepts and evidence as
he or she organizes the evidence into a coherent whole. The researcher then reads and rereads notes and
sorts and resorts them into piles or files on the basis of organizing schemes. He or she looks for and
writes down the links or connections he or she sees while looking at evidence in different ways.
Synthesis links specific evidence with an abstract model of underlying relations or causal mechanism.
A researcher often looks for new evidence to verify specific links that appear only after an explanatory
model is developed. He or she evaluates how well the model approximates the evidence and adjusts it
accordingly.
Historical-comparative researchers also identify critical indicators and supporting evidence for themes
or explanations. A critical indicator is unambiguous evidence, which is usually sufficient for inferring a
specific theoretical relationship. Researchers seek these indicators for key parts of an explanatory
model. Indicators critically confirm a theoretical inference and occur when many details suggest a clear
interpretation.
Writing a Report
Combine evidence, concepts, and synthesis into a research report. The way in which the report
is written is key in H-C research. Assembling evidence, arguments, and conclusions into a
report is always a crucial step; but more than in quantitative approaches, the careful crafting of
evidence and explanation makes or breaks H-C research. A researcher distills mountains of
evidence into exposition and prepares extensive footnotes. She or he weaves together evidence
and arguments to communicate a coherent, convincing picture to readers.
Data and Evidence in Historical context
Historical-comparative researchers draw on four types historical evidence or data:
1. Primary sources;
2. Secondary sources;
3. Running records; and
4. Recollections.
Traditional historians rely heavily on primary sources. H-C researchers often use secondary sources or
the different data types in combination.
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1.  Primary Sources:  The letters, diaries, newspapers, movies, novels, articles of clothing,
photographs, and so forth are those who lived in the past and have survived to the present are the
primary sources.  They are found in archives (a place where documents are stored), in private
collections, in family closets, or in museums. Today's documents and objects (our letters, television
programs, commercials, clothing, and automobiles) will be primary sources for future historians. An
example of a classic primary source is a bundle of yellowed letters written by a husband away at war to
his wife and found in a family closet by a researcher.
Published and unpublished written documents are the most important type of primary source.
Researchers find them in their original form or preserved in microfilm or on film. They are often the
only surviving record of the words, thoughts, and feelings of people in the past. Written documents are
helpful for studying societies and historical periods with writing and literate people.  A frequent
criticism of written sources is that elites or those in official organizations largely wrote them; thus the
views of the illiterate, the poor, or those outside official social institutions may be overlooked.
The written word on paper was the main medium of communication prior to the widespread use of
telecommunications, computers, and video technology to record events and ideas. In fact, the spread of
forms of communication that do not leave a permanent physical record (e.g., telephone conversation),
and which have largely replaced letters, written ledgers, and newspapers, make the work of future
historians difficult.
Potential Problems with Primary Sources: The key issue is that only a fraction of everything written
or used in the past has survived into present. Moreover, whatever is survived is nonrandom sample of
what once existed.
H-C researchers attempt to read primary sources with the eyes and assumptions of a contemporary who
lived in the past. This means "bracketing," or holding back knowledge of subsequent events and
modern values. "If you do not read the primary sources with an open mind and an intention to get
inside the minds of the writings and look at things the way they saw them, you are wasting time." For
example, when reading a source produced by a slaveholder, moralizing against slavery or faulting the
author for not seeing its evil is not worthwhile. The H-C researcher holds back moral judgments and
becomes a moral relativist while reading primary sources. He or she must think and believe like
subjects under study, discover how they performed in their own eyes.
Another problem is that locating primary documents is a time consuming task. A researcher must search
through specialized indexes and travel to archives or specialized libraries. Primary sources are often
located in dusty, out-of-the-way room full of stacked cardboard boxes containing masses of fading
documents. These may be incomplete, unorganized, and various stages of decay. Once the documents
or other primary sources are located, the researcher evaluates them subjecting them to external and
internal criticism.
External criticism means evaluating the authenticity of a document itself to be certain that it is not a
fake or a forgery. Criticism involves asking: Was the document created when it is claimed to have been,
in the place where it was supposed to be, and by the person who claims to be its author? Why was the
document produced to begin with, and how did it survive? Once the document passes as being
authentic, a researcher uses internal criticism, an examination of the document's contents to establish
credibility. A researcher evaluates whether what is recorded was based on what the author directly
witnessed or is secondhand information.
Many types of distortions can appear in primary documents. One is bowdlerization ­ a deliberate
distortion designed to protect moral standards or furnish a particular image. For example, photograph is
taken of the front of a building. Trash and empty bottles are scattered all around the building, and the
paint is faded. The photograph, however, is taken of the one part of the building that has little trash and
is framed so that the trash does not show; dark room techniques make the faded paint look new.
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2. Secondary Sources: Social researchers often use secondary sources, the books and articles written
by specialist historians and other researchers, as an evidence of past conditions.  It has its own
limitations.
Potential Problems with Secondary Sources: The limitations of secondary historical evidence include
problems of inaccurate historical accounts and lack of studies in areas of interest. Such sources cannot
be used to test hypotheses. Post facto explanations cannot meet positivist criteria of falsifiability,
because few statistical controls can be used and replication is not possible.
The many volumes of secondary sources present a maze of details and interpretations for an H-C
researcher. He or she must transform the mass of specialized descriptive studies into an intelligible
picture. This picture needs to be consistent with the reflective of the richness of the evidence. It also
must bridge the many specific time periods and locals. The researcher faces potential problems with
secondary sources.
One problem is reading the works of historians. Historians do not present theory-free, objective "facts."
They implicitly frame raw data, categorize information, and shape evidence using concepts. The
historian's concepts are a mixture drawn from journalism, language of historical actors, ideologies,
Philosophy, everyday language in the present, and social science. Most lack a rigorous definition, are
vague, are applied inconsistently, and are not mutually exclusive, nor exhaustive.
Second problem is that historian's selection procedure is not transparent. They select some information
from all possible evidence. From the infinite oceans of facts historian selects those, which are
significant for his purpose. Yet, the H-C researcher does not know how this was done. Without
knowing the selection process, a historical-comparative researcher must rely on the historian's
judgments, which can contain biases.
A third problem is in the organization of the evidence. Historians organize evidence as they write works
of history. They often write narrative history. This compounds problems of undefined concepts and the
selection of evidence. In the historical narrative, the writer organizes material chronologically around a
single coherent "story." The logic is that of a sequence of unfolding action. Thus, each part of the story
is connected to each other part by its place in the time order of events. Together all the parts form a
unity or whole.  Conjecture and contingency are the key elements of the narrative form. The
contingency creates a logical interdependency between earlier and later elements.
With its temporal logic, the narrative organization differs from how the social researchers create
explanations. It also differs from quantitative explanation in which the researcher identifies statistical
patterns to infer causes. A major difficulty of the narrative is that the organizing tool ­ time order or
position in a sequence of events ­ does not alone denote theoretical or historical causality. In other
word, the narrative meets only one of the three criteria for establishing causality ­ that of temporal
sequence.
Fourth and the last problem is that historiographic schools, personal beliefs, social theories influence a
historian, as well as current events at the time research were conducted. Historians writing today
examine primary material differently from how those writing in the 1920s did. In addition, there are
various schools of historiography (diplomatic, Marxist) that have their own rules for seeking evidence
and asking questions. It is also said history gets written by the people in power; it may include what the
people in power want to be included.
3. Running Records: Running records consist of files or existing statistical documents maintained by
organizations.  An example of a running record is keeping of vital statistics by the government
departments in Pakistan; vital statistics relating to births, marriage, divorce, death, and other statistics of
vital events. We also have so many documents containing running records relating to demographic
statistics, and economic statistics being maintained by different agencies of UNO.
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4. Recollections: The words or writing of individuals about their past lives or experiences based on
memory are recollections. These can be in the form of memoirs, autobiographies, or interviews.
Because memory is imperfect, recollections are often distorted in ways that primary sources are not.
In gathering oral history, a type of recollection, a researcher conducts unstructured interviews with
people about their lives or events in the past. This approach is especially valuable for non-elite groups
or the illiterate.
Evaluating the Documents
Historical-comparative researchers often use secondary sources or different data types in combination.
For secondary sources they often use existing documents as well as the data collected by other
organizations for research purposes. While looking into the authenticity of these document researchers
often want answers to the questions like: Who composed the documents? Why were these written?
What methods were used to acquire the information? What are some of the biases in the documents?
How representative was the sample? What are the key categories and concepts used? What sorts of
theoretical issues and debates do these documents cast light on?
Problems in Comparative Research
Problems in other types of research are magnified in a comparative study. In principle, there is no
difference between comparative cross-cultural research and research conducted in a single society. The
differences lie, rather, in the magnitude of certain types of problems.
The Units being compared:
For convenience, comparative researchers often use nation-state as their unit of analysis. The nation-
state is the major unit used in thinking about the divisions of people across globe today. The nation-state
is a socially and politically defined unit. In it, one government has sovereignty over populated territory.
The nation-state is not the only unit for comparative research, but also frequently used as a surrogate for
culture, which more difficult to define as a concrete, observable unit. The boundaries of nation-state
may not match those of a culture. In some situations a single culture is divided into several nations
(Muslim culture); in other cases, a nation-state contains more than one culture (Canada). The nation-
state is not always the best unit for comparative research. A researcher should ask: What is the relevant
comparative unit for my research question ­ the nation, the culture, a small region, or a subculture?
Problems of Equivalence: Equivalence is a critical issue in all research. It is the issue of making
comparisons across divergent contexts, or whether a researcher, living in a specific time period and
culture, correctly reads, understands, or conceptualizes data about people from different historical era or
culture. Without equivalence, a researcher cannot use the same concepts or measures in different
cultures or historical periods, and this makes comparison difficult, if not impossible. It is similar to the
problems of validity in quantitative research. Look at the concept of a friend. We ask some body how
many friends do you have? People living in different countries may have different meanings attached to
it. Even in Pakistan, we have variations in its meaning across the Provinces, and between rural and
urban areas.
Ethical problems are less intense in H-C research than in other types of social research because a
researcher is less likely to have direct contact with people being studied. Historical-comparative
research shares the ethical concerns found in other non-reactive research techniques.
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Table of Contents:
  1. INTRODUCTION, DEFINITION & VALUE OF RESEARCH
  2. SCIENTIFIC METHOD OF RESEARCH & ITS SPECIAL FEATURES
  3. CLASSIFICATION OF RESEARCH:Goals of Exploratory Research
  4. THEORY AND RESEARCH:Concepts, Propositions, Role of Theory
  5. CONCEPTS:Concepts are an Abstraction of Reality, Sources of Concepts
  6. VARIABLES AND TYPES OF VARIABLES:Moderating Variables
  7. HYPOTHESIS TESTING & CHARACTERISTICS:Correlational hypotheses
  8. REVIEW OF LITERATURE:Where to find the Research Literature
  9. CONDUCTING A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW:Write the Review
  10. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:Make an inventory of variables
  11. PROBLEM DEFINITION AND RESEARCH PROPOSAL:Problem Definition
  12. THE RESEARCH PROCESS:Broad Problem Area, Theoretical Framework
  13. ETHICAL ISSUES IN RESEARCH:Ethical Treatment of Participants
  14. ETHICAL ISSUES IN RESEARCH (Cont):Debriefing, Rights to Privacy
  15. MEASUREMENT OF CONCEPTS:Conceptualization
  16. MEASUREMENT OF CONCEPTS (CONTINUED):Operationalization
  17. MEASUREMENT OF CONCEPTS (CONTINUED):Scales and Indexes
  18. CRITERIA FOR GOOD MEASUREMENT:Convergent Validity
  19. RESEARCH DESIGN:Purpose of the Study, Steps in Conducting a Survey
  20. SURVEY RESEARCH:CHOOSING A COMMUNICATION MEDIA
  21. INTERCEPT INTERVIEWS IN MALLS AND OTHER HIGH-TRAFFIC AREAS
  22. SELF ADMINISTERED QUESTIONNAIRES (CONTINUED):Interesting Questions
  23. TOOLS FOR DATA COLLECTION:Guidelines for Questionnaire Design
  24. PILOT TESTING OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE:Discovering errors in the instrument
  25. INTERVIEWING:The Role of the Interviewer, Terminating the Interview
  26. SAMPLE AND SAMPLING TERMINOLOGY:Saves Cost, Labor, and Time
  27. PROBABILITY AND NON-PROBABILITY SAMPLING:Convenience Sampling
  28. TYPES OF PROBABILITY SAMPLING:Systematic Random Sample
  29. DATA ANALYSIS:Information, Editing, Editing for Consistency
  30. DATA TRANSFROMATION:Indexes and Scales, Scoring and Score Index
  31. DATA PRESENTATION:Bivariate Tables, Constructing Percentage Tables
  32. THE PARTS OF THE TABLE:Reading a percentage Table
  33. EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH:The Language of Experiments
  34. EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH (Cont.):True Experimental Designs
  35. EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH (Cont.):Validity in Experiments
  36. NON-REACTIVE RESEARCH:Recording and Documentation
  37. USE OF SECONDARY DATA:Advantages, Disadvantages, Secondary Survey Data
  38. OBSERVATION STUDIES/FIELD RESEARCH:Logic of Field Research
  39. OBSERVATION STUDIES (Contd.):Ethical Dilemmas of Field research
  40. HISTORICAL COMPARATIVE RESEARCH:Similarities to Field Research
  41. HISTORICAL-COMPARATIVE RESEARCH (Contd.):Locating Evidence
  42. FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION:The Purpose of FGD, Formal Focus Groups
  43. FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION (Contd.):Uses of Focus Group Discussions
  44. REPORT WRITING:Conclusions and recommendations, Appended Parts
  45. REFERENCING:Book by a single author, Edited book, Doctoral Dissertation