Research Methods in Human Sexuality

Chapter 2 Presented by A.Pimentel Jr, MPA, MA

A Scientific Approach to Human Sexuality

• Scientists who study sex take an empirical approach.

• They base their knowledge on research evidence, rather than on intuition, faith or superstition.

• Empirical: derived from or based on observation and experimentation

Scientific Method

• Critical Thinking & Scientific Approach share the hallmark of skepticism

• Willing to dispute authority figures and even other scientists

• Recognize that they (scientists) cannot gain perfect knowledge

• One era’s truths may become another era’s ancient myths and fallacies

• Scientific Method is a systematic way of gathering scientific evidence and testing assumptions.

• 1.) Formulating a research question: formulate questions on the basis of their observations of, or theories about, events or behavior.

• 2.) Framing the research question in the form of a hypothesis: a precise prediction that is tested through research.

• 3.) Testing the hypothesis: test hypothesis through carefully controlled observation and experimentation.

• 4.) Drawing conclusions: draw conclusions or inferences about the correctness of their hypotheses based on their analyses of the results of their studies.

• Research findings often lead scientists to modify their theories, and in turn, generate new hypotheses.

• to describe, explain, predict, and control the events that are of interest.

• attempt to be clear, unbiased, and precise in their descriptions of events and behavior.

• describes sexual behavior through techniques as varied as the field study, the survey, the individual case study and laboratory observation.

Goals of the Science of Human Sexuality

• Inference: conclusion or opinion

• Anthropomorphism: the attributing of human characteristics to an animal

• Scientists struggle with separating description from inference

• Researchers attempt to relate their observations to other factors or variables, that can help explain them.

• Variables: quantities or qualities that vary or may vary.

• Demographic: concerning the vital statistics (race, gender, age, religion, etc) of human populations.

• Ex. Researchers may attempt to explain variations in the frequency of sex by relating or correlating sexual frequency with demographic variables such as age, religious or social background, or cultural expectations.

• Variables commonly used to explain sexual behavior are: biological (age, health); psychological (anxieties, skills); sociological (educational level, socioeconomic status, ethnicity)

• Theories provide frameworks within which scientists can explain what they observe and make predictions.

• Theories must allow us to make predictions.

• The concept of “controlling” human behavior does not mean coercing people to do the bidding of others. Rather, it means drawing from scientific knowledge to help people create their own goals and marshal their resources to meet them.

• Reputable scientists are held to ethical and professional standards that safeguard the rights of participants in research.

• Population: a complete group of organisms or events.

• Sample: part of a population.

• Generalize: to go from the particular to the general.

• Populations of interest/target populations (sizable because it would cost too much $$ to attempt to study every individual)

Populations & Samples: Representing the World of

Diversity

• Sample must represent the target population.

• Ex. If we wished to study the sexual behavior of Asian Americans, our population would consist of all Asian Americans.

• If we used only Asian American college students as our sample, we could not generalize our findings to all Asian Americans.

• Surveyed samples of 20,000 or 30,000 readers, does not mean that a sample is representative.

• “Biased”...readers of magazines

• Random sampling: a sample in which every member of a population has an equal chance of participating.

• Stratified random sampling: a random sample in which known subgroups in a population are represented in proportion to their numbers in the population.

Sampling Methods: Does Size Matter?

• Ex. If 13% of the U.S population is African American, then researchers can decide to have 13% of their sample pop to be African American.

• The randomness of the sample would be preserved because the members of the subgroups would be selected randomly from their particular subgroups.

• Random samples can be hard to come by, especially when it comes to asking people about their sexual attitudes or behavior.

• The refusal of people who have been randomly selected to participate in the survey can ruin the representativeness of the sample, yet researchers cannot coerce people to participate in research.

• Samples of convenience: consist of individuals who happen to be available to the researcher and share some characteristics with the target population. (Religious background/sexual orientation)

• Convenience samples often consist of European American, middle-class college students who volunteer for studies conducted at their schools.

• Case study: is a carefully drawn, in-depth biography of an individual or a small group.

• Focus on understanding one or several individuals as fully as possible by unraveling the interplay of various factors in their backgrounds.

• Interviews may build on itself with a good deal of freedom

• Researcher gets to know the individual through interviews/extended contacts

Methods of Observation

• Survey: a detailed study of a sample obtained by means such as interviews and questionnaires.

• Interviewing or administering questionnaires to thousands of people from particular population groups to learn about their sexual behavior and attitudes.

• Face to face interviews provide the interviewer with the opportunity to follow up on answers that seem to lead toward useful information.

Survey Method

• Questionnaires are less expensive than interviews.

• Major Expenses: printing and distribution, posting the surveys online or creating electronic instruments such as telephone-audio-computer-assisted self interviewing.

• If respondents are permitted to return questionnaires anonymously or are assured that interviews will be kept confidential, respondents may be more likely to disclose intimate information.

• Volunteer Bias: a slanting of research data that is caused by the characteristics of individuals who volunteer to participate, such as willingness to discuss intimate behavior.

• Confidentiality: ethics requires that sex researchers do not reveal the identities and behaviors of participants in research. Sometimes records are coded to protect identities if theft occurs. Records are typically destroyed after use.

• Reliability: the consistency or accuracy of a measure.

• Validity: with respect to interviews, questionnaires and tests, the degree to which an item measures what it is supposed to measure.

• Incidence: a measure of the occurrence or the degree of occurrence of an event.

Magazine Surveys

• Magazine Surveys: target a certain population, i.e readers

• The sample size fails to be random and due to the limited sample pool, cannot be representative of society

• Often employs the use of questionnaires

Limitations of the Survey Method• Frequency: the number of times an action is

repeated within a given period.

• Social Desirability: a response bias to a questionnaire or interview in which the person provides a socially acceptable response.

• For example: Studying the incidence of sexual thoughts in college males and females....females may report less sexual thoughts because they are expected to fulfill traditional feminine gender roles...they lie to "fit in" while males may exaggerate their thoughts/sexual experiences.

Naturalistic-Observation Method• AKA Field Study

• A method in which organisms are observed in their natural environments.

• Scientists try to observe their subjects unobtrusively; that is they try not to influence the behavior of the individuals they study.

• Ex: If they are observing the drug abuse of high school students in a particular school district, researchers must allow the drug abuse to occur/continue despite the risks involved

Ethnographic-Observation Method

• A method of research that deals descriptively with specific cultures, especially preliterate societies.

• Must disguise their presence as a researcher to avoid members of the group altering their behavior to fulfill social desirability.

Participant-Observation Method

• A method in which observers interact with the people they study as they collect data.

• Participation is often the "price of admission" for observation

• Defines the thin line "for the sake of science"

Laboratory Observation Method

• A method in which subjects are studied in a laboratory setting.

• Exposing participants to pornography while measuring their level of arousal. Implement the use of a penile strain gauge or vaginal plethysmograph

• Correlation: a statistical measure of the relationship between two variables.

• Example: Research has shown relationships (correlations)