Dr. Rodrigue, Intro to Research Methods for Geographers, Lab 5

Geography 200: RESEARCH METHODS FOR GEOGRAPHERS

Dr. Rodrigue

Graded Lab 5: Introduction to Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis

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This lab has as its purpose the comparison of quantitative, archival data and qualitative, field data and acquisition of a sense of how they differ and how each can complement the other. You should read William Trochim's two online articles about "qualitative measures" and "unobtrusive measures" before doing this lab, so you have a framework for understanding the very different character of this lab, compared to the ones you've already done in class. If you would like to explore qualitative methods in more depth, you can enroll in GEOG 402/502 course ("Qualitative Methods"). For more information, you can contact Dr. Deborah Thien at dthien@csulb.edu.

Please do your work on (a) separate sheet(s) of (autographed) paper, since there's no way I can estimate the amount of space I should put in this lab. Specific objectives include:

becoming familiar with Census data
really getting to know Long Beach (and one or two of your colleagues)
a little comic relief (field work) from all those OpenOffice Calc-based labs
learning a way to process subjective and qualitative information in the field
appreciating the different strengths and weaknesses of rich qualitative data and representative quantitative data and how they might be used together in one study

Directions:

Parts A, B, and C must be done on your own before you go into the field. This means that you must get this part done before you go into the field
Then, after arranging a mutually convenient time with your partners, go out in the field for 1-2 hours or however long it takes your team to amass from 5-8 pages of handwritten field notes so that you can do Parts D and E as a team. This will also require another 1-2 hours of discussion to process your notes according to the directions in Part E.
Part F must be done by yourself alone, but you can't do Part F until the teamwork in Parts D and E is completed.

EXERCISE A: Putting Life into Numbers (Solo Work)

This portion of the lab will introduce you to the U.S. Census, the source of a great deal of descriptive statistics for human geography, GIS, and many related disciplines. It will also introduce you to the rapid digestion of relative numbers and percentages and their summary in clear English that even a manager ;-) can understand (which is what a lot of you will wind up doing a lot of in The Real World).

To get started, go to the 2000 U.S. Census web page at http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en. Select "Fact Sheet for community profiles." In the dialogue boxes at the top, type in "Long Beach" for city or town, select "California" from the state menu, and then hit "GO." You'll be presented with the Census' estimates of the current status of the population in 2005. The original data from the 2000 Census itself are accessed from a tab at the top of that table. Go to the 2000 Census (which provides convenient maps for your use).

Now, in plain English, in one or two sentences each, just using the data appearing on the page that describes Long Beach, compare and contrast Long Beach with the U.S.:

Under general characteristics, how would you describe the gender balance and median age?
How about the racial and ethnic diversity of Long Beach in comparison with the U.S. as a whole?
Turn your attention to housing. How does Long Beach compare with the U.S. in terms of owner-occupancy and vacancy rates?
What about in terms of the median (reported) value of owner-occupied single-family homes (yes, 2000 numbers do seem kind of quaint)? How might owner-occupancy and housing prices be related?
Under economic characteristics, compare and contrast Long Beach with the U.S. in terms of median household incomes and percentages of individuals falling below the (official) poverty level.

EXERCISE B: Getting Down and Geographical (Solo Work)

Now that you have a general, bird's eye view of Long Beach's social and economic characteristics, let's now utilize the Census maps to get at spatial variations in some of these characteristics, again focussing on the ability to describe patterns and infer processes.

Click on the word, "Map," beside each of the following attributes and then make sure to use the zoom in option to blow the map up enough for you to get a sense of Long Beach.

Median age: Note where the oldest people are (darker greens) and then where the youngest people are (beiges). First, just describe the pattern verbally in reference to such spatial markers as the campus, I-405, PCH Lakewood Blvd., the shoreline, and the harbor complex. You only need a sentence or a very short paragraph of detail here.
Now, do the same by changing theme for gender (either choice generates the same map in terms of the ratio of males per 100 females). Where are the guys concentrated? Why do you suppose they're where they are?
Now, do the same for owner-occupancy rates, clicking on the appropriate map link and then making sure you're at level 5 with your map centered on Signal Hill. Where are most owner-occupied homes versus most renters?
While you're in the groove, repeat for median home value and describe that pattern.
Let's take a look at ethnicity, too. Click on maps for any two of the following: white, black or African-American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and Hispanic or Latino. Compare and contrast your two choices in terms of their geography of concentration in Long Beach in one or two paragraphs. You might want to coördinate with your teammates so that your group has information on more than two ethnicities/races.
Now, let's finish up with median household income and percentage of individuals under the poverty line. Where are the poorest people concentrated and where are the richest?

EXERCISE C: Synthesizing Geographical Data into Areal Differentiation (Solo Work)

You now know how Long Beach compares with the rest of the country and you have briefly described spatial variations in each of several demographic characteristics. Now, by comparing and contrasting the statements you made above, let's come up with a regional characterization of the subparts of Long Beach. Divide Long Beach into about five subregions by eyeballing the maps from Exercise B and/or your verbal descriptions of them.

First, delineate the boundaries among them (major roads?) and give each a name of some sort.
Second, describe the general character or "feel" of each subregion in terms of age, wealth, home ownership, home values, and ethnicity. Write as though you were telling a friend coming in from out of town about what they might see if they went wandering around Long Beach to amuse themselves while waiting for you to get out of class or work. Each region should be described in no more than one concise paragraph.
Third, you presumably based your regionalization on some sort of association among the demographic attributes you examined. What are these? You can answer this in no more than one paragraph.

EXERCISE D: Ground-Truthing and Recording Your Observations (Group Work)

So, team up with one or two other people in class (for safety, to ease boredom, and to compare and contrast your individual subjectivities out there). With your team, go visit one of your subregions.

Plot complication: Almost certainly, you will each find that you may have defined the five subregions of Long Beach a little bit differently. You need to pick one subregion and agree on its boundaries (maybe make boundaries that include everyone's idea of the subregion). Map out where your agreed-upon subregion is and head on out there, taking your map but leaving your labs at home or at school.

Each team's goal is to generate about 5-8 pages of handwritten field notes for later analysis. Drive around, maybe walk around if you feel safe, for about an hour or so and get a sense of what the residential districts in your subregion are like. As you go along, have one or two of you who aren't doing the driving write down the group's comments and conversations, in which you try to come up with impressions of the residential districts and retailing. You might want to bring a tape-recorder along and then later transcribe your conversation into notes.

In the residential areas, you might, for instance, comment about

age and condition of housing
size of lots
amount of landscaping
the kinds of cars you see parked there.

In the retailing areas, you might note

whether the retail structure is dominated by national "brand" retailers or "mama-papa" retailing
the kinds of business activities you see represented
the age and condition of the shops
whether they are in a mall or shopping center of some sort or just strung out along a retail strip
and the kinds of restaurants you see.

Describe the mix of people you see in your subregion:

gender mix?
ethnicity?
nicely dressed?
homeless?
young? old?
trendy lifestyles?

What sorts of emotions do you experience wandering around (besides the usual irritation at a Rodrigue lab, of course)? Write or tape record your impressions and conversations as you go, trying to note where you are when you experience them (street you're on and nearest intersection).

EXERCISE E: Emergent and Iterative Coding and Content Analysis (Group Work)

Now, back on campus (or holed up in a restaurant or some such), sit down with your field team and go through your notes or your recordings.

First, see if there are any themes that keep coming up in your notes or recordings and discuss what you think they are. Write down a word or a short phrase to describe each theme that you pick up on. You may find yourselves arguing a bit about what, exactly, the theme under question is. That argument may build character and tighten your analysis, actually.
Now, go back and count the number of times you detect that theme coming up in your notes (in sentences, phrases, or paragraphs or however much prose it takes for a "reference" to a theme to play out).
As you go back counting references by these themes, you'll probably find that you don't have enough themes to cover your notes, so you'll have to create new ones on the fly. This can mess up your count, which means that you may need to go back over your notes, re-counting themes a few times until you're sure you have found every reference to a theme and that every thing you talked about in your notes has a theme. This part may be a bit maddening. You are using an iterative process, trying to create a comprehensive and mutually exclusive coding for the themes that come up in your notes. Turn in the coding sheet with your field notes, and it's okay if it's handwritten.
If you'd like to see an example of how I did something like this using newspaper coverage of 9/11 instead of field notes, you can visit http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/research/qr/qr146/qr146.html. You can see how I went from text (newspaper articles) to codes and then used the codes to write an analytical narrative (or text again).

Now, using your coding and field notes only, write a paragraph or two describing the community your team visited and any variations across space. Mention any differences in opinion or experience that may have emerged within your team. Try to emphasize in your narrative things you found emphasized in the coding. You are trying to structure your paragraph(s) around the themes you developed. In an manner of speaking, you are going from raw fieldnote narrative through coding back to a (now coherent) narrative or story about this place. Again, you are trying to describe the community in plain English, as though you were telling friends about what they'd find there.

EXERCISE F: Triangulation between Quantitative Archival and Qualitative Field Analyses (Solo Work)

At this point, take out your labs (A, B, and C) and focus on your individual analyses of the subregions you defined in Lab C. Focussing on the specific subregion you and your team visited and after talking with your field team members, compare and contrast the information you gleaned from the Census and the impressions your team picked up in the field and coded afterwards. For example, does the subregion look or feel richer or poorer, older or younger, trendier or more suburban than you expected? Going over your team's classified impressions, did you pick up on things that you just could not have gotten from the Census numbers alone? If so, what were they? Create one or a two paragraphs where you reflect on the similarities and the differences between your personal analysis in Lab C and your team's analysis in Lab D and E. Are there situations in which you would trust the Census-based analysis over your field-based analysis or in which you would trust your personal observations over archived data?

Bring your labs to class on the 2nd of December, so that we can discuss them and so that different teams working on the same areas can compare and contrast their separate experiences. You will edit and turn in the labs at the end of class on that date. The package your teams turn in will include

the field notes, coding, and the group's brief narrative reflection on the field experience and coding,
each individual's solo work (labs A, B, C, and F), each individually autographed. This lab will take me a long time to grade (the downside of qualitative work), and a resub won't be feasible. So, make sure your work sparkles!

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