Tag Archives: respondents

9+ Ways Respondents Make Answers Unreliable

Posted on December 4, 2020 by George Beam

Respondents make answers unreliable—that is, answers that may, or may not, correspond to what’s really going on—because they1. sometimes lie,2. often do not have relevant and/or correct information,3. and because their values and norms affect answers, as do their4. interests … Continue reading →

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Respondents’ Understandings Illusory

Posted on January 17, 2016 by George Beam

Anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss, knows that respondents (he calls them “informants”) are extremely limited in their ability to tell us what’s really going on.  Informants’ accounts of their society’s institutions, he points out, are rationalizations and reinterpretations and must not be … Continue reading →

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Answers to Questions Not Reliable

Posted on April 13, 2015 by George Beam

Updated November 19, 2020 I just posted my review of Jennifer Senior’s, All Joy and No Fun, on Amazon.  I titled it: Answers to Questions Are Not Reliable.  Here’s the review: I’m not recommending Jennifer Senior’s All Joy and No … Continue reading →

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Survey Research and Sex

Posted on June 11, 2013 by George Beam

Most information about sex is generated by survey research; i.e., by asking questions of respondents.  The U.S Department of Justice–one of innumerable government entities that asks–queries youth in juvenile facilities, including those in the Illinois Youth Center-Joliet.  Their recent report, Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported … Continue reading →

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