Morals and Methods: A Note on the Value of Survey Research

Abstract

Nicholas Jankowski and Fred Wester, in their overview of qualitative research and its contribution to mass communications research, note that during the last years of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century ‘as social issues became topics of academic study, virtually all research was of a qualitative nature’ (1991, p. 46). Indeed, Paul Lazarsfeld, the seminal figure in the development of academic survey research, saw fit to remind that Weber was ‘periodically enthusiastic about quantification making many computations himself’ and that Tönnies invented ‘a correlation coefficient of his own’ before adding that it was nevertheless the case that before 1933, empirical research had failed to acquire sufficient prestige to find a home in European universities (Lazarsfeld, 1972, p. 328). True, the development of modern empirical techniques is of European origin. Sampling techniques derived from Booth’s massive London surveys and factor analysis from the Englishman Charles Spearman, while family research emphasizing quantification owes itself to the Frenchman Frederic Le Play. Gabriel Tarde stressed the necessity of attitude measurement along with communications research, and earlier, during the French Revolution, the notion of applying mathematical models to voting was carefully worked out by the Marquis de Condorcet.