How comparative is comparative research?
How comparative is comparative research?
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DOI：
10.1177/0002764298042002004
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发表时间：
1998-10-01
影响因子：
3.2
通讯作者：
Jowell, R
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Jowell, R
社会科学家倾向于接受跨国调查的严格标准低于全国调查的严格标准，从而导致基于明显错误的数据得出有关国家之间差异的英雄结论。也许出于尊重不同文化规范的值得称赞的愿望，即使是一些最认真的跨国研究也会犯这样的错误：允许不同国家所采用的方法的类型和质量存在相当大的差异。与此同时，跨国数据分析师经常放弃提供解释和解释，转而支持仅仅显示“天哪”国家差异的分布排行榜。本文承认在大规模比较研究中实现严谨性存在巨大障碍，并提供了 10 条可能的规则来缓解这些困难。它表明越大通常越糟糕，并建议各国学者在显微镜下进行常规跨国合作，进行分析和解释，而不仅仅是设计、开发和执行。
Social scientists tend to accept lower standards of rigor in cross-national surveys than in national surveys, leading to heroic conclusions about differences between nations on the basis of obviously faulty data. Arising perhaps from a commendable wish to respect different cultural norms, even some of the most conscientious cross-national studies make the mistake of permitting considerable variations by country in the type and quality of the methods they deploy. Meanwhile, analysts of cross-national data frequently abandon offering explanations and interpretations in favor of league tables of distributions showing merely "gee whiz" national differences. This article acknowledges the formidable obstacles in the way of achieving rigor in large-scale comparative studies and offers 10 possible rules to mitigate the difficulties. It suggests that bigger is usually worse and recommends routine cross-national collaboration in analysis and interpretation-not just in design, development, and execution-among scholars in each of the nations under the microscope.