Methods Bites

Survey data collection from start to finish

2022-04-11 22 min read instructionals Joshua Hellyer

Surveys have long been a staple of social science research on individuals’ attitudes and behaviors. In recent years, however, we have witnessed a strong shift from secondary analyses of large general social surveys toward smaller, more targeted primary data collections. This development has been accompanied by the increasing availability of affordable and easy-to-implement surveys using online access panels. While the entry barriers to original survey-based research are now likely lower than ever before, it still comes with notable methodological, administrative, and logistic challenges. To help aspiring survey researchers navigate this process, this Methods Bites Instructional by Joshua Hellyer (MZES, University of Mannheim) provides a comprehensive guide to survey data collection with online access panels. Continue reading

Telling Stories with Data: Insights into Data Journalism

2021-11-12 10 min read instructionals [Yannik Buhl]

Telling stories with data is one of the most important things to do for almost everyone working with data analyses. Why? Because its goal is reaching the audience one wants to reach. If one succeeds therein – be it, for example, average news consumers or academics in a specific field –, the underlying data analysis will more probably have a lasting impact. A good story drags the audience into your analysis. In this Methods Bites Tutorial, Yannik Buhl offers a recap of his workshop “Telling Stories with Data: Insights into Data Journalism” in the MZES Social Science Data Lab during Spring 2021. It focuses on the important steps to tell a thorough story based on data analyses – and how scientists and data journalists can learn from each other. Continue reading

Using Web Logs and Smartphone Records for Social Research

2020-04-14 13 min read instructionals [Ruben Bach]

How can social scientists collect and analyze web logs – records of individuals’ browsing behavior – for their own research? In this Methods Bites Instructional Blog Post, Ruben Bach summarizes some key insights of his talk in the MZES Social Sciences Data Lab in December 2019. The blog post discusses how to obtain and extract information from web logs and related data, shows how they can be used for social research, and concludes with a short discussion of how to handle “big data” extracted from web logs. Continue reading