Web application of Antonuccis hierarchical approach for measuring social networks (SMABS2006)
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Web application of Antonucci’s hierarchical approach for measuring social networks Gašper Koren, Valentina Hlebec Faculty of Social Sciences University of Ljubljana SMABS Budapest, 5. July 2006
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Transcript of Web application of Antonuccis hierarchical approach for measuring social networks (SMABS2006)
Web application of Antonucci’s hierarchical approach for measuring
social networks
Gašper Koren, Valentina HlebecFaculty of Social SciencesUniversity of Ljubljana
SMABS Budapest, 5. July 2006
Social Networks data collection on the Web
● Ego-centered social networks (ego - alters)● Web questionnaires● Questionnaire testing methods
Questionnaire testing
● Important for valid measurement● Discover difficulties ● Avoid systematic mistakes● Improvements of questionnaire in
early phase (pre-field testing)● Extremely important when
– we are using uncommon questionnaires
– we are introducing new technologies
Network generator
Research questions
● Is it possible to apply Antonucci's hierarchical approach questionnaire on the Web?
● How the respondents act to that kind of questionnaire?
● What are the main pitfalls when adopting difficult questionnaire from F2F interviewing for the on-line data collection
Experiment outline
1) Monitoring respondents during response process● WebCam● EyeTracker
2) Qualitative methods after answering the questionnaire● Focus groups● Cognitive interview (retrospective think aloud)
Experiments
● Together with students of Faculty of Social Sciences (“Questionnaire design” course 2006)
● 29. March and 5. April 2006● 4 groups of students:
– WebCam + Focus group
– WebCam + Cognitive interview
– EyeTracker + Focus group
– EyeTracker + Cognitive interview
Questionnaire explained
● Hands on!
Technology - WebCam
Technology - Eyetracker
Results (WebCam)● First circle is problematic and takes long time to
understand; less problems with following circles● Some more “difficult” questions require more
cognitive effort and more time; this often includes multiple readings of the question
● “Reading with mouse”● Technical difficulties:
– We should add “delete” feature for alters
– Not clear enough that alters are movable
– Warnings are sometimes confusing
Results (Eyetracker)
● Scanning the questionnaire text, not reading it● More attracted by graphical elements than text;
non-bold text is completely missed.● Only some respondents return to the question
when they find out that they don't know what to do.
● We should mark the changes of the questions if graphics stays similar!
Results (Focus Groups)
● Questionnaire is interesting, not too long, even fun.
● How many alters in each circle?● Unknown length of the questionnaire● More detailed instructions? :)● Feedback at the end of the questionnaire● Technical problems
Results (Cognitive interview)
● Criteria of putting different alters into different circles is vary among respondents.
● When examine the network characteristics, respondents figure out that they didn't fill out the network generator with all potential alters.
Paper or Web?
● Younger respondents prefer Web over PAP● Reasons to prefer Web
– More interactive
– Better overview of your personal network
● Reasons to prefer PAP– computer literacy problems
Conclusions
● We CAN use Web for Antonnuci's hierarhical approach in self interviewing with Web Q.
● Pretesting with different methods gave us very precious results and suggestions for improvements
● “Interesting questionnaire, better than PAP”, even “fun”
Don't do it at home!What we have learned from technology perspective?
● WebCam and technology around it is relatively simple and cheap
● EyeTracking device should cost at least 20.000 EUR ;)
● Internet should work when doing the experiments!
Further research
● Improve Web application according to comments we got from pilot study
● Expert evaluation (autumn 2006)
