The South African Journal of Sociology during the eighties

An analysis of theoretical and empirical contributions

Bibliographic Data

ID20455288
AuthorsFred Van Staden (University of South Africa), Del#x00E9 ne Visser (University of South Africa)
Year1991
Volume22
Issue2
Pages33-43
Publication date1991-05-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSouth African Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0258-0144 • E-ISSN: 1999-9135
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02580144.1991.10432049
OpenAlexW1562942411
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited22

This review of research published in the SAJS over the past 10 years includes analyses of theoretical versus review conlributions, populations, methods of sample selection, some aspects of sample composition, types of research design employed and statistical techniques used. Altogether 181 articles were reviewed. In comparison with the substantial number of review type articles which were published few articles dealt with theory development or concentrated on original empirical research. Accessible populations were defined in 6.5% of the contributions, but in only 17% of the studies were useful descriptions of these populations provided. Only 24% of the studies made use of randomized sample selection procedures while 24% did not explain the procedure used to select their samples. Explicit recognition of population and sample limitations in drawing conclusions was respectively found in only 11% and 15% of the studies. Seventy-seven percent of the studies were intra-culturally oriented, but 40% of these made use of only white samples. A fairly small number of cross-cultural studies (23%) were recorded. Research designs most frequently adopted were correlational type studies (47%), while experimental studies involving random assignment to treatments constituted only 2.7% of the articles. The use of basic statistical techniques was clearly favoured (constituting 75% of all techniques used) above more sophisticated methods of data analysis. The results were compared with similar analyses of American journals and implications of the findings are discussed

Empirical research · Population · Research design · Sample size determination · Social science · Sociology · Statistics · Computer Science · Demography · Mathematics · Social Development and Education Research · Artificial Intelligence

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