Methods of social study / by Sidney and Beatrice Webb.

  • Sidney Webb
Date:
1932
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Methods of social study / by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    precise terms, postulating the exact data that he requires, he will be, whether he recognises it or not, working in blinkers. The very form of his question will obstruct, if not entirely prevent, the perception of any fact not in his mind when he prepared his draft. “Do your members work at piece-work or at time-work rates” seems a fairly concrete question. But there are many other methods of remuneration besides payment according to the amount of the commodity produced, and payment according to the time spent in the service of the employer. As a matter of fact, there are so-called piecework rates which, on analysis, prove to be of the nature of time wages; whilst payments by the hour or the day not infrequently resolve themselves, in practice, into remuneration according to output. “How do branches take the votes of members: (a) by show of hands; (b) by circulars?” This question actually tended to conceal all other devices for ascertaining the wishes of the members. And the worst of it is, that the more exactly defined are the various methods of remuneration, or the more elaborately described are the various alternative ways of taking the votes, the more completely are excluded, from the answers elicited, any fact or sequence unknown to the investigator. Yet it is these very unknown co-existences and sequences that have to be dis¬ covered. If vague or general questions are asked, vague or general replies will be given. If, on the other hand, by the very form of the questions, cate¬ gories and definitions are imposed, the deponent