The Role of Cultural Contexts in Research Design Decisions

Self-reporting surveys in social science are commonly criticizedfor generating results that are often found not to reflect the actual behavior ofparticipants. This article discusses the limitations of such surveys specifically inexploring the Arabian Gulf context and explains how the Islamic Work Ethic can createbiases in survey research. The reflections in this article are based on the author’sexperiences in conducting social research in Bahrain using self-reporting questionnairesand focus groups. The discussion presented in this article highlights the salience ofsocio-cultural factors in designs of research studies and suggests that the culturalcontext in which a study is conducted may significantly affect the adequacy of specificresearch methods. This article also implies that, due to societal values, usingself-reporting surveys to identify patterns in institutional practice may result inoverrated self-evaluations rather than a description of “what is.