Component 2: Methods of Sociological Enquiry Flashcards
What are the 7 practical issues?
- choice of research
- access
- social profile
- time
- cost
- skills of a researcher
- issues of literacy
What are practical issues?
Influences that have an actual or physical impact on the ability to carry out a piece of research
What are the 6 ethical issues?
- informed consent
- protection from harm
- anonymity
- deception
- confidentiality
- sensitivity
What are ethical issues?
Moral concerns about the benefits and potential harm of research to the people being researched, to researchers themselves and to society, I.e. deceiving people, harming people
What are the two main approaches?
- positivism
- interpretivism
Give an overview of positivism
.
Give an overview of interpretivism
.
What is the third theoretical approach?
Realism
Give an overview of realism
.
What was Eileen Barker’s study?
The making of a Moonie: Choice or brainwashing?
Give an example of a group in society that would be difficult to access
Gangs would be difficult to access because some of the activity that they demonstrate is illegal so they would not want to share it
Identify a group that you would find difficult to research due to your social profile
I would find it difficult to research gangs as I have no involvement in gangs, I’m young and female
Summarise how time can be seen as a negative issue
- Relevance of data - if it takes too long to collect the data than it may no longer be relevant
- Cost- the longer the research takes the more it’ll cost
- If it takes too long, you can’t have so many participants
Summarise how time can be seen as a positive issue
- Provides rich qualitative data
- Increases validity
- More (detailed) data can be collected
How can cost of a study be increased?
- Time
- Location of target population (i.e. will researcher have to travel?)
- Size of sample (i.e. number of participants)
- Number of researchers required
Why is time considered a strength in questionnaires?
Because they do not take long to create or analyse and can be sent out/given to a large number of people at once. This reduces costs and means the researcher can increase the number of participants they use
Why is issues of literacy considered a strength of interviews?
Because the researcher is present so can clarify anything that the participant doesn’t understand. This will improve the quality of the data being collected
Why is access considered a strength of questionnaires?
Because they can be sent through the post or be online so if a group is hard to reach for any reason, they can still complete them
Why is social profile considered a strength of ethnography?
Because if it is right (depends on the study), then the participants are more likely to allow the researcher into their community to collect data
Why is skills of the researcher considered a strength in unstructured interviews?
Because they will need to be able to create questions spontaneously by listening carefully to what the participant/s is saying . They will also need to ensure they are not upsetting the participant/s delving too deep. This will all impact quality of the data.
Why is choice of research topic considered a strength of interpretivist methods?
Because researchers have the time to build up relationships with groups that are often hard to reach
Why is time considered a weakness in unstructured interviews?
Because they take a long time to conduct and to analyse. This means that researchers would only be able to have a small number of participants so may not collect data that would be typical of the whole population
Why is issues of literacy considered a weakness of questionnaires?
If a participants does not understand a question, there is no one to ask about it. They may therefore not bother to ask the question, or may answer it untruthfully or incorrectly, affecting the quality of the data
Why is informed consent and right to withdraw considered strengths of questionnaires and interviews?
Because it is not possible to collect the data in this way without first getting permission from the participant- they would simple not answer the questions if they did not want to