Qualitative Methods

Question 1

What is Qualitative data?

Answer 1

Data which is represented in words. Usually smaller data sets, more concerned with personal opinions/feelings

Question 2

Is qualitative data generally considered to have high or low validity?

Answer 2

High validity

Question 3

Is qualitative data generally considered to have high or low reliability?

Answer 3

Low reliability

Question 4

Do interpretivists or positivists prefer qualitative data?

Answer 4

Interpretivists

Question 5

What is an unstructured interview?

Answer 5

Where researchers ask a participant a series of questions, with an idea of what they want to cover, but no pre-prepared questions

Question 6

True or false: A practical strength of unstructured interviews is that it is easy to build rapport with participants, encouraging more detailed answers

Answer 6

True

Question 7

True or false: A practical strength of unstructured interviews is that they are quick and easy

Answer 7

False - the opposite is true

Question 8

True or false: A practical strength of unstructured interviews is that it is easy to train researchers to perform them

Answer 8

False - researchers need to be able to come up with questions on the spot

Question 9

True or false: A practical weakness of unstructured interviews is that it can only be used for topics the researcher knows lots about

Answer 9

False - the participant leads the interview, so they researcher doesn’t need to be an expert in the topic

Question 10

True or false: An ethical strength of unstructured interviews is that informed consent is gained, as participants don’t need to do it if they don’t want to

Answer 10

True

Question 11

True or false: An ethical strength of unstructured interviews is that participants could be uncomfortable discussing some issues face to face

Answer 11

False - this is a weakness

Question 12

True or false: An ethical weakness of unstructured interviews is that it does not allow much opportunity to build rapport with participants

Answer 12

False - the opposite is true

Question 13

True or false: An ethical strength of unstructured interviews is that there is little chance of the participant being harmed

Answer 13

False - talking about negative experiences could cause psychological harm

Question 14

True or false: An ethical strength of unstructured interviews is that participants do not need to reveal anything they don’t want to/they can maintain privacy

Answer 14

True

Question 15

True or false: A theoretical strength of unstructured interviews is that verstehen can be built through building rapport

Answer 15

True

Question 16

True or false: A theoretical strength of unstructured interviews is that they have high validity because of their open questions and flexibility

Answer 16

True

Question 17

True or false: A theoretical weakness of unstructured interviews is that the Hawthorne effect could take place

Answer 17

True

Question 18

True or false: A theoretical strength of unstructured interviews is that the participant’s answers cannot be biased in any way

Answer 18

False - the researcher’s body language, tone of voice, and internal biases can all affect the validity

Question 19

What is a group interview?

Answer 19

A structured or unstructured interview with more than 1 participant

Question 20

True or false: A practical strength of group interviews is that data is quick to analyse

Answer 20

False - group interactions are more complex and take more time to analyse

Question 21

True or false: A practical strength of group interviews is that it’s less time consuming that other interviews because researchers can interview multiple people at once

Answer 21

True

Question 22

True or false: A practical weakness of group interviews is that it may be difficult to keep the group focussed on the discussion topic

Answer 22

True

Question 23

True or false: A practical strength of group interviews is that it can be a useful way to generate initial ideas, which can be further researcher later

Answer 23

True

Question 24

True or false: An ethical strength of group interviews is that they can be used to observe group norms and dynamics

Answer 24

True

Question 25

True or false: An ethical strength of group interviews is that they are suitable for use with pupils (methods in context) as it creates a safe peer environment which they are used to from school

Answer 25

True

Question 26

True or false: An ethical weakness of group interviews is that it can be uncomfortable for some participants to be in a group dynamic, especially if discussing sensitive issues

Answer 26

True

Question 27

True or false: An ethical weakness of group interviews is that interviewees may feel unable to withdraw from the interview or certain questions due to group dynamics

Answer 27

True

Question 28

True or false: A theoretical weakness of group interviews is that they have low representativeness

Answer 28

False - they are done with groups of people, increasing representativeness

Question 29

True or false: An ethical strength of group interviews is that participants can stimulate each others' thinking, causing new ideas and increasing validity

Answer 29

True

Question 30

True or false: An ethical weakness of group interviews is that some participants may dominate the discussion, meaning others don't get a say, reducing validity

Answer 30

True

Question 31

True or false: An ethical strength of group interviews is that the Hawthorne effect can't take place

Answer 31

False - in fact, it could be doubled thanks to the presence of researchers AND other participants

Question 32

What is a participant observation?

Answer 32

A study where the researcher gets involved in the activities of their participants

Question 33

What does covert mean?

Answer 33

The researcher’s identity is NOT known to the participants

Question 34

What does overt mean?

Answer 34

The researcher’s identity is known to the participants

Question 35

True or false: There are 2 kind of participant observations (overt and covert)

Answer 35

True

Question 36

True or false: A practical strength of participant observations is that (when overt) they allow researchers to ask naïve but important clarification questions

Answer 36

True

Question 37

True or false: A practical strength of participant observations is that (when covert) they can be used to access groups who denied overt access

Answer 37

True

Question 38

True or false: A practical weakness of participant observations is that it can be difficult (when covert) to get in, stay in, and get out without arousing suspicion

Answer 38

True

Question 39

True or false: A practical weakness of participant observations (when covert) is that it requires the researcher to maintain a disguise 24/7

Answer 39

True

Question 40

True or false: A practical weakness of participant observations is that (when overt) researchers may be denied access to the group

Answer 40

True

Question 41

True or false: An ethical weakness of participant observations is that (when overt) they involve high amounts of deception

Answer 41

False - this would be for covert participant observations

Question 42

True or false: An ethical weakness of participant observations is that anonymity of the participants can be ensured

Answer 42

False - this is a strength

Question 43

True or false: An ethical strength of participant observations is that researchers are protected from doing anything illegal or immoral

Answer 43

False - whether overt or covert, researchers may have to do these things to earn trust

Question 44

True or false: An ethical strength of participant observations is that the researcher does not need to deceive participants

Answer 44

False - whether overt or covert, the researcher may need to lie about why they are there for their own safety

Question 45

True or false: A theoretical strength of participant observations is that they avoid the Hawthorne effect (if covert)

Answer 45

True

Question 46

True or false: A theoretical weakness of participant observations is that it does not allow researchers to gain verstehen

Answer 46

False - the opposite is true

Question 47

True or false: A theoretical strength of participant observations is that the researcher can remain objective and unbiased the whole time

Answer 47

False - researchers cannot remain objective while being so involved

Question 48

True or false: A theoretical weakness of participant observations is that they are time consuming and often have small sample sizes

Answer 48

True

Question 49

What is content analysis?

Answer 49

A secondary source of data. A way of extracting the main messages, ideas, themes, or biases in a document

Question 50

Content analysis can be qualitative OR quantitative. What's the difference?

Answer 50

Qual: looks for meanings and messages in content Quant: looks for how many times certain words/phrases appear

Question 51

True or false: A practical strength of content analysis is that it is quick and easy to do

Answer 51

False - can be time consuming to go through lots of content, especially if doing qualitative analysis

Question 52

True or false: A practical weakness of content analysis is that it can be hard to find content to analyse

Answer 52

False - material could be newspapers, TV, radio, books, etc

Question 53

True or false: A practical strength of content analysis is that it allows the discovery of things that may not be obvious, e.g. whether gender role stereotypes really occur across children's books

Answer 53

True

Question 54

True or false: An ethical strength of content analysis is that researchers cannot bias the research, meaning it won't support immoral viewpoints

Answer 54

True for quantitative False for qualitative

Question 55

True or false: An ethical weakness of content analysis is that it can cause harm to participants

Answer 55

False - there are no participants

Question 56

True or false: An ethical strength of content analysis is that it can serve the public interest by showing how the media can be manipulated

Answer 56

True

Question 57

True or false: A theoretical weakness of content analysis is that the Hawthorne effect can take place

Answer 57

False - there are no participants

Question 58

True or false: A theoretical strength of content analysis is that qualitative content analysis can be used to gain verstehen in certain situations (e.g. when analysing a diary)

Answer 58

True

Question 59

True or false: A theoretical strength of content analysis is that (when qualitative) the results are subjective to the researcher

Answer 59

False - this is a weakness

Question 60

True or false: A theoretical weakness of content analysis is that (when qualitative) it could be argued that counting the number of times a word appears doesn't really tell us anything

Answer 60

True

Question 61

What are documents?

Answer 61

A secondary source of data. Can include written articles, diaries, videos, images, and (more recently) social media posts

Question 62

How many kinds of document are there?

Answer 62

3: personal, public, and historical

Question 63

What is a personal document?

Answer 63

Something that was never intended to be seen by others, e.g. a diary, a personal note, a private piece of art

Question 64

What is a public document?

Answer 64

Something that was intended to be seen by the public, e.g. Ofsted reports, newspapers, TV, and (arguably) public social media posts

Question 65

What is a historical document?

Answer 65

A public OR personal document that was produced in the past, e.g. Anne Frank’s diary. There is no set amount of time that has to pass before a document is considered document

Question 66

True or false: A practical strength of documents is that they are quick and cheap because someone else has already gathered the information

Answer 66

True

Question 67

True or false: A practical strength of documents is that there are legitimate documents on every possible topic

Answer 67

False - there may not be documents available on the topic sociologists want, and documents can be faked/hoaxes

Question 68

True or false: A practical weakness of documents is that it can be difficult to access some documents, e.g. classified government documents, personal diaries

Answer 68

True

Question 69

True or false: A practical weakness of documents is that it can be time consuming

Answer 69

True

Question 70

True or false: An ethical weakness of documents is that it can cause harm to participants

Answer 70

False - there are no participants

Question 71

True or false: An ethical weakness of documents is that, when using historical documents, there is no need to gain informed consent

Answer 71

True

Question 72

True or false: An ethical weakness of documents is that there are unique challenges involved. E.g. would Anne Frank want the world reading her diary?

Answer 72

True

Question 73

True or false: An ethical strength of documents is that no one except the author could be affected by the research

Answer 73

False - anyone mentioned in the book, or friends and family of the author, could be affected

Question 74

True or false: A theoretical weakness of documents is that they cannot be used to gain verstehen

Answer 74

False - can gain verstehen in personal documents

Question 75

True or false: A theoretical strength of documents is that (when personal) they are high in validity as the author had no reason to alter the truth, seeing as no one else was ever meant to see it

Answer 75

True

Question 76

True or false: A theoretical weakness of documents is that they are based on subjective interpretations of events

Answer 76

True

Question 77

True or false: A theoretical strength of documents is that researchers can be 100% objective towards them

Answer 77

False - researcher bias can lead to misinterpretations and reduce validity