research methods

Question 1

what is primary data?

Answer 1

information collected by sociologists themselves for their own purposes, may be to obtain a first-hand picture or to test a hypothesis

e.g. surveys, participant observation ect

Question 2

advantages and disadvantages of primary data?

Answer 2

advantages: sociologists can gather precisely the information they need to test their hypothesis
disadvantages: costly and time consuming

Question 3

what is secondary data?

Answer 3

information that has been collected or created by someone else for their own purposes, which the sociologist can then use

e.g. official statistics, documents

Question 4

advantages and disadvantages of secondary data

Answer 4

advantages: quick and cheap
disadvantages: may not provide exactly the information that sociologists need

Question 5

what is quantitive data?

Answer 5

information in a numerical form

e.g. official statistics, surveys, opinion polls

Question 6

what is qualitative data?

Answer 6

gives a feel for what something is like

e.g. participant observation, in depth interviews

Question 7

what are practical issues?

Answer 7

time and money
personal skills and characteristics (may affect their ability to use different methods)
research opportunity

Question 8

ethical issues

Answer 8

informed consent
confidentiality and privacy
vulnerable groups (e.g. children)
covert research (can’t get informed consent)

Question 9

theoretical issues

Answer 9

validity: produces a true or genuine picture of what something is really like
reliability: replicable, can be repeated for another research
representativeness: typical cross-section of the group we are interested in, so generalisations can be made
methodological perspective: positivists or interpretivists

Question 10

what factors influence choice of topic?

Answer 10

sociologists perspective (e.g. feminist more likely to study domestic violence)
society’s values (e.g. rise of feminism/ environmental issues, green crimes)
practical factors: inaccessibility of certain situations to the researcher
funding bodies: research requires funding from external body, they determine topic

Question 11

what sampling techniques can be used to obtain a representative sample?

Answer 11

random sampling: selected by chance, large sample should reflect population

systematic sampling: every nth person in the sampling frame is selected

stratified random sampling: researcher stratifies sampling frame by age, class gender etc, sample is created in the same proportions

quota sampling: populations is stratified and then each interviewer is given a quote of a certain characteristic

Question 12

researching pupils

Answer 12

power and status: between teachers/researchers and pupils, overcome by group interviews instead of one on one

ability and understanding: pupils vocabulary, thinking skills, confidence more limited, overcome by taking care when wording questions

vulnerability: pupils limited power and ability, informed consent from parents, pupil should also be informer, ‘gatekeepers’ create practical issues

Question 13

researching teachers

Answer 13

power and status: teachers have more power and status and have a duty of care towards their pupils, classroom reinforces power so researchers develop a ‘cover’

impression management: teachers are used to being observed and scrutinised, highly skilled at ‘impression management’, manipulating the impression others have

Question 14

researching classrooms

Answer 14

classroom is a highly controlled setting (activities, noise, language) so behaviour may not accurately reflect what they really think and feel

mostly two social roles in the classroom - teacher and pupil, so straightforward to observe and analyse

gatekeepers: access to classrooms controlled by head teachers and child protection laws, difficult to obtain access

peer groups: when in school-based groups pupils more sensitive to peer pressure and the need to conform

Question 15

researching schools

Answer 15

schools’ own data: marketisation means lots of secondary data publicly available about schools (exams results, truancy), some records confidential so researchers can’t gain access, schools could falsify data to look better

the law: law requires pupils to attend school, so researcher knows where everyone is, but since role is education, teachers see research as interfering in schools function

gatekeepers: head teachers and governors can refuse access, often view research negatively (discipline adversely affected, bad for classroom relationships)

school organisation: have rules and hierarchies and researchers could become part of hierarchy (students see them as teachers, teachers view them as inspectors)

Question 16

researching parents

Answer 16

parents can influence education e.g. primary socialisation, parental choice

access to parents: most parent-child interaction takes place in the home which is closed to researchers. difficult to contact without schools cooperation

Question 17

researchers own experience of education

Answer 17

researchers need to be aware that their personal characteristics and their own experience of education can influence their research

Question 18

advantages of lab experiments

Answer 18

• generates quantitive data
• control of variables
• reliable
• experimenter detatched

Question 19

disadvantages of lab experiments

Answer 19

• artificial (low validity)
• Hawthorne effect
• ethics
• small scale (unrepresentative)
• interpretivists say innapropriate for studying people because they have freewill

Question 20

advantages of field experiments

Answer 20

• less artificial, set in real-world situations

- validity, in usual social environment so people will act normally and genuine

Question 21

disadvantages of field experiments

Answer 21

• less control over variables
• limited application, few situations that can be adapted to be a field experiment, only measure what they do, not why
• ethical problems, don’t usually gain informed consent

Question 22

what is the Hawthorne effect?

Answer 22

where the subjects of a research study know they are being studied and begin to behave differently as a result, thereby undermining the study validity

Question 23

what is the comparative method?

Answer 23

a ‘thought experiment’ that involves identifying two groups that are the same except for one characteristics e.g. religion

Durkheim compared suicide rates of otherwise similar protestants and catholics, concluded that catholics lower suicide rate was caused by their higher levels of social integration

Question 24

advantages and disadvantages of the comparative method

Answer 24

advantages: avoids artificiality, can be used to study past events and poses no ethical problems
disadvantages: no control over variables so can’t be certain if true cause is discovered

Question 25

advantages of questionnaires

Answer 25

- quick and cheap - reliable - hypothesis testing about cause-and-effect relationships - detachment and objectivity (little or no personal contact between researchers and respondents) - representativeness

Question 26

advantages of structured interviews

Answer 26

- reliable, fixed questions - representative, quicker than unstructured - quick and cheap - interviewer-interviewee contact, face to face means higher response rate than mailed questionnaires - limited interviewer effect, limited contact because questions fixed

Question 27

disadvantages of structured interviews

Answer 27

- more expensive, time consuming than questionnaires - less reliable because interviews have different social characteristics so not easily replicable - closed Qs, limited opportunities for original responses so less valid - not free from interviewer bias, age, gender, class may influence their responses

Question 28

what are structured interviews?

Answer 28

face-face or over the phone delivery of a questionnaire, a pre-set list of questions asked of all interviewees in the same way

Question 29

what are unstructured interviews?

Answer 29

ask mainly open-ended questions with no fixed set of questions, are guided as much by the interviewee as by the interviewer

Question 30

advantages of unstructured interviews

Answer 30

more valid, in several ways: - informal nature means rapport developed between interviewer and interviewee so more likely to open up and be honest - flexibility means interviewer can follow up any issues raised - open ended questioning allows interviewees scope to give detailed, in-depth responses

Question 31

disadvantages of unstructured interviews

Answer 31

- not reliable, hard to classify and count responses so statistical evidence can't be created so correlations and comparisons not established - difficult to replicate - not representative, take time so smaller sample so can't make generalisations - cost, interviewers need to be trained in sensitivity - not as valid, more interviewer bias

Question 32

typical characteristics of participant observation

Answer 32

- observer finding a role within the group that allows them to study group behaviour - researcher involves of fieldwork - can either be overt or covert

Question 33

what is participant observation?

Answer 33

the researcher actually takes part in an event or the everyday life of the group while observing it

Question 34

what is non-participant observation?

Answer 34

the researcher simply observes the group or event without taking part in it e.g. use a two way mirror to observe children playing

Question 35

advantages of participant observation

Answer 35

high validity - rich qualitative 'real world' data that provides a picture of how they really live subjective insights - 'verstehen' German word meaning empathy, researcher gain empathy through personal experience flexibility - if a new issue arises during study observation can be adapted accordingly, no need for fixed hypothesis, as new situations encountered, explanations can be formulated and sociologist can change direction

Question 36

advantages of overt observation

Answer 36

- avoids ethical problem of obtaining information by deceit - allows observer to ask naive but important questions that only an outsider could ask e.g. ask gang member why do you rob and steal? - observer can openly take notes

Question 37

disadvantages of participant observation

Answer 37

- a group may refuse the researcher permission to observe them, or may prevent them from seeing everything e.g. Punch Amsterdam police officers 'we only let you see what we wanted you to see' - risks creating the Hawthorne effect which undermines validity

Question 38

advantages of cover observation

Answer 38

practical - reduces risk of altering peoples behaviour and sometimes the only way to obtain valid information, especially when researching activities that people would rather key secret e.g. crime or promiscuity

Question 39

disadvantages of covert observation

Answer 39

practical: - requires researcher to keep up an act and risk of cover being blown - cannot take notes openly and must rely on memory and opportunity to write them in secret - researcher cannot ask naive but important questions ethical: - immoral to deceive people, can't obtain informed consent and reveal purpose of study - may have to participate in immoral or illegal activities as part of their 'cover' role

Question 40

disadvantages of participant observation

Answer 40

- unscientific, being open-ended and subjective research, no fixed procedure and not standardised system of measurement, can't be replicated - 'one-off' investigations of small social groups, unlikely to be representative so generalisations can't be made - not valid because: Hawthorne effect, 'going native' - practical problems: getting in, staying in, getting out

Question 41

what are the two main sources of secondary data?

Answer 41

official statistics | documents

Question 42

what are official statistics?

Answer 42

quantitive data gathered by the government or other official bodies e.g. statistics on births, divorces, crime. the ten-yearly census of UK population is a major source

Question 43

advantages of official statistics

Answer 43

practical - free source of huge amounts of sate which normally would be very expensive to collect and impossible to compel citizens to provide information, allow comparison and show trends over time representative - large numbers so generalisations can be made reliability - compiled in a standardised way by trained staff positivists say true and objective measures of the real rate of crime, suicide etc, scientific, can be used to test hypotheses

Question 44

disadvantages of official statistics

Answer 44

practical - may not be statistics available for topic interested in e.g. Durkheim suicide religion, definitions state uses may be different from sociologists e.g. define poverty or truancy differently representativeness - some statistics not representative e.g. British crime survey only based on a sample of population validity - 'hard' statistics valid e.g. births, deaths marriages, 'soft' statistics less valid e.g. police statistics don't record all crimes interpretivists say statistics are socially constructed, represent the labels people give to the behaviour of others e.g. suicides represent number of decisions by coroners to label deaths as suicide

Question 45

what are documents?

Answer 45

any written text e.g. personal diaries, government reports, newspapers etc

Question 46

what are two types of document?

Answer 46

public documents - produced by organisations such as government departments e.g. ousted reports personal documents - first-person accounts of social events and personal experiences, include writers' feelings and attitudes

Question 47

what is the criteria for evaluating documents?

Answer 47

authenticity - is the documents what it claims to be credibility - is the documents believable and accurate representativeness - is the evidence in the document typical meaning - researcher may need skills to understand a document, translated from a foreign language, interpret what document means to writer

Question 48

advantages of documents

Answer 48

- personal documents enable researcher to get close to reality, richly detailed qualitative data (interpretivists favour) - sometimes documents are only source of information, e.g studying the past - offer an extra check on results obtained by primary data - cheap becase someone else has gathered information, don't take time

Question 49

what is content analysis?

Answer 49

a method for dealing systematically with contents of documents, used when analysing documents produced by mass media enables sociologists to product quantitive data from qualitative documents

Question 50

advantages of content analysis?

Answer 50

- cheap - easy to find source of material e.g. newspapers, television broadcasts - positivists say useful source of quantitive, scientific data

Question 51

advantages of using official statistics in education

Answer 51

- make comparisons between achievements of social groups based on ethnicity or social class, statistics collected at regular intervals so comparisons over time - highly representative, school census three times a year

Question 52

disadvantages of using official statistics in education

Answer 52

- state may not collect statistics on social class, only students entitled to free school meals, stigma around this so some pupils don't claim them - school may manipulate attendance figures by re-defining poor attenders as being on study leave, education market puts pressure on schools

Question 53

advantages of using documents to investigate education

Answer 53

- easily accessible because of policies emphasising parental choice - few ethical problems with public documents because already in public domain - some official documents are legally required of all schools, so more representative

Question 54

disadvantages of using documents to investigate education

Answer 54

- personal documents more difficult to access, some documents confidential e.g. pupils' disciplinary methods - sometimes deceitful to obtain personal documents - not everything included in statistics e.g. not all racist incidents documented

Question 55

what is structured observation?

Answer 55

uses an observation schedule to identify and measure patterns of behaviour, categories on schedule are coded so data can be easily collected and turned into statistics

Question 56

advantages of structured observation

Answer 56

- reliable because can be replicated using the same fixed categories - allows quantitive data to be produced quickly, comparisons and patterns

Question 57

disadvantages of structured observation

Answer 57

lack validity: - counting frequency doesn't say about their meaning - events may not fit any category, or may overlap several categories - different observers may place same event in different categories (reliable) - intensive method so only useful in small-scale interactions

Question 58

what are ethical issues?

Answer 58

ethics refers to moral issues of right and wrong, methods that sociologists use to study people may raise a range of ethical issues

Question 59

what are theoretical issues?

Answer 59

refers to questions about what we think society is like and whether we can obtain an accurate, truthful picture of it. our views on these issues affect the kind of methods used