Secondary Research Methods (P1/3) Flashcards
(21 cards)
Describe official statistics
Collected by the gov and official bodies e.g. stat on births, deaths, marriages, crime, unemployment and educational achievement, the Census.
Positivists accepted OS as ‘social facts’ – they believed they really measured what they claimed to measure – today, they are more cautious about this.
They’re collected by:
· Registration- by law, people must register births, deaths and marriages.
· Official surveys- such as the Census.
Trade unions, charities, businesses and churches may also publish statistics.
Give the advantages of official statistics
Representativeness- high, very large samples used, can test hypotheses and make generalisations e.g. all state schools publish exam results.
· Reliability- high, as in a standardised format. Allows trends/comparisons to be made over time e.g. the effects of educational policies on achievement.
· Objective (unbiased): positivists say since data in official statistics is quantitative, it’s objective e.g. the number of births a year= a fact, can’t be interpreted differently by different researchers.
Give the disadvantages of official statistics
Reliability can be low according to interpretivists e.g. by mistakes on census forms. Also, some statistics require a judgement e.g. suicide verdicts- two coroners could give different verdicts, lowering reliability.
· Validity- ‘hard’ statistics (e.g. births), which require registration are usually accurate, but ‘soft’ statistics e.g. crime statistics may be inaccurate, as not all crimes are reported/recorded.
· Subjective (bias): interpretivists argue not all official statistics are objective (unbiased), but some are subjective (biased) e.g. the government defines concepts in certain ways (e.g. unemployment), to make themselves look better. Also, certain statistics are based on decisions e.g. suicide statistics, and if two coroners give a different verdict on the same death, this shows the statistics are socially constructed (made by society) rather than being factual/objective.
Statistics don’t explain why the trends they show exist, making it difficult to establish cause and effect relationships
Give the disadvantages of official statistics (MIC)
Interpretivists say official statistics lack meanings e.g. they don’t say why working class children are more likely to underachieve compared to middle class children.
· Validity may be low in some statistics e.g. schools may manipulate truancy statistics to look better.
· Reliability= low if definitions/measurements are changed over time. e.g. in 2014, the government didn’t include International GCSE results in league tables, which meant some schools where students mainly took this qualification appeared to underperform compared to previous years.
Give the advantages of official statistics (MIC)
Reliability- high for some statistics related to education e.g. the exam results of every state school are published in the same format in yearly league tables.
· Representativeness- high for some education statistics e.g. every state school is required by law to publish league table results.
Example - Official Statistics
statistics on the exam results of children eligible for FSM show a correlation between material deprivation and achievement. However statistical correlations in themselves can’t prove that deprivation is the cause of underachievement
Census
Describe documents
Incl any written texts such as a report or diary, as well as photographs, music, TV shows, films and other media sources.
There are different types of documents:
· Public documents-
produced by orgs such as gov departments, schools, charities and businesses e.g. Ofsted reports, minutes of meetings and enquiry reports such as the Swann Report, which looked at ethnic differences in achievement.
· Personal documents- letters, diaries, autobiographies, photos, etc.
· Historical documents- personal or public documents created in the past
Give the advantages of Documents (+ MIC)
Representativeness- high, some official documents are required by all schools e.g. records of racist incidents
· Reliability- high, many public documents e.g. registers, are produced in a standardised format.
· Validity- high in personal documents as they can give detailed information about the feelings of those who produce them e.g. diaries
Give the disadvantages of documents (+MIC)
Validity- low in fake (e.g. the ‘Hitler diaries’- forged docs which sold for millions and were believed to be genuine by historians) or biased docs e.g. autobiographies, newspaper articles, or if the researcher misinterprets what the author meant. Also, school docs e.g. prospectuses are biased- designed to show the school in a positive light
Representativeness- lowered if things aren’t recorded which should be e.g. racist incidents in school. Also lowered if the docs only contain the views of a certain group e.g. before state education, most working class people couldn’t read or write, so docs from the past may only contain the views of the literate MC.
Access to personal docs e.g. diaries can be difficult, as people may not want to give out personal information. The same is true for dealing with the families of people who have died. Not being able to gain a large sample may lower the representativeness of the data collected
Subjective (biased)- positivists say the interpretation of docs is subjective as different researchers may interpret them differently. This lowers the reliability of the data as two people could reach different conclusions from the same doc, and also the validity as people may misinterpret the view of the author.
Media document- formal content analysis
counting how many times certain categories you’ve chosen appear in media e.g. a feminist may count how many time women are shown in the stereotypical housewife role in adverts for cleaning products. Normally tries to use representative samples. Positivists -method is objective (as researchers just tick things when they see them), representative (if a representative sample of docs is used) and reliable (as standardised categories can be used, so researchers can repeat research to check findings and look for trends over time).
However, intepretivists -method lacks validity as simply counting things doesn’t explain its meaning to the author or an audience. Also, it’s a subjective method as the researcher has to decide which categories to look for, and when a doc fits into one of the categories.
Media document- formal content analysis-
tries to work out the meaning of docs, such as looking for political bias in newspaper articles. It normally doesn’t attempt to use representative samples, which positivists would criticise for not being able to be generalised. Also, some argue that there is a tendency for researchers to be biased and pick evidence that supports their hypothesis, and it can be said to lack validity as there’s no way to prove the researcher’s interpretation of the meaning of a document is the ‘correct’ one.
Example - Documents
Gerwitz studied the way in which schools respond to being part of an education market. She collected a range of school docs incl brochures and prospectuses. These gave her insight into the increasing amount of resources were now devoting to selling themselves to potential customers i.e parents.
However, such docs need to be treated w/ caution: they’re part of a school’s effort to look attractive to parents and their content may give a selected and distorted image of the school.
Describe case studies
Detailed examination of a single case/example e.g. one school or one person They can be used to:
· Provides detailed insight into a particular group e.g. participant observation of one group.
· Compliment quantitative research e.g. Townsend’s survey of poverty also used case studies to show how poverty affected people.
· Test a theory e.g. the Kendal Project, a study in one town of religion and how sociological theories can be applied to religion in this town.
· Suggest a hypothesis- studying a small group before a large study may suggest hypotheses which can be tested.
Describe longitudinal studies
Studying a sample or group over a long period of time e.g. Douglas studied a sample of 5,632 born in the same week in 1946 through their whole time in school. Good at showing developments over time, rather than just giving a snapshot of the group at a specific time.
Also useful for comparing groups over time e.g. Douglas looked at the achievement of working and MC children over time. However, the participants may drop out/leave the study, which is known as sample attrition.
Describe life histories
Often used in case studies of individuals, allowing us to understand how they see the world around them/how it affects them (e.g. how war affects those who live through it). Can be done through the individual writing down their own life story (an autobiography) or through unstructured or semi-structured interviews, with the researcher then writing the life story up.
Describe triangulation
Involves using two or more methods in research e.g. a study may start with unstructured interviews to gain understanding of a topic and to come up with questions for a questionnaire given to a larger sample.
Since quantitative and qualitative methods have different strengths and weaknesses, combining them can overcome the limitations each method has.
Researching students
Issues incl conforming to the answers of other students, Child Protection and Data Protection Issues,
issues of informed consent, access, language issues and differences between researchers and students such as CAGE, anti school students are difficult to study -likely to refuse to take part
Researching teachers & problems
Teachers may not co-operate w/ a researcher, unless made to by governors/heads. They’re used to ‘putting on a show’, and so observations of lessons may not reflect what they’re usually like.
Problems:
-Hard to find time to interview/fill in questionnaires- busy!
-Will lie about certain thing e.g. views on different ethnic groups to protect professional reputation.
-Will change behaviour if they know they are being observed (e.g. ‘Ofsted lessons’!) If the method is time consuming e.g. unstructured interviews, observations and only one/a few schools are used, they’re unlikely to be representative of the whole education system.
Researching classrooms
A classroom= closed environment, students may not act ‘naturally’, and when completing questionnaires may copy each other. Also, teachers will act differently in classrooms to staffrooms/out of school.
Researching schools
If researchers are seen as a teacher by pupils, or an outsider by teachers, this may reduce their co-operation. Schools may not want to give researchers access to protect their image, or may hide what researchers have access to.
Researching parents & problems
Parents have an influence on their children and education, but aren’t in school daily so can be harder to study. Also, class and ethnic differences between the researcher and parents may cause issues.
Problems: Access to parents is more difficult- especially true for observation- unlikely to be invited to watch a family in their home! Parents may not wish to take part for fear of looking like bad parents (if only ‘good’ parents take part, sample= unrepresentative) Lang barriers for some ethnic minority parents.
