Theory & Methods

Question 1

What part of education may unstructured interviews be used to study?

Answer 1

Anti-school subcultures, like Willis did.

Question 2

What are some advantages of using unstructured interviews in education?

Answer 2

1= Allows raport to be built
2= Gains trust
3= Greater validity
4= Away from peer pressure

Question 3

What are some disadvantages of using unstructured interviews in education?

Answer 3

1=Time-consuming
2= Interviewer effect
3= Hard to compare
4= Negative attitudes

Question 4

Why may rapport be an advantage of using unstructured interviews in education?

Answer 4

Using unstructured interviews allows a rapport to be built, potentially giving greater insight into their thoughts and feelings.

Question 5

How may be trust an advantage of using unstructured interviews in education?

Answer 5

School may be a sensitive topic within an anti-school subculture

Question 6

How may validity be an advantage of using unstructured interviews in education?

Answer 6

They can be more valid as they give the researcher a chance to adapt their questions to the subject.

Question 7

Why may a lack of peer pressure be an advantage of using unstructured interviews in education?

Answer 7

Anti-school subcultures can cause disruptive behaviour in the classroom, and students encourage eachother to misbehave. Unstructured interviews come away from peer pressure and allow a more valid response.

Question 8

Why may time be a disadvantage of using unstructured interviews in education?

Answer 8

They are time consuming and tend to be used with smaller groups, Willis used 12 boys and took over a year - longitudinal.

Question 9

Why may the interviewer effect be a disadvantage of using unstructured interviews in education?

Answer 9

If the interviewer has an affect on the interviewee, this makes the data less valid. Students may give an answer that the researcher wants to hear.

Question 10

Why may comparison be a disadvantage of using unstructured interviews in education?

Answer 10

Qualititative data cannot be compared with results from other studies, making it harder to reproduce and therefore less reliable.

Question 11

Why may attitudes be a disadvantage of using unstructured interviews in education?

Answer 11

Students with a negative attitude towards school may also take a negative attitude to the interviewer and affecting the results they give.

Question 12

Give an example of a researcher who used unstructured interviews.

Answer 12

Willis - Learning to Labour (1997) - Studied 12 working-class boys and followed them through to work. He built rapport with them. It was a longitudinal study.

Question 13

What part of education would covert participant observation be used to investigate?

Answer 13

Labelling.

Question 14

What are participant observations?

Answer 14

Participant observation is where the researcher gets involved with the people they are studying. In covert observations, the people being studied do not know that they are there.

Question 15

What are some advantages of using covert participant observation to research labelling in schools?

Answer 15

1= Teachers often label students without realising, so they would not mention it in an interview. Participant allows it to be seen in a natural setting.
2= Teachers wouldnt want to be seen to label their students and deliberately avoid doing it if they knew they were being studied. Covert gets more valid data.

Question 16

What are some disadvantages of using covert participant observation to research labelling in schools?

Answer 16

1= Ethically, it is midleading teachers and can be argued to be ethically incorrect (Spurters)
2= Researcher may become too familiar with teachers and find it hard to retain objectivity.
3= Unrepeatable so it looses reliability.
4= Smaller sample - less representitative.

Question 17

Give an example of covert participant observation being used to investigate labelling

Answer 17

Willis - Learning to labour (1977) - he saw how the ‘lads’ were labelled as troublemakers and failures - which was internalised by the students.

Question 18

What part of education could closed questionairres be used to investigate?

Answer 18

Parental attitudes.

Question 19

What advantages are there of using closed questionairres to investigate parental attitudes in education?

Answer 19

1= Collects a large amount of data very quickly.
2= Private questionairres have more honest repsonses.
3= Easilly repeated and reliable - useful in measuring changes.

Question 20

What disadvantages are there of using closed questionairres to investigate parental attitudes in education?

Answer 20

1= Respondents could easilly lie about their true intentions - less valid
2= No detail - is this suitable to explaining attitudes?
3= Only parents with a positive attitude will be the ones to complete the survey surely?? - less representitative and valid.

Question 21

What is an example of a study which used closed questionairres to investigate parental attitudes?

Answer 21

Archer & Francis (2006) found that Chinese parents saw education as hugely important and created a desire for achievement.

Question 22

What part of education may official statistics be used to investigate?

Answer 22

Educational achievement.

Question 23

What are some advantages of using official statistics to investigate educational achievement?

Answer 23

1= They use a large-scale so it is more representitative - results can be generalised to more people.
2= Can be easilly compared both in a spacial and temporal manner.
3= Usually secondary data - which is cost and time effective.

Question 24

What are some disadvantages of using official statistics to investigate educational achievement?

Answer 24

1= Statistics can be easilly manipulated - are they social constructions? There are opportunities for the validity and representitativeness to be affected.
2= They don’t offer insight into the reasons behind achievement.

Question 25

What does it mean for data to be reliable?

Answer 25

Reliable research can be repeated to get the same results. Another researcher could get the same results using the same methods.

Question 26

What does it mean for data to be valid?

Answer 26

Valid data is accurate to what you were attempting to research.

Question 27

What are some reasons why research may not give a true picture of things?

Answer 27

1= Respondent may forget 2= Respondent may exaggerate 3= Respondent may lie 4= Recency bias / feel less strongly if an event happened a long time before.

Question 28

What does it mean for research to be representitative?

Answer 28

Representitative research is reflective of the whole population, and reflects different ages, genders, classes and ethnic groups. If a sample is representitative, it can be generalised to the whole population.

Question 29

What is primary data collection?

Answer 29

Primary data collection is data which is collected first-hand by the researcher.

Question 30

What are some examples of primary data collection?

Answer 30

1= Questionairres 2= Interviews 3= Observations 4= Experiments

Question 31

What are the benefits of using primary data collection?

Answer 31

1= Research can be controlled to ensure that it is as valid, reliable and representitative as possible. 2= Primary data is always up to date.

Question 32

What are the drawbacks of using primary data collection?

Answer 32

1= Expensive & time-consuming 2= Potential dangerous settings 3= May be unethical 4= Researchers own values may create a bias 5= Access issues

Question 33

What is secondary data collection?

Answer 33

Secondary data collection is where the researcher collects already-existing data.

Question 34

What are some examples of secondary data collection?

Answer 34

1= Official statistics 2= Diaries 3= Letters/Newspapers 4= Media sources

Question 35

What are some benefits of secondary data collection?

Answer 35

1= Quick & easy to collect 2= It allows both spacial and temporal comparison to be made.

Question 36

What are some drawbacks of secondary data collection?

Answer 36

1= Lack of controll 2= May not be valid/reliable 3= Official statistics could be social constructs.

Question 37

Give an example of a study which used primary data collection.

Answer 37

Paul Willis - Learning to Labour (1977) - produced rich, in depth and valid data. However, it was very time-consuming and had a small sample size so may have been unrepresentitative.

Question 38

Give an example of a study which used secondary data collection.

Answer 38

Durkheim 'suicide' used official statistics and compared spacially and temporally. But, coroners in religious societies may have influenced the validity of the data.

Question 39

Give an example of a study in which collecting primary data could have been dangerous.

Answer 39

James Patrick Glasgow gangs - his identity was kept a secret. There is a risk of becoming internalised within the group and going native.