AO3: Research Methods (Year 13)

Question 1

Content and Thematic Analysis: High Ecological Validity

Answer 1

E: Both are used to analyse real life communications rather than data that is manufactured artificially through experiments where people are more likely to act unnaturally
- Means it’s easier to generalise findings to real life

Question 2

Content and Thematic Analysis: Strength of Content Analysis/ Limitation of Thematic Analysis is its lack of scientific validity because it’s subjective

Answer 2

E: Thematic analysis requires researchers to interpret the data themselves and this use of interpretation can lead to observer bias (when the researcher sees the results they hope to see in the research)
- Means that thematic analysis is subjective an therefore unscientific

Question 3

Content and Thematic Analysis: Strength of Thematic Analysis/ Limitation of Content Analysis is that it can only access manifest content within communication data

Answer 3

E: Manifest content is the content within research that is obvious/evident
- Content analysis relies on counting instances within communication data and this means that we see what the data says on the surface but we can’t use content analysis to understand latent content (the deeper meanings hidden within findings in research)
- E.g the number of swearwords in a text doesn’t tell us what the words mean