AQA textbook research methods Flashcards
Longitudinal surveys
The Longitudinal Study of Young People in England is a longitudinal survey that began in 2004 and will continue to track the sample throughout their education and onwards. In 2004, students in Year 9 (born in 1989/1990) were interviewed and completed a questionnaire regarding their views on education. Since then, the interviews have been carried out annually.
Longitudinal surveys suffer from a number of problems:
> Practical - they are expensive and time-consuming.
> Theoretical - respondents may drop out of the survey because they got bored, or move causing the researchers to lose track of them. If too many people drop out, this may make the survey unrepresentative.
> Hawthorne effect - people may change their behaviour as a result of taking part in a survey.
Field experiments
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) gave false information to school teachers in the USA about the IQ of pupils. They found that pupils who were believed to have a high IQ by teachers made greater progress than those who were believed to have a low IQ, regardless of what their actual IQ was. This suggests that the self-fulfilling prophecy can occur.
> Ethical problems - Rosenthal and Jacobson may have damaged the educational progress of some pupils labelled as having low ability, and informed consent wasn’t possible.
> Theoretical problems - Attempts to reproduce the Rosenthal and Jacobson study have produced inconsistent results, suggesting that such research may not be reliable.
Laboratory experiments
Harvey and Slatin (1976) used photographs of children from different social classes and asked teachers to rate their likely performance in education. Pupils from higher classes were seen as more likely to be successful than pupils from lower social classes, suggesting that labelling on the basis of appearance does take place.
> Practical problems - Laboratory experiments are usually confined to studying older students rather than young children.
Non-participant covert research
Laud Humphries (1975) studied homosexual activity in public. He pretended to be a gay voyeur.
Non-participant overt research
Mirza and Reay (2000) studied two African-Caribbean ‘supplementary’ schools, run by the African-Caribbean-origin community for their children. The researchers attended and observed the classes, as well as using in-depth interviews (methodological pluralism).
Participant covert research
Amy Flowers (1998) got a job as a telephone sex worker and studied the ways in which the women learned to mask their feelings and emotions when talking to clients. Neither employees nor managers knew about her research.
Participant overt research
Stephen Lyng (1990) studied ‘high risk’ groups (sky divers and motorcyclists) to find out why they took part in these activities. Lyng never hid the fact he was an academic but joined in with all the dangerous activities.
