Choosing A Research Method Flashcards
What are the 2 sources of data?
Primary and Secondary
What is primary data?
Information collected by sociologists themselves for their own purposes. These purposes may be to obtain a first hand ‘picture’ of a group or society, or to test as hypothesis (an untested theory)
What are the 3 methods that can be used to obtain primary data?
- social surveys
- participant observation
- experiments
What is a social survey?
Involves asking people questions in a written questionnaire or an interview
What is participant observation?
The sociologist joins in with the activities of the group he or she is studying
What are experiments?
Sociologists rarely use laboratory experiments, but they sometimes use field experiments and the comparative method
What are 1 advantage and 1 disadvantage of using primary data?
Advantage: sociologists may be able to gather precisely the information they need to test the hypothesis
Disadvantage: costly and time consuming
What is secondary data?
Information that has been collected or created by someone else for their own purposes, but which sociologists can then use
What are the 2 sources of secondary data?
- official statistics
- documents
What are official statistics?
Produced by government on a wide range of issues, such as education, crime, divorce, and unemployment as well as other statistics produced by charities, businesses, churches and other organisations
What are documents?
Letters, emails, diaries, photographs, official report, novels, newspaper, the internet and television broadcasts
Give an advantage and a disadvantage of using secondary data
Advantage: quick and cheap way of doing research, since someone else has produced the information
Disadvantage: those who produce it may not be interested in the same questions as sociologists- may not provide exactly the information that sociologists need
What are the 2 types of data?
Qualitative and Quantitative
What is Quantitative data?
Refers to information in a numerical form.
Examples of this data include official statistics on how many girls passed 5 or more GCSEs
Similarly, information collected by opinion polls and research surveys often comes in the form of quantitative data
What is Qualitative data?
It gives a ‘feel’ for what something is like
For example, what it feels like to get good GCSE results
Evidence gathered by using participant observation aims to give us a sense of what it feels like to be a member of a particular group
What are the 3 main factors influencing choice of methods?
Practical
Ethical
Theoretical
What are the 5 practical issues?
- time and money
- requirements of funding bodies
- personal skills and characteristics
- subject matter
- research opportunities
How does time and money cause an issue with research? (P)
Different methods require different amounts of time and money and can influence a sociologists choice
For example:
Large scale surveys may employ dozens of interviewers and data-inputting staff and cost a great deal of money
By contrast, a small scale project involving a lone researcher using participant observation may be cheaper to carry out yet can take several years
How does requirements of funding affect choice of method? (P)
Research institutes, businesses and other organisations that provide the funding for research may require the results to be in a particular form
How does personal skills and characteristics affect choice of method? (P)
Each sociologist possesses different personal skills and this may affect their ability to use different methods
How does subject matter affect choice of method? (P)
It may be much harder to study a particular group or subject by one method than by another
How does research opportunities affect choice of method? (P)
Sometimes the opportunity to carry out research occurs unexpectedly and this means that it may not be possible to use structured methods such as questionnaires, which take longer to prepare
What does ethical issues mean?
Ethics refers to moral issues of right and wrong
What are the 5 ethical issues?
- informed consent
- confidentiality and privacy
- harm to research participants
- vulnerable groups
- covert research
What is meant by informed consent? (E)
Research participants should be offered the right to refuse to be involved. The researcher should also tell them about all relevant aspects of the research so that they can make a fully informed decision. Consent should be obtained before research begins
What is meant by confidentiality and privacy? (E)
Researchers should keep the identity of research participants secret in order to help to prevent possible negative effects on them. Researchers should also respect their privacy. Personal information about/concerning research participants should be kept confidential
What is meant by harm to research participants? (E)
Researchers need to be aware of the possible effects of their work on those they study. These could include police intervention, harm to employment prospects, social exclusion and psychological damage wherever possible, researchers should anticipate and prevent such harm
What is meant by vulnerable groups? (E)
Special care should be taken where research participants are particularly vulnerable because of their age, disability, or physical/ mental harm
What is meant by covert research? (E)
Covert research is when researchers identify and research purpose are hidden from the people being studied. This can create serious ethical problems, such as deceiving or lying to the people in order to win their trust or obtain information. Clearly it is impossible to gain informed consent while at the same time keeping the research or its purpose a secret.
However, some sociologists argue that the use of covert Methods may be justified in certain circumstances. These may include gaining access to sensitive, dangerous or powerful groups
What is meant by Theoretical issues?
This refers to questions about what we think society is like and whether we can obtain an accurate, truthful picture of it
What are the 3 issues regarding theoretical problems?
Validity
Reliability
Representatives
What is meant by validly? (T)
A valid method is one that produces a true or genuine picture of what something is really like. It allows the researcher to get closer to the truth
What do many sociologists argue about validity? (T)
Many sociologists argue that qualitative methods such as participant observation gives us a more valid or truthful account of what it is like to be a member of a group than Quantitative methods such as questionnaires. This is because participant observation can give us a deeper insight through first hand experience
What is meant by reliability? (T)
Another word for reliability is replicability. A replica is an exact copy of something, so a reliable method is one which, when repeated by another researcher, gives the same result
What is meant by representatives? (T)
Representatives refers to whether or not the people we study are a typical cross-section of the group we are interested in
What is a methodological perspective?
How a sociologist views what society is like and how we should study it.
What are the 2 methodological perspectives?
Positivists
Interpretivists
What are positivists like?
- prefer Quantitative data
- seek to discover patterns of behaviour
- see sociology as a science
What are interpretivists like?
- prefer qualitative data
- seek to understand social actors meanings
- reject the view that sociology can model itself on the natural sciences
What do functionalists, marxists and interactionists favour?
Positivist view OR interpretivist view
FUNCTIONALISTS & MARXISTS = often take a positivist approach. They see society as a large scale (macro) structure that shapes our behaviour
INTERACTIONISTS=
Favour an interpretivists approach, focusing on small scale (micro) structures, face to face interactions
What are the 4 factors that influence CHOICE OF TOPIC?
- sociologists perspective
- society’s values
- practical factors
- funding bodies
What is meant by the sociologists perspective? (Choice of topic)
The sociologists theoretical perspective is a major influence on their choice of research topic
For example, a Feminist researcher is more likely to choose to study domestic violence, as opposition to gender oppression lies at the heart of the feminists perspective
What is meant by society’s values? (Choice of topic)
Sociologists themselves are part of the society they study and thus are influenced by its values. As these values change, so does the focus of research (society changes)
What is meant by practical factors? (Choice of topic)
Practical factors, such as the inaccessibility of certain situations to the researcher, may also restrict what topic they are able to study
Why might funding bodies be a factor influencing choice of topic?
Most research requires funding from an external body. These cannot include government agencies, the economic and social research council (ESRC), charities and businesses.’as the funding body is paying for the research, it will determine the topic to be investigated
