Choosing A Research Method Flashcards
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 to test a hypothesis
What’s an advantage of using primary data?
Sociologists may be able to gather precisely the information they need to test their hypothesis
What’s a disadvantage of using primary data
Costly and time consuming
What is secondary data?
Information collected by someone else for their own purposes which sociologists can use. Eg official statistics and documents (letters, diaries, photos, novels etc)
What’s an advantage of secondary data?
Quick and cheap
Disadvantage of secondary data?
They may not provide exactly what the sociologists needs
What is quantitative data?
Information in a numerical form. Eg how many girls passed 5 GCSEs
What is qualitative data?
Gives a feel for what something is like eg what it feels like to get good GCSE results
What are the 5 practical issues?
Time and money- eg large scale surveys may be costly because of paying lots of interviewers. Small scale surveys with one interviewer may be cheaper but take longer
Requirements of funding bodies- research institutes, businesses etc may require results in a certain form. Eg the government researching educational achievement may want quantitive data
Personal skills and characteristics - eg in participant observation you need someone who can build a rapport
Subject matter- eg difficult to have an all female group studied by a male. Questionnaires pointless to those who cant read
Research opportunity - it may come up out of the blue and you don’t have time to make structured questions. Eg James Patrick and he gang
What are the 5 ethical issues?
Informed consent- should be offered the right to refuse being studied and consent should be done before and throughout study
Confidentiality- the identity of the research participant should be kept confidential
Harm to research participants- should be aware of the side effects on those they study. Eg police intervention and harm to job prospects
Vulnerable groups- age, disability and health. Eg issues of child protection
Covert research- creates serious ethical problems
What are the 4 theoretical issues?
Validity- produces a true or genuine picture of what something is really like to get closer to the truth. Qualitative data gives us more insight and therefore more validity
Reliability - replicability. When repeated the method will give the same results.
Representativeness- whether or not the sample is typical of the entire group so generalisations can be made
Methodological perspective- positivists and interpretivists
What are positivists?
Prefer quantitative data, seek to discover patterns and see sociology as a science. Society has an objective factual reality. Produces reliable and representative data. Functionalists and marxists. Durkheim le suicide
What are interpretivists?
Prefer qualitative data, seek to understand social actors’ meanings and reject the view that sociology is a science. Produces valid data. Interactionists and feminists.
What 4 factors influence choice topic?
The sociologists perspective - eg new right will study lone mothers and welfare and feminists will study domestic violence
Society’s values- eg the rise of feminism in 1960s would focus on gender inequality and now would focus on green crime
Practical factors- accessibility to certain situations that they want to study
Funding bodies- they will determine the topic being investigated
What is the advantage to a hypothesis?
It gives direction to research. Gives a focus to our questions
Who favours hypothesis?
Positivists- they seek to discover the cause and effect.
What’s the advantage of an aim?
It is more open ended.
Who favours aims?
Interpretivists- doesn’t impose the researcher’s own explanations
What is operationalising a concept?
Converting a concept into something we can measure.
What is a pilot study?
Trying out the study on a small sample. Eg the draft of a questionnaire. Clarifies and irons out the study.
Who carried out 100 pilot studies?
Young and Willmott
What is sampling?
The process of creating or selecting a sample
What is a sampling frame?
A list of all the members of the population we want to study. Young and Willmott used the electoral register
What is random sampling?
Sample is selected purely by chance
