Education- Applied Research Methods

Question 1

What is a subculture?

Answer 1

A group who share ideas and behaviour patterns which are different from the mainstream culture

Question 2

Which studies used unstructured interviews to study subcultures?

Answer 2

Willis’ study of pupil subcultures and Labov’s study of linguistic deprivation

Question 3

What are advantages of using unstructured interviews to study education?

Answer 3

• Allow interviewer to build up a rapport with student which could give a greater insight into their thoughts and feelings
• Helps gain trust and make students feel more comfortable so good for investigating sensitive issues
• Offer greater validity
• Away from peer pressure so increases validity

Question 4

What are disadvantages of using unstructured interviews to study education?

Answer 4

• Time-consuming
• May not be representative
• Could have interviewer effects decreasing validity
• Qualitative data, less reliable
• Students could lie

Question 5

What happen in participant observations?

Answer 5

Researcher gets involved with the people they’re studying

Question 6

What happens in covert participant observations?

Answer 6

People being studied don’t know why researcher is really there

Question 7

What are advantages of using participant observations to study education?

Answer 7

• Allows researcher to observe labelling in a natural, real-life settings
• Could get more valid data

Question 8

What are disadvantages of using participant observations to study education?

Answer 8

• Often requires deception which has ethical issues
• Might be difficult to gain access
• Researcher may become too familiar with subjects and find it hard to analyse objectively
• Less reliable and less representative

Question 9

What are advantages of using questionnaires to study education?

Answer 9

• Can quickly collect a large amount of data so makes results representative
• Private questionnaires may give more honest results
• Easily repeated so makes data reliable

Question 10

What are disadvantages of using questionnaires to study education?

Answer 10

• Participants could lie, making data less valid

- Closed questionnaires don’t allow people to explain answer

Question 11

What are advantages of using official statistics to study education?

Answer 11

• Hard statistics are reliable because they’re objective

- Easily compared because they’re a form of quantitative data

Question 12

What are disadvantages of using official statistics to study education?

Answer 12

• Soft statistics could be less valid

- Don’t offer as much insight