Influence on research methods Flashcards
Practical issues
Time & money:
Different methods require different amounts of time & money & this may influence a sociologist’s choice. A researcher’s access to resources can be a major factor in determining which methods they employ. E.g. a well-known professor will probably have access to more research funds than a young student as they are more likely to be trusted.
E.g. large-scale surveys may employ dozens of interviewers & data-inputting staff & cost a great deal of money. In contrast, a small-scale project involving a lone researcher using participant observation may be cheaper to carry out, but it can take several years to complete. All this is a ‘balancing act’ for each sociologist/team.
Funding bodies:
Research institutes, businesses & other organisations that provide the funding for research may require the results to be in a particular form. E.g. a government department funding research into educational achievement may have targets for pass rates & so require quantitative data to see whether these targets are being achieved. This means the sociologist will have to use a method capable of producing such data, such as questionnaires or structured interviews.
Practical issues 2
Personal skills & characteristics:
Each sociologist possesses different personal skills, & this may affect their ability to use different methods. E.g. participant observation usually requires the ability to mix easily with others as well as good powers of observation & recall, unstructured interviews require an ability to establish a rapport (relationship of empathy & trust) with the interviewee, while working with the quantitative data produced by questionnaires & official statistics can require a certain level of mathematical knowledge & skills. Not all sociologists have these qualities & so some may have difficulty using these methods.
Subject matter & access
It may be much harder to study a particular group or subject by one method than by another. E.g. it might prove difficult for a male sociologist to study an all-female group by means of participant observation, while written questionnaires will be useless for studying those who cannot read or with poor literacy skills.
Research
opportunity
Sometimes the opportunity to carry out research occurs unexpectedly & this means that it may not be possible to use structured methods such as questionnaires, which take longer to prepare. E.g. a Glasgow gang leader offered James Patrick (1973) the chance ‘out of the blue’ to spend time with his gang. With little time to prepare, Patrick had no option but to use participant observation.
Ethical issues
Informed consent & the right to
withdraw:
Participants should be offered the right to refuse to participate in research. The researcher should also tell them about all relevant aspects of the research so that they can make a fully informed decision which involves no deception. Consent should be obtained before research begins &, if the study is lengthy, again at intervals throughout the process. Alongside this, participants should have the right to withdraw from the research at any time & the right to withdraw their data from the research before it is published if they change their minds about being involved after the research has been conducted.
Confidentiality & privacy:
Researchers should keep the identity of research participants secret in order to help to prevent possible negative effects on them. Researchers should also respect the privacy of research participants. Personal information concerning research participants should be kept confidential.
Ethical issues 2
Effects on research
participants:
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, potential physical harm & psychological damage. Wherever possible, researchers should try to anticipate & prevent such harmful effects.
Vulnerable groups:
Special care should be taken where research participants are particularly vulnerable because of their age, disability, or physical or mental health. E.g. when studying children in schools, researchers need to consider issues of child protection. They should obtain the consent of both the child & the parent, & they should provide information in language that the child can understand.
Covert research:
This is when the researcher’s identity & research purpose are hidden from the people being studied. This can create serious ethical problems, such as deceiving or lying to people in order to win their trust or obtained information. Clearly, it is impossible to gain informed consent while at the same time keeping the research or its purpose secret.
However, some sociologists argue that the use of covert methods may be justified in certain circumstances. These may include gaining access to areas of social life closed to investigation by secretive, deviant or powerful groups.
Theoretical issues
Validity:
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.
Many sociologists argue that qualitative methods such as participant observation give 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 can. This is because participant observation can give us a deeper insight through first-hand experience.
Reliability: 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 or similar results.
Representativeness:
This refers to whether or not the people we study are a typical cross-section of the group we are interested in. If we ensure that our sample is representative or typical of the wider population under study (e.g. factors such as age, gender, social class & ethnicity have been taken into account), we can then use our findings to make generalisations without having to study everybody which would very often be too time consuming & expensive.
Large-scale quantitative surveys that use sophisticated sampling techniques to select their sample are more likely to produce representative data.
Theoretical issues 2:
Methodological
perspective
This is a sociologists view of what society is like & how we should study it. There are two contrasting perspectives on the choice of methods: positivism & interpretivism (see below).
Functionalists & Marxists often take a positivist approach. They see society as a large-scale (macro-level) structure that shapes our behaviour.
By contrast, interactionists (labelling theorists) favour an interpretivist approach. They take a micro-level view of society, focusing on small-scale, face-to-face interactions. Feminists also favour an interpretivist approach, using qualitative methods to give (particularly) women ‘a voice’ in research which they have so often not had.
Positivist and interpretivists
Positivists
• Prefer quantitative data
• Seek to discover patterns of behaviour
• See sociology as a science
Positivists assume that society has an objective factual reality – it exists ‘out there’, just like the physical world
Society exerts an influence over its members, shaping the way in which we behave
By analysing quantitative data, positivists seek to discover the objective scientific laws of cause & effect that determine behaviour
Positivists therefore prefer questionnaires, structured interviews, experiments & official statistics. These produce data that is both reliable & representative.
Interpretivists
• Prefer qualitative data
• Seek to understand social actors’ meanings • Reject the view that sociology is a science
Interpretivists reject the idea of an objective social reality – we construct reality through the meanings we create in our interactions with others
Our actions are based on the meanings we give to situations, not the product of external forces
Interpretivist research uses qualitative data to uncover & describe the social actor’s ‘universe of meaning’
understanding of actors’ meanings & ‘life worlds’
Interpretivists therefore prefer participant observation, unstructured interviews, & personal documents. These produce in-depth data that is valid.
