Key research methods (education)

Question 1

two theoretical perspectives to be considered are:

Answer 1

• positivism and interpretivism

Question 2

Positivists

Answer 2

• they favour quantitative data (numerical data)
• quantitative data allows positivists to find patterns of correlation to discover cause and effects relationships
• correlations allow positivists to find social facts like the laws of cause and effect
• Quantitative allows the sociologist to remain objective meaning their own views won’t impact their research
• favoured methods are official stats, questionnaires, structured interviews and experiment –> this data gathered is representative
• patterns of behaviour over time are reliable

Question 3

Interpretivists

Answer 3

• they favour qualitative data (words,thoughts and meaning)
• Qualitative data allows interpretivists to conduct research which is valid and the truth behind social situations
• they favour unstructured methods, such as interviews and participant observation
• these methods develop a deeper understanding of the individual studies
• this helps them to achieve ‘verstehen’ which is meaning

Question 4

Practical factors affecting sociologists choice of research method: Time

Answer 4

• many quantitative methods are swift to conduct and analyse such questionnaires
• research methods that are time consuming require lots of money

Question 5

Practical factors affecting sociologists choice of research method: Money

Answer 5

• research methods that require special equipment are also costly
• large- scale research is also costly

Question 6

Research and Ethics

Answer 6

• sociologists should gather informed consent from their participants
• some participants may want to remain anonymous and be secure in knowledge that their info won’t be shared
• the sociologist should aim to avoid any physical or psychological harm and take extra care with vulnerable groups

Question 7

How sociologists gather a sample

Answer 7

• systematic sampling: follow a structure e.g selective every 5th person from the sampling frame
• quota sampling: when the researcher has a certain type of person to research and they simply select the first number of people who fir the criteria e.g the first 30 males aged 20-40
• Stratified sampling: requires the researcher to mirror the characteristics of the population in their sample e.g if 45% of the sampling frame is male the 45% of the sample must be male
• random sampling: when the sociologist ensures that everyone in the sampling frame has an equal chance of being in the sample e.g draw names from a hat

Question 8

EVALUATION (FOR POSITIVISTS)

Answer 8

• interpretivists disagree with the main positivists goal of representativeness and reliability
• they believe quantitative data neglects to gather meaning of individuals actions and why people act the way they do
• interpretivists argue there’s no objective way to study society

Question 9

EVALUATION (FOR INTERPRETIVISTS)

Answer 9

• positvists believe that small scale research which aims for validity isn’t useful and small samples used for qualitative research aren’t suitable to make generalisations from
• positivists argue that qualitative data fails to prove social factors because it doesn’t reveal cause and effect relationships

Question 10

RESEARCH AND ETHICS EVALUATION

Answer 10

• by informing participants of the research the process may become flawed
• they may change their behaviour knowing their being studied (Hawthorne effect)
• this is an issue in covert research because sociologists identity and aim are kept from participants
• covert methods do produce more valid data