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Sociology > Methods > Flashcards

Methods Flashcards

1
Q

covert observation ao3

A
  • P- keeping act up, cannot take notes openly
  • E- unaware being studied, deception, informed consent
  • T- valid= favoured by interpritivists
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2
Q

overt observation ao3

A
  • ethical
  • can take notes openly
  • can ask naive but important questions
  • permision to observe
  • hawthorne effect
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3
Q

discovers cause and effect

comparitive method ao3

A
  • avoids artificiality/ hawthorne effect
  • ethical
  • less control over variables
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4
Q

field experiments ao3

A
  • valid
  • realistic
  • realiability- hard to replicate
  • unethical- unaware being studied
  • less control over variables than with lab experiments
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5
Q

lab experiments ao3

A
  • realiable
  • can easily identify cause and effect relationships
  • artifical= validity issues
  • hawthorne effect- people may know being studied= act diff
  • ethical issues- deception, lack of informed consent, harm
  • practical issues- impossible to control and identify every possible variable
  • reliability- can replicate
  • positivits favour due to reliability
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6
Q

participant obsertvations ao3

A
  • validity- rich qualitative data
  • insight- empathy through personal experience
  • felxible
  • practical
  • very time consuming
  • need to be to be trained
  • ethical issues- deception
  • not relaiable- cannot replicate
  • not representitive- very small sample often used
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7
Q

unstructured observations ao3

A
  • practical issues- schools are large
  • ethical issues- pupils are vulnerable
  • favoured by interpritivists
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8
Q

structured observations ao3

A
  • practical issues
  • relable- easily repliacted
  • validity- not very
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9
Q

structured interviews ao3

A
  • practical- quick and cheap
  • high response rate
  • reliable- can be replicated
  • valid- not very close ended questions
  • feminists- do not like as they exert control over women
  • interviewer bias
  • status and power diffs
  • ethical issues- under impression that they have to answer q’s
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10
Q

unstructured interviews ao3

A
  • rapport built
  • interviewees views- acknowledged
  • flexible
  • explore unfamiliar topics
  • practical issues- small sample size
  • not reliable- not replicable
  • valid- but ineraction between the two can affect this
  • response rate- schools may be reluctant
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11
Q

group interviews ao3

A
  • strongly influenced by peer presure- reduces validity
  • not reliable- flowing nature makes it impossible to strandardise
  • can reveal interactions between pupils
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12
Q

questionares ao3

A
  • reliable
  • positivists favour due to reliability
  • fewer ethical issues
  • representitive- collect data from large no. of people
  • low response rate
  • snapshots of reality- in the moment p aanswers q’s
  • subject to lies, forgetting
  • researcher imposed meanings
  • operationalising concepts- difficult
  • practical issues- may not understand q’s
  • anonimity
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13
Q

what is primary data?

A

info collected by sociologist themselves for own purposes e.g social surveys, particpant observation, experiments

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14
Q

what is secondary data?

A

info collected or created by someone else for their own purposes
e.g official stats, documents

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15
Q

what is qualitative data?

A

info in numerical form

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16
Q

what is qualitative data?

A

info in written form

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17
Q

what are practical issues influencing choice of method?

A
  • time and money
  • personal skills and characteristics
  • subject matter
  • requirments of funding bodies
18
Q

what are ethical issues influencing choice of method?

A
  • informed consent
  • harm to reserach p’s
  • confidentiality and privacy
  • covert research
  • vulnerable groups
19
Q

what are theoretical issues influencing choice of method?

A
  • validity
  • reliability
  • representitivness
  • methodoligical perspective
20
Q

what factors may influence choice of topic studied by soc’s?

A
  • the soc’s perspective
  • societys values
  • practical factors
  • funding bodies
21
Q

what is the process of research?

A
  1. formulating a hypothesis- prediction of research
  2. formulating an aim - purpose of research
  3. operationalising concepts- define variables so they can be measured
  4. pilot study- done befpre original to identify any issues and crrect them
  5. sampling/ sampling methods
22
Q

what are things to consider when researching pupils?

A
  • power and status
  • ability and understanding
  • vulnerability + ethical issues
  • laws and guidelines
23
Q

what are things to consider when researching teachers?

A
  • power and status- not equal
  • impression management
24
Q

what are things to consider when researching classrooms?

A
  • gatekeepers
  • peer groups
25
Q

what are things to consider when researching schools?

A
  • schools own data- lots of secondary data
  • the law- requires yound people to attend school ( everyone in same place) or schools may see it as disrupting eductaion
  • gatekeepers
  • school organisation- rules and hierarchies
26
Q

what are things to consider when researching parents?

A
  • class gender and ethnicity affecting willingness to participate
  • impression management
  • access to parents
27
Q

official statistics

how are they collected?

A
  • registration
  • offical surveys- census
28
Q

official statistics

what are the practical - and +?

A
  • givts collect them for their own purpose
  • they are free source of huge data
  • only the govt has the power to compel citizens to give info
  • allow comparisons between groups
  • collected over regular intervals- show trends and patterns over time
29
Q

official statistics

how representitive are they?

A
  • cover large no. of + care is taken with sampling procedures- often representitive
  • better able to make generalisations and test hypothesises
  • BUT- some are less representitive than others e.g compulsory births- liekly to cover all cases but crime surveys may be less representitive
30
Q

official stats

how relaible?

A
  • generally seen as relaible- collected in standardised way by trained staff
  • but not always- members of public filling out may do it incorrectly affecting the answers given
31
Q

official stats

how valid?

A
  • some hard stats- e.g no. of births, marriages etc give an accurate pic making them valid but soft stats are not as valid e.g police stats do not record all crimes
  • victim surveys used to compensate this
32
Q

official stats

positivism vs interpretivism

A
  • p- favour them as objective social facts that achieve the main goals of relaibility, generalisability and representitivness
  • i- reject them essp soft ones like crime stats as social constructs not facts, fail to meet overall goal of validity
33
Q

are official stas facts constructs or ideology

what do positivists say?

A

durkheim
* they are FACTS
* see sociology as science

34
Q

are official stas facts constructs or ideology

what do interpretivists say?

A
  • they lack validity
  • they do not represent real feelings or social facts so they are CONSTRUCTED
  • they merely represent the labels that people give to the behaviours of others e.g suicide rates
35
Q

are official stas facts constructs or ideology

what do marxists say?

A
  • serve the intrest of capitalism
  • the state is not neutral but serves them- these stats are part of their IDEOLOGY helping to maintain it
  • e.g unemployment stats
36
Q

what are documents?

A

any written text like letters, govt reports, medical records etc

37
Q

what is the diff between public and personal and historical documents?

A

public- produced by organisations like the govt and schools ( ofstead reports)
personal- first person accounts of social events or personal experiences
historical- a personal or public doccument created in the past e.g aries studing childhood in middle ages

38
Q

what is the four criteria put forward to evaluate documents?

A
  1. authenticity- is it what it claims to be
  2. credibility- is it believable
  3. representitiveness- can we generalise from it safely
  4. meaning- may have been translated from other langs, words may change meaning over time
39
Q

positivism vs interpretivism and docs

A
  • i- favour them because they achieve the goal of validity ( provide qualitative data)
  • P- reject them bc they fail to achieve reliability, representitiveness and generalisability
40
Q

what are advantages of documents?

A
  • personal docs- enables getting close to the social actors reality, rich detailed qualitative data
  • cheap source of data- already gathered info
  • sometimes the only source of data- if studying the past
41
Q

how is a content analysis used with documents?

A

dealing systematically with the contents of docs (analysing docs produced by mass media) allowing soc’s to produce qualitative data
they are cheap and easy
* positivists see this as useful sour ce of objective, quanitiative, scientific data
* but i- simply counting up the number of times sometyhing comes up in a doc tell us nothing about its meaning

42
Q

ao3 of docs

A
  • practical issues- easily accessible but ersonal ones are harder to obtain
  • ethical issues- few ethical concern susing school docs being put in public
  • representitiveness- personal less likely but public school ones yes bc some are legally required of all schools and collages
  • reliability- many public ones follow standardised procedures
  • validity- provide insight into the meanings held by e.g teachers= highly valid, but open to diff interpriations si we cannot be sure of the meaning

Sociology (12 decks)

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