Methods by Design Flashcards
Explain the; practical, ethical, theoretical factors sociologists consider before choosing a research method?
What data do positivists prefer? Interpretivists?
What is the most used research method by feminists? Why?
-Practical factors; Including the likely cost of the method, the time it might take the sociologist to complete and any specialist skills or equipment required.
-Ethical factors; Some methods present more ethical issues than others. Some might be rejected because informed consent cannot be achieved, for instance
-Theoretical factors; A sociologists theoretical perspective will also inform their choice of method. Positivists prefer more ‘scientific’ methods that generate quantitative data, while interpretivists prefer qualitative data. Feminists like to use unstructured interviews in order to give more power to the interviewee.
What other factors do they consider besides practical, ethical, theoretical?(4)
Explain them.
Other factors include; personal interest, theoretical perspective, funding issues, opportunity.
-Personal interest: Even Durkheim, who sought to be entirely objective in his research, had a close friend who committed suicide and this played some part in him choosing that subject.
-Theoretical perspective: Marxist sociologists are likely to want to research topics relating to social class or problems with capitalism. Feminists are likely to research topics relating to gender etc.
-Funding issues: Funding bodies will decide which research to pay for, so sociologists will take into account topics that those bodies are interested in.
-Opportunity: A researcher may choose a particular sociological topic simply because the opportunity ares. Ventakesh studied gangs in housing projects simply due to the proximity to the university he was studying.
What must a sociologist do once they have chosen their topic and the method/methods they intend to use for research? Why?
What is a pilot study? Why is this used?
What issue do most sociologists encounter when designing their research? (Key term) How do they task themselves with this?
-They then have to design their study. Research needs to be carefully designed in order to obtain the data which sociologists have set to find.
-A pilot study is effectively a trial run of a research method, usually with a very small sample, in order to ensure that the method works as intended.
-Sometimes people misinterpret questions or the results are not able to be analysed as intended, so the research design is ammended in order or it work before too much time and money is wasted.
-Most sociologists encounter issues of operationalising their concepts: to make them measurable.
-Sociologists need to consider all the concepts that they are using in their research and decide how to define, measure and use each concept in their research.
In context of research what does reliability refer to? How is reliability confirmed? Researchers?
Given an example with the use of opinion polls on people’s voting references changing? What does it mean if the research method was found to be unreliable?
-Reliability of a method refers to the extent to which, the same study were to be repeated, it would produce the same results.
-Reliability is confirmed by samples being representative, questions or processes uniformed and data generally need to be quantitative.
-I.e. opinion polls on people’s voting preferences: if the support for parties changes by several points the researchers need to be confident that this is because people are really changing their minds about how they intend to vote; that is not simply that the research is unreliable and changes between polls are likely and unpredictable.
-If this were the case it would render their data useless.
What does valid research mean? Verstehen?
What type of research methods tend to lack validity? Give examples.
What methods are considered more valid?
-Valid research reveals a true picture. Data that is high in validity tends to be qualitative and is oftend described as ‘rich’. It seeks to provide the researcher with verstehen- a true deep understanding of their research.
-Research methods with restricted responses(e.g. questionnaires with closed questions) or based just on numerical data(e.g. official statistics) tend to be thought to lack validity,
-Methods like observations or unstructured interviews, which produce a lot of qualitative data, are considered more valid.
What is the aim of sampling as a research method?
What is random sampling?
Who prefers this method? Why?
-The aim of sampling is to get a manageable selection of people to research who are as representative as possible of the target population.
-Random sampling is when a researcher randomly selects participants for research from a list, out of a hat or by creating randomly-generated choices using computer software. Each member of the target population has an equal chance of being in the frame.
-Positivists prefer this method as, providing it is of sufficient size, it should produce a representative sample that reflects the characteristics of the target population and therefore the findings can be generalised.
What is opportunity sampling? Give examples. Social media? the street? Seminars?
What is opportunity sampling also known as?
What is the practical advantage of opportunity sampling? Disadvantages?
-This is where a researcher selects participants based on their availability. One example would be standing on the street asking passers by to join the research.
-An academic might use their seminar groups as a sample because they see them regularly anyway, or someone might put a survey on social media for their friends.
-Opportunity sampling is also known as volunteer sampling.
-It is a quick and easy way to access a sample; practicality is an advantage.
-However, the resultant sample would not be representative, therefore findings would not be generalisable.
What are the two main methods for achieving quality data from particular social groups (i.e. in relation to social class/ethnicity)?
Although similar what difference do they have?
Where might this be used regarding money making?
-Stratified sampling and quota sampling.
-They are similar but quota sampling does not have the element of random selection that is present in stratified sampling and is therefore considered less reliable.
-It might be used in market research, for example when field researchers are told to stop and survey 100 women.
How is stratified sampling conducted? Give an example regarding gender?
-With stratified sampling, the sampling frame is divided into various social groups(e.g. age) and then random sampling is used for each group to ensure that the final sample reflects the population in terms of the representation of the groups.
-An easy stratified sample would be to ensure that there are an equal number of men and women in the sample.
What is systematic sampling?
How are the most representative samples from this method achieved?
What two types of sampling is quasi-random sampling more representative than?
-This is when the researcher selects every nth person on the sampling frame to be part of the sample. The nth number is selected by dividing the target population size by the desired sample size.
-The most representative samples from this method are achieved when the sampling list is randomised(AKA systematic random sampling)
-Although the ‘quasi random’ sampling of picking every nth person, however it is listed (e.g. alphabetically or by address), is still likely to produce a more representative sample than snow ball sampling or opportunity sampling.
What are snowball sampling and opportunity sampling simply designed for?
How does a snowball sample work similar to a chain letter?
Is this representative? Why is it useful?
-To find people to study.
-A snowball sample works similar to a chain letter. For example, if you were distributing a questionnaire you could pass it to your own contacts, who could then pass it on to theirs and so on…(the sample ‘snowballing’ as a result.)
-The resulting sample would not be representative of any identified target population, but it is a possible way to access a large number of people.
What are ethical problems in research?
What must researchers gain to avoid deception?
Give examples other than deception? ((5)
What methods presetn more ethical issues than others? (1)
-Problems that relate to the morality of research design or methods.
-In order to avoid deception researchers must gain full informed consent from those being studied.
-Discomfort, harm, illegal activity, anonymity and privacy.
-Covert participant observation presents many more ethical concerns than using official statistics.
