Methods in context

Question 1

What does Pervert stand for?

Answer 1

P- Practical issues- Time money, difficult to analyse, interviewer training
E- Ethical issues- Is it right or wrong?
R- Reliable- Can it be replicated?
V- Validity- Are the results true to life/social desirability/Hawthorne effect
E- Evidence of studies-What studies have used this method?
R- Representativeness- Does it reflect society as a whole?
T- Theoretical- Positivist or Interpretivist

Question 2

Documents advantages and disadvantages

Answer 2

+ Useful source of information about policies E.g government regulations and guidance issued to schools
+ No Hawthorne effect
+ Access to difficult subjects
+ Low cost and detailed

• Ethical: Few ethical as released in public domain. Issues arise with private documents e.g teachers diaries, pupils books
• Reliability: Direct comparisons can be made e.g attendance registers, however accidents while doing completing them can reduce reliability
• Credibility: schools wants to present themselves in a positive way to parents so may not be valid
• Representativness: Not all behaviour recorded e.g racist incidents. (because of personal opinion)

Question 3

Surveys- Advantages and disadvantages

What did Townsend (1979) say?

Answer 3

Surveys mainly produce quantitative data statistical data favoured by positivists

Townsend (1979)- researched poverty- used survey and questionnaires with trained interviewers to gather statistical data

+It is an inexpensive method of conducting research
+Surveys are a practical solution for data gathering
+It is a fast way to get the results that you need
+Surveys provide opportunities for scalability (I PS F S)

• Inflexible Design. Cannot be changed all throughout the process of data gathering
• Not Ideal for Controversial Issues
• Possible Inappropriateness of Questions (ID CI IQ)

Question 4

Different sampling methods for surveys

Answer 4

Random sampling- i.e. out of a hat

Systematic sampling- names taken from a sampling frame at regular intervals

Stratified random sampling- Sampling frame divided into random groups(cragey) then random sampling used for each group, ensures reflects whole population

Quota sampling- Researchers told to go interview people who fit into certain categories e.g field researchers told survey 100 women

Multistage sampling- When researcher uses combinations of sampling methods e.g stage 1 systematic stage 2 random

Snowball sampling- Researchers find few participants, then ask them to find participants themselves and so on. Taylor used this methods for investigating criminals as he didn’t know many criminals.

Pilot survey- Its a trial run of research methods, usually very small sample, to ensure methods will work as intended

Question 5

Chubb and Moe’s surveys

Answer 5

• Surveys of parental attitudes to schooling
• Surveys- asking people a fixed list of questions (either written questionnaires or interviews)
• Chose make generalisations about parents views on the way schools should be run and on how much choice parents should have

Interpretivists argue using fixed list of q’s imposes the researchers meanings on respondents by limiting what answers they can give
Survey may therefore have produced results that suited their New Right perspective

Question 6

Whats advantages and disadvantages of closed questionnaires?

Answer 6

+Easier, quick, and less costly to analyse
+Data produced ought to be reliable (easy to repeat)
+Data is easy to categorise and present in statistical form such as graphs and charts
+Easy for comparisons between different groups.

• Possible misinterpretation of questions
• Limited choice of answers puts artificial limits on how respondent answers
• If answered with researcher present respondent might ‘lie’
• Too many options might confuse respondent

Question 7

What do Bowles and Gintis say about unstructured questionnaires?
(Open)

Answer 7

• Measured students personality traits using questionnaire
• Questionnaires compared with students school grade averages and exam scores
• Found correlation between personality traits valued by employers(Passivity, obedience) and high scores at schools

Question 8

Advantages and disadvantages of open questionnaires

Answer 8

+Respondents own words which improves validity
+Imposition problem found in closed questionnaires is less of an issue
+More detailed and deeper answers including feelings and attitudes
+Open-ended questions do not allow respondents to speed read or avoid reading the questions

• Broad range of answers hard to classify and quantify the data into graphs and charts
• Difficult to compare results with similar research
• Response rate can be lower
• Responses might be ‘skip’ to the point as the respondent is in a rush
• Hand-writing might be illegible

Question 9

Tony Sewell Questionnaire’s

Structured what did Shere Hite say

Answer 9

• Gave 150 black 15-year old pupils a questionnaire in 5 different schools
• Sewell found that 80 per cent said that peer group pressure to do badly in education was biggest barrier in learning

Question 10

Questionnaires in context- Hasley heath and Ridge (1980) what did they say?

Answer 10

Hasley Heath and Ridge (1980)- Tried to measure relative importance of cultural/material factors in educational achievement. A lack of money can make a child’s potential options feel limited, it may stop kids staying on at school or getting to university.

Question 11

Lab experiments

What did Harvey and Slatin (1976) say?

What did Mason (1973) say?

Milgram’s experiment on obedience

Answer 11

-Laboratory Experiments take place in an artificial, controlled environment such as a laboratory.

Harvey and Slatin: Examined wether teachers had preconcieved ideas about pupils of different social classes. Study showed teachers did label certain social classes.

Mason: Looked at wether negative or positive expectations had the greater effect. mason found negative reports had much greater impact that the positive one on the teachers expectations

Milgram’s experiment on obedience- Found 65 per cent shocked authority was superior

Question 12

Advantages and disadvantages of Lab experiments

Answer 12

+Enable scientists to test hypothesis in controlled conditions
+Making it easy to isolate and manipulate variables to determine the causes of events
+ Being repeatable enable comparisons with other similar experiments

• Often difficult to identify single cause i.e crime
• Experiments need to treat one group differently from another group and compare results, might have negative effect on experimental group
• Hawthorne effect
• Small scale settings often used for large scale issues

Question 13

Field experiments

What did Rosenthal and Jacobson say?

Answer 13

• Field Experiments – take place in a real world context such as a school or a hospital. Mainly carried out by interpretivists, who are interested in how meanings and labels, like ‘bright’ or ‘mentally ill’, get attached to people, and how others react to them.
• Allows researchers to manipulate a real, naturally occurring social situation to discover cause-and-effect relationships
• Rosenthal and Jacobsen able to manipulate classroom interaction by labelling pupils to see whether this would cause self fulfilling prophecy. Told 20 per cent of children that they would make rapid progress and they did compared to others. Showed pupil progress was affected by teacher expectation and teacher predictions of pupils. Posed ethical issues e.g to ‘not bright students’

Question 14

Advantages and disadvantages of Field experiments

Answer 14

+ Application in class- Classroom has clear boundaries in terms of space and time, making it easier for researcher to achieve a degree of control over the situation and develop an effective field exp.
+Simple and therefore easy to repeat( schools have similar features)
+More likely to reflect real life because of natural setting e.g higher ecological validity than a lab experiment

• Could misleading research participants
• Lack of control brings problem of extraneous variables
• Difficult to record data accurately/ difficult to replicate
• The Hawthrone Effect

Question 15

Structured interviews advantages and disadvantages

Answer 15

+Skilled interviewers can persuade people to answer questionnaires
+problems of literacy are overcome
+ more reliable data, since all respondents answering same questions, so results can be compared with other groups
+ Usually involve pre-coded closed questions and answers which make them relatively easy to put in statistical from (positivist view)

• Pupils alter their responses to seek adult approval by giving untrue but socially acceptable answers.
• Not good at exploring highly personal or sensitive topics, no opportunity establish trust between interviewer and interviewee to encourage to talk about these issues
• More difficult to create q’s for use with young people because intellectual skills are not fully developed. May not understand long complex sentences or abstract concepts.

Question 16

What did Young and wilmott say about structured interviews?

Answer 16

• Young and wilmot used structured interviews to research the nature, extent and imortance of extended family i area of London
• Time restrictions placed on interviews to ensure high generalisation with large sample size

Question 17

Whats the difference between a focus and a group interview

Answer 17

In a group interview, the interviewer’s role is to question, where as in a focus group the researchers role is to feed in ideas or questions for the participants to discuss and draw out their feelings, experiences and opinions.

Question 18

Unstructured interviews advantages and disadvantages

Answer 18

+ Can build more trust which increases validity of data obtained to structures interviews. e.g Oakley found unstructured interviews enabled her to establish rapport and develop close relationships which enabled them to speak for themselves openly and personally
+ get deeper info than structured
+ Difficulties in communicating with young people mean that unstructured interviews may be suitable because interviewer can clear up any misunderstandings by explaining questions

• Representativeness: Time consuming and costly meaning fewer fewer interviews are conducted, raising problems of representativeness
• Researchers have to take meaning of what is said in a group interview is open to researchers own biased interpretation- Also peer pressure change perceptions
• cannot be repeated in the same way with other groups/ cant be compared

Question 19

What did Willis conduct on unstructured interviews

Answer 19

• Carried out unstructured group interviews to uncover the counter school culture of the ‘lads’
• Allowing lad to talk freely in their own words of how they viewed school, teachers and work.
• However it cannot be repeated in the same way with other groups
• Also meaning of what is said in a group interview is open to researchers own biased interpretation

Question 20

Dobash and Dobash (1971)- Unstructuctured interviews

Answer 20

• Dobash an Dobash used unstructured interviews along with police reports to gain insight into domestic violence
• Gain verstenhen and rapport with participants, helps PPT open up and respond about difficult conversations
• Discovered things that were not in police reports and rich findings in experiences

Question 21

Semi-Structured interviews Wright et al (2005)

Answer 21

Semi - bit of both structured and unstructured questions.

Research to find out why African-carribbean boys are five times more likely to be excluded from school

Wright et al used group interviews where students were with friends allowed respondent to open up and give fuller, more valid answers. Research revealed that boys felt labelled and discriminated against in education system

Question 22

Official statistics what is it? And how does it link with ethnicity?

Answer 22

• Government collects a vast amount of statistical data on educational achievement of different ethnic groups
• They save time and money
• Allows them to identify patterns of differences in achievement between ethnic groups, don’t acc explain ethnic differences just show
• Also Gov definition of ethnicity may be different to sociologist so may not be useful to the researcher

Question 23

Official statistics advantages and disadvantages

Answer 23

+Cheap and save time also frequently the only available source of data in particular area
+ Good for ‘before and after’ of government policies, also allows comparisons between achievement of different social classes, ethnic groups/genders
+ Avoid any ethical issues, and it would be impossible for sociologists to get that much info e.g from census

• Interpretevisists challenge the validity of educational stats, seeing them as socially constructed (decided by parents, pupils and teachers). Schools may manipulate their statistical records because there is pressure to present themselves positively in order to maintain their funding parental support.
• Definitions of key concepts and issues may differ from those sociologists use e.g measuring achievement by A*-C grades
• The political process also affects which statistics are collected and which are not e.g on house building rather than homelessness

Question 24

Different types of official statistics

Answer 24

Suicide statistics: All Durkheim could do was compare official suicide in various societies and examine what seemed to be most frequent factors linked with high suicide rates. he concluded that different in suicide rates could be partly explained by differences in religious belief between societies.

Health statistics: Inaccurate because they depend on people persuading doctors they are ill, and therefore simply a record of doctor’s decision making

• Doctors may diagnose illness or the cause of death incorrectly e.g aids before known could of been other cause
• Not all sick people go to the doctor and not all people who persuade the doctor they’re sick are actually

Crime statistics: Official crime statistics can be inaccurate for many reasons, they don’t show full extent of crime in society.

• Only include crimes known to the police (only a quarter of crimes are reported to the police)
• Low clear-up rates ( Offender caught and action taken against them only one in four crimes)
• unreported crime( Either doubt police will do anything, or if domestic case too scared)

Question 25

Participant observation Advantages ad disadvantages

Answer 25

+ sociologists gain first hand knowledge of group being studied. by building a relationship of trust more in depth valid data can be collected
+ It allows hypotheses and theories to emerge from the research as it goes along. whyte street corner society ‘ As i sat and listened, I learned the answers to questions that i would not even had the sense to ask if i had been getting my information solely on an interviewing basis’
+ best way to get the meanings that a social activity has for those involved in it e.g through seeing the world through the eyes of members of the group

• positivists argue there are problems with validity and reliability of participant observation studies e.g no real way of checking findings as there is no real evidence apart from observations and interpretations of the researcher. What one researcher regarded as important other might miss it and researcher recalling info might miss some key info out
• observation restricted by class timetable, holidays, headteachers control over access
• Hawthorne Effect
• Or ‘going native’ researcher getting too involved and only seeing it through groups eyes so cant properly step back and report on it. e.g willis romanticized view

Question 26

Participant observation

Willis

Lacey

Answer 26

Willis- ‘lads’

Lacey- Immersed in school life teaching some lessons and observing others e.g helping with cricket team and school trips

• Gained detailed insight into social relations within school to show how pupils polarised into pro and anti-school subcultures and impact on achievement
• Can be time consuming e.g took him 18 months
• results may not be generaliseable

Question 27

Non-Participant observation advantages and disadvantages

Answer 27

+ Classroom well structured for obs as its a closed physical and social environment. Easy for observer to sit back and record behaviour.
+ Range of classroom behaviours are limited therefore a limited number of behaviour categories can easily be established for use in observation.
+easy to replicate and it generated quantitative data, meaning comparisons can be made
+ Less likely to feel sympathy meaning a less bias data will be generated (P+S R RC B)

• Interpretivists- Lack of validity pre-determinded categories
• Presence of stranger using a checklist can be very off putting. Hawthorne effect
• Less able to ask why people are acting in the way they are

Question 28

Non-Participent observation- Wright

Answer 28

• Observed classroom interactions of over 1,000 pupils and teachers
• Able to see how teachers actually behave towards pupils- rather than how they claim to behave
• She witnessed how teachers sometimes labelled Asian pupils negatively

Question 29

Longitudinal studies Advantages and disadvantages

Answer 29

+ they make it possible to study change over time, and provide detail on the changes that occur.
+ Allows for high levels of validity
+ Possible to identify trends and data collection accuracy is always high and limits mistakes

• Need to select sample that are available and willing to assist in research project over long period. e.g people may die, move away, or cant be traced which limits representativeness of sample
• People being studied are conscious of it so may change behaviours
• very costly, investors are unwilling to spend that much money over longer periods of time