Methods in context- paper 1

Question 1

Positivists

Interprativists

Answer 1

functionalist (Durkheim) like quantitate data like dater generated by the government. Macro approach top down (how society impacts the individual)

Interactionalists (Becker) like qualitative data like unstructured 9interviews with open ended response. Micro approach bottom down (individual impact society)

Question 2

Practical-
Time and Cost?

Workable?

Practical considering audience?

Suitable for overcoming resentment?

Build trust?

Practical for samples?

Researcher characteristics right for
research?

Funding

secondary data available

Answer 2

-Time/cost to be justified many methods will not be cost effective
-closed settings difficult to gain access, Parents consent is often needed, Staff may be restricted in what they can say at interviews
-Questionnaires not good if the child has poor language. Young children unlikely to give valid, accurate information. Staff are not going to give out confidential information. Teachers are too busy. Research may interrupt the work done by children
-Studying reserved groups or anti-authority may present problems. If using a questionnaire it may lead to less trust and validity.
-Upsetting/personal nature of questions. Unstructured interviews better looking at what teachers really think of the school
-Hard of getting an accurate sample?
-practical Class, ethnicity, gender match. Street cred?Age?
-Is the research going to influence
policy and be value for money?
-Confidential documents may
restrict access to secondary data
for researchers

Question 3

Ethical-
Duty of care

Confidentiality

Consent

Harmful Effects

Answer 3

-Care for students avoiding harm. make sure vulnerable students are protected from the harms of research. Maintain confidentiality in access to confidential records. DBS
-Maintain confidentiality in access
to confidential records.
-under 18s parental consent. Can young people understand enough to give consent
-Prevent harm to subjects, and ensure their safety and wellbeing. questions may be personal or intrusive. result in harm. Teachers may be sacked for talking too honestly; parents may admit
criminal offences for covering up
truancy. Finding out about abusive teachers, parent neglect causes issues in confidentiality if reported; teachers may be dismissed or
parents have care orders against them. Deception

Question 4

reliability

Answer 4

• is the method used reliable
  -are we going to get the same results if we do it again
  -its hard to repeat participant observations compared to unstructured questionares

Question 5

true data?

Answer 5

-some method not creditable
-younger people exaggerate
-younger people want to impress teachers/ researcher
-younger men likely to exaggerate macho tendencies (subscribe to subculture.)
-school image (markitisation attracts parents to keep number of students high.) lie or decide to maintain positive image
-unstructured interviews may build more trust and therefore data from parents and as school

Question 6

Hawthrone

Answer 6

-in schools hiarcy and the position of adults being respected leads to student change there answer because of researcher.
-groupes behave differently when they know they are being watched.
-children may change answers to impress adults who they respect

Question 7

Imposition

Answer 7

-structured interviews may impose answers on children
-the value may reflect researchers views rather than children imposing non- valid data

Question 8

Representation

Answer 8

• can the method be generalized for the UK population
  -same scale student may not be representative
  -the sample issues should also be considered here

Question 9

Value freedom

Answer 9

• scientists detach is sought by positivists they claim that going native and imposition of frame work is risked in actual research if they is no objective element

Question 10

Positivists/ Interpativists

Answer 10

-positivists are likely to see quantitive methods as highly reliable. interpretive are looking for versatile to get a valid true picture

Question 11

Max Weber

Answer 11

-Verstehen (mean to understand in german)
-come to mean a deep empathetic understanding
-seeing the world as other see it to the sort of rich valid data that might be acquired through participation observation or extensive unstructured interviews

Question 12

Unstructured interview pros and cons

Answer 12

I got a conversation with the interview can ask open ended questions 

Pros- Allows the interviewer to develop the relationship of trust with the interviewee useful to Research asensitive topic produces more validator highly flexible for my help prothesis based on their findings
Cons- Time-consuming training you did (expensive) Not representative of participants are less likely to take part data harder to generalise Not reliable how did you quantify in comparison Structured interviews

Question 13

Example of questionnaires used to study in education

Answer 13

Michael Ritter- used questionnaires to collect large amounts of data from 12 secondary schools in London with this he correlated achievement attendance and behaviour. With other variables like school and call size and staff number.

Question 14

Example of interviews used to study in education

Answer 14

-Paul Willis (1977) He tried to see education from a child point of view.
-Supported Marxism and was interested in conflicts in education.
-studied WC boys in the Midland and found they were disruptive and had anti-school sub- culture.
-Conclude schools aren’t working well not teaching children socialisation very well.
-Used various methods to option validity (boys may have acted up to show off live up to stereotype.)
-WC boys chose to fail rather than the system failing them.
-benefitted capitalism due to lack of meritocracy

Question 15

Example of secondary sources used to study in education

Answer 15

-Gillborn David studied the lives of students experiences in 2 English secondary schools that gave multicultural education high priority.
-Studied 11-16 year old to see the schools role in developing support and anti racial development.
-Used secondary data he had gathered from a previous resource where the obtained information from semi- structured interviews, observations, documents.

Question 16

Example of laboratory experiments used to study in education

Answer 16

-Charkin et al 1975 conducted research with a sample 0f 48 university students who each taught a lesson to a 10 year old boy.
-1/3 were told the boy was highly motivated and intelligent.
-1/3 he was poorly motivated and have a poor IQ
-1/3 were given no information
-Charkin et al videos the lessons and found that those in the high expectancy group made more eye contact and used more encouraging language than the low expectancy group.
-supported labelling theory

Question 17

Example of observations used to study in education

Answer 17

-Cecile Wright study of 4 inner city primary schools used interviews and observations of 1000 students 57 staff and 38 parents
-teachers seem generally commited to treat all student equally regardless of ethnic background. still discrimination in the classroom
-observed teachers using simple langue to Asia students. Disapproved Asia girl when they wanted to have privacy to change. Stereotypical comments from teachers resulted in other students becoming hostile and isolating them
-Teachers expected Aisa student to have academic success
-Expect black Caribbean students to be bad behaved didn’t consider they could be victims of racism
-Observed a black student being told off for shouting out the right answer when white students weren’t.
-Teacher mispronacy names or words related to ethnic groups casings white student to laugh and embarrassing them
-concluded schools general appear committed to vales of equality and multiculticulturalism but not put into practice in the right way.

Question 18

Intro for secondary sources

Answer 18

-defonition- Secondary sources are data collected by someone else for their own purpose but is available for others to use e.g. official statistics.
-quantitative and qualitative
-Pros- efficient way to gather information as it has already been collected, cheap as you do not need to spend any money when trying to accumulate information. different types of secondary information, richest form of information available to researchers in many topic areas.
Cons- The researcher has no control over how that data was produced, may not be looking at the same thing the sociologist want it for
-interprativists

Question 19

secondary sources P1 practical issus, access, via gate keeping, time table

Answer 19

pros- (official statistics) educational statistics allow sociologists to make comparisons between the achievements of different social groups over time e.g. exam statistics. Governments gather these statistics to monitor the effectiveness of educational policies.

cons- (official statistics)Governments collect statistics for their own policy purpose and so these may not be the same as those of sociologists needs. The state may not collect statistics on pupils’ social class which sociologists are interested in but instead on pupils entitled to free school meals.

Question 20

secondary sources P2 ethical, confidentiality, duty of care

Answer 20

Pros- Documents on education are easily accessible due to government policies emphasizing parental choice. Documents in the public domain so no permission needed.

Cons- Documents difficult to access- Valery Hey (1997) wanted to use notes that girls pass to each other to understand their friendship patterns, however, these notes were not always easy to obtain as girls were experts at hiding them from teachers. Some educational documents are confidential (pupils disciplinary records) so sociologists may be unable to gain access to them. Ethical problems with personal documents - in Heys study she collected the notes from desks at the end of lessons and in one case found some in the wastepaper bin informed consent for their use is not obtained.

Question 21

secondary sources P3- Theoretical issues validity hawthorn effect

Answer 21

Pros- Documents can provide important insights into the meanings held by teachers and pupils and can therefore be high in validity, for example Hey found that the nots offered valuable insight insights into the nature of the girl’s friendships as they were expressions of their feelings, however, all documents are open to different interpretations. Some official statistics of education are highly representative. State schools must complete school census 3x a year. This collects information like students’ attendance, ethnicity, and gender- these statistics cover mostly ever pupils in the country making them highly representative. Positivists Favour official statistics they are reliable so can be used to test and retest hypothesis and discover cause and effect relationships.

Cons- Interpretivists question the validity of educational statistics argue they are socially constructed. schools can manipulate data e.g., attendance figures by redefining poor attenders as being on study leave or additional work experience as they want to keep a positive image to maintain their funding and support. However not all information will be documented to keep a positive image this makes it less representative. Can be erros but secondary sources are generally very reliable due to government imposes standard. but government may change these standards which makes it difficult for sociologists to make comparisons over time.

Question 22

Intro for Observation

Answer 22

-Covert- research is carried out under cover
-Overt- researcher makes there ideality and porpoise known
Participant- researcher taks part part in the event that they are studying
-structured- researcher doset take part records predefined occurrences
-unstructured- researcher records all relevant behaviour without the use of a strict system.
-quantitive and qualitative

Question 23

observation P1 practical issus, access, via gate keeping, time table

Answer 23

pros- Flanders system Of interactions analyses categories (FIAC), can be used to measure interactions between teachers and pupils quantitively. Observer has chart records interventions at three seconds picks behaviour from categories. The FIAC Method means there quicker cheaper and require less training them typical structured methods. Easier to get permission to observe lessons then to interview people in teachers.

cons- Schools are complex places more time-consuming to observe. Research obstructed by school timetables, holidays, rules of access due to health and safety legislations. Schools are busy public places observers find it difficult to find privacy to record observations.

Question 24

Observations secondary sources P2 ethical, confidentiality, duty of care

Answer 24

Pros-

Cons- Limited ability to give informed consent of peoples means that observations normally must be known. Observations can lead to things being seen or heard that can get people in trouble the research would be obliged to report wrongdoing. Breaks trust the people had in the researcher and will no longer want to cooperate with their research. School work hard to protect its people identity portrays positive image as the education system is marketise it’s important to have a good image for success for school.

Question 25

Observations P3- Theoretical issues validity hawthorn effect

Answer 25

pons- Validity Interpreting main strength of observation. Gives us understanding of the world wide of social factors. Hawthorn effect can be overcome as a researcher has opportunity to gain acceptance by people with.

cons- Validity- Sara Delamint argues that grouping classroom behaviours and classifying it into categories ignores the meaning pupils and teachers attach to it. Hawthorn effect presence of the researcher may influence the behaviours of those being observed. Power difference between young people and adults might mean they give a false image when being observed by an adult researcher which undermines the validity of the research. Teachers may disguise their feelings and alter behaviours when being observed.

Question 26

Intro for Experiments

Answer 26

-Lab experiments carried out in controlled lab conditions
Pros- Highly reliable other researchers can easily replicate it positive this favourite because it uses scientific method.
Cons- Artificial environment that lacks ecological validity. Potential ethical issues Hawthorn effect
-Field experiments Carried out in the subject natural setting
Pros- favoured by interpretivist high ecological validity. Demand characteristics are less likely
Cons- Less control over extraneous variables low reliability ethical issues
-quantitative data
-interprativists- fiels positivists- lab

Question 27

Experiments P1 practical issus, access, via gate keeping, time table

Answer 27

pros-
Cons- Practical problems school are large and complex institutions many variables that may affect teachers education; class size, streaming, type of school it’s impossible to control and identify all the variables.
Ethical problems- Experiments that use real people raise ethical concerns. Due to Younger peoples vulnerabilities, limited ability to understand what is happening means higher chance of deception lack of informed consent

Question 28

Experiment secondary sources P2 ethical, confidentiality, duty of care

Answer 28

Cons- Ethical problems- Children today have more rights than in the 1960s and the legal duty of care that school has today means such experiments are unlikely to be carried out. Field experiments work best when those who are involved do know this requires deception.

Question 29

Experiments P3- Theoretical issues validity hawthorn effect

Answer 29

Cons- Artificially of lab experiments my only tell us a little about real world education.

Question 30

Intro for questionares

Answer 30

-A research method used to collect data in the form of a list of questions
-Close ended strengths easy to quantify easy to compare quick to complete. Weaknesses restricted response in position problems (Risk that the researcher may impose their views) Qualitative
-Open-ended – strength in Depth information answers are not restricted. Weaknesses long drawn out answer is difficult to quantify difficult to make comparison lacks reliability. quantitive
-positivists- as it attaches objective methods. Little involvement or personal contact with the respondents
-Self administered Pros- quick and easy to complete the researcher affects higher response rate respondents reply in their own time. Cons- Generally small-scale underrepresentative maybe expensive time consuming
-Postal questionnaire Pros- Relatively cheap respondent reply at their own leisure easy to answer personal questions rules out interviewer biased (the interviewer can’t affect the response) Cons- Cost could be an issue Not being taken seriously not everyone has a fixed address/access to email

Question 31

questionares P1 practical issus, access, via gate keeping, time table

Answer 31

Pros-

cons- Inflexibility- questionnaires cannot be changed once they have been finalised so they can’t decide to explore new areas they come across during research. Data tends to be limited and superficial they need to be daily brief since most respondents are unlikely to complete or return questionnaireswith long answers. May have to offer incentives to increase response rate (coast). They don’t know who filled out the questionnaire with online ones. Lying forgetting and right answers depends on the response respondents are willing to give their ability to answer accurately problems of felicity are created from answers I’m not full or completely truthful. Lie, forget, not know

Question 32

questionares P1 practical issus, access, via gate keeping, time table

Answer 32

Pros- Fewer ethical issues and other research methods interviews may ask intuitive or sensitive questions but respondents are under no obligation to answer them

Question 33

questionares P3- Theoretical issues validity hawthorn effect

Answer 33

Pros- seen as reliable if repeated by another researcher they should give similar results as the questions will be the exact same. Useful for hypothesis testing about cause and effect relationship between variables as they enable us to identify possible cause. Collect data from a large number of people, results stand a better chance of being truly representative.
Cons- snapshots- A picture at one moment in time therefore failed to produce fully valid picture as they don’t count peoples attitudes and behaviour changes. Low response rate no representative.

Question 34

Intro for interviews


Answer 34

structured- They are conducted in a standard way
unstructured- I got a conversation with the interview can ask open ended questions 
group interviews- interview with up to a dozen people being interviewed at the same time.
semi structured- Questions are standard but the interview can ask more information
-qualitative data
-interprativists

Question 35

interviews P1 practical issus, access, via gate keeping, time table

Answer 35

Pros- Young people have less linguistic and intellectual skills than adults which create problems for interviewers. Young people may be more reluctant to talk. Have more limited vocabulary short attention span and read body language differently to adults. These factors may lead to misunderstanding and incorrect answers which undermines the vitality of the data. Unstructured interviews can take a long time to conduct. Teachers may not have time to take part in interviews.  Access and response rate to schools may be reluctant to allow sociologist to conduct interviews during lesson time due to the disruption.

Question 36

interviews P2 practical issus, access, via gate keeping, time table

Answer 36

Cons- For young children there are ethical issues which may cause them to be distressed so researchers should be more sensitive and understanding. To interview a teacher and interviewer might hath to have permission off the headteacher and interviewing people may require participant consent.

Question 37

interviews P3- Theoretical issues validity hawthorn effect

Answer 37

Cons- They may not produce validator since young people are likely to respond to a formal style. Group interviews young people strongly influenced by peer pressure which may reduce the validity of data individuals may conform to peers expectations rather than express their own opinions. Power and status inequalities in young people and adults. Interviewers usually adults children see them as authority figures. Can affect validity because peoples may seek to win the Researchers approval if seeing them like teachers.