Relationship between theory and methods

Question 1

Positivists tend to use quantitative, statistical methods such as

Answer 1

• the use of official statistics
• the experiment
• the comparative method
• social surveys
• structured questionnaires
• formal/structured interviews
• non-participant observation

Question 2

Positivist view of society

Answer 2

• society is an objective reality made up of social structures/social facts independent of individuals
• individuals are constrained/moulded by external social forces
• sociologists should try to examine these social-structural constraints on behaviour with a macro or large-scale approach

Question 3

Positivist theoretical perspective

Answer 3

• structural theories like functionalism or marxism examining how society moulds and controls individual behaviour
• structural theories adopt a macro approach, studying the role of social institutions in shaping behaviour

Question 4

Positivist methodological approach

Answer 4

• sociology can and should study society using similar methods to those in the natural sciences
• may enable the discovery of causes of human behaviour and the predictions of future trends
• methods include using the hypothetico-deductive model to test theories and quantitative methods to collect empirical data

Question 5

Positivist research methods to collect data

Answer 5

• quantitative and statistical methods applied with objectivity and detachment to collect empirical data - reliable and representative/generalisable
• use of statistics (primary or secondary) - representative, large-scale, reliable - rejected by interpretivists who suggest official statistics lack validity (a record of official decision making, labelling etc)
• experimental method (experiments or the comparative method) - comparative method most likely to be used as closest to natural science laboratory method
• large-scale sample surveys (structured questionnaires and structured interviews) - produce representative reliable quantitative data with personal detachment, objectivity and reduced interviewer bias - interpretivists see detachment as risking imposition problem and lacking verstehen
• non-participant observation - retains detachment and is possible to collect quantitative data by categorising observations

Question 6

Criticisms of positivist approach

Answer 6

• interpretivists suggest methods don’t produce an accurate or valid picture of society
• detachment may lead to research lacking verstehen
• statistics produced or used are social constructions based on the views and interpretations of the people producing them - eg Atkinson suggests that suicide statistics are just a result of coroners’ decision-making

Question 7

Interpretivists adopt an inductive approach

Answer 7

one which develops theories on the basis of evidence that has been collected

Question 8

Glaser and Strauss (1967) refers to theory arising from an inductive approach as grounded theory

Answer 8

which arsis from analysis of data that has been collected

Question 9

Interpretivists tend to adopt the verstehen approach suggested by

Answer 9

Weber

Question 10

Interpretivist view of society

Answer 10

• society is a social construction and has no objective reality or existence independent of the interpretations people hold, as individuals construct society through free will and choice, based on interpretations which sociologists should try to understand using a micro approach

Question 11

Interpretivist theoretical perspective

Answer 11

• social action or interpretivist theories like symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology focusing on how actions are based on people’s interpretations, studying interaction between individuals to discover meanings

Question 12

Interpretivist methodological approach

Answer 12

• sociology is fundamentally different from the natural world and sociologists have to adopt verstehen to enable them to get insight into meanings and interpretations, building grounded theories using an inductive approach

Question 13

Interpretivist research methods used to collect data

Answer 13

• qualitative methods aimed at being valid through involvement and empathy to understand meanings - verstehen
• newspapers, autobiographies, personal diaries etc - insight into views and opinions
• uncontrolled experiments (some field experiments) like Garfinkel’s breaching experiments enable the discovery of meanings
• unstructured/semi-structured open-ended questionnaires and interviews (inc group interviews) - building verstehen with participants avoids imposition problem but positivists argue this is not representative
• participant observation - enables verstehen producing valid and detailed accounts but positivists view this as unreliable

Question 14

Examples of interpretivist methods

Answer 14

• use of personal accounts and documents (letters, diaries etc)
• unstructured/semi-structured open-ended questionnaires
• informal (unstructured/in-depth) interviews, focus groups and group interviews
• small-scale case studies of group interaction
• participant (sometimes non-participant) observation

Question 14

Criticisms of interpretivist approaches

Answer 14

• main criticisms come from positivists
• lack of reliability and the subjective nature of their findings
• may be interviewer bias or the Hawthorne effect
• often not very representative (small-scale)

Question 15

Feminist criticisms of quantitative positivist methods: male bias and malestream methods -

Answer 15

• ignores and excluded women and issues of concern to women - Mies (1983) suggests that most positivist research has a masculine bias and Oakley (1974) also found this in her study of housework, which was first regarded as not a serious topic for study
• treats women as appendages or insignificant extensions of men - Stanley and Wise (1993) say that findings on men have been generalised to women
• uses ‘malestream’ methods - Westmarland (2001) found that positivist structured interviews are malestream as they are distanced and Oakley (1981) views these methods as an aspect of power relationships which she found was a feature of of malestream sociology because of the control and power of the researchers

Question 16

Feminism and interpretivism

Answer 16

• feminist researchers generally prefer interpretivist methods as they develop more equal and intimate relationships between researchers and participants
• emphasise the importance of empathy and verstehen
• want to provide in-depth accounts of women’s lives
• eg Oakley (1981) study of motherhood used unstructured interviews with a close relationship with participants

Question 17

The feminist perspective and value commitment - Westmarland

Answer 17

• suggests that positivist large-scale surveys can be useful to discover the scale of problems eg lack of prosecution for rapes (6%)
• statistical information is inadequate because it doesn’t show how these things affect women’s lives, so should be used together with qualitative methods
• supports the view of Kelly et al: “what makes feminist research feminist is less the method used, and more how it is used and what it is used for”
• importance of aiming to improve the lives of the women being researched sets feminism apart from positivism and most interpretivism

Question 18

Sociologists may use methodological pluralism (several methods at once) or triangulation (using other methods to check findings)

Answer 18

to overcome issues with certain methods and to increase sociological understanding of life

Question 19

Theoretical issues affect

Answer 19

• how something is investigated (chosen method)
• what is studied (chosen topic)

Question 20

Things which affect choice of method and topic

Answer 20

• who is funding it
• ease of investigating the area (eg criminal gangs hard to study)
• pressures to publish research and deadlines
• whether the area is of interest or lucrative for financial backers
• ease of access to chosen group
• what is already known about the research area
• availability of secondary data
• usefulness of the research (to governments, companies etc)
• desire for researchers to succeed in proving their hypothesis correct
• values of the researcher
• ethical issues
• personal skills and characteristics of researcher
• practical issues
• researcher desire for career success
• time and money available for research
• theoretical approach of the researcher