Research Design: Social Surveys

Question 1

What’s the first stage of designing a social survey?

Answer 1

• choosing a topic

Question 2

What factors will influence the topic choice?

Answer 2

• funding
• time
• personal interest
• ethics
• relevance in context

Question 3

What’s the second stage of designing a social survey? What purpose does this serve?

Answer 3

• formulating an aim/ hypothesis

- identifies what the sociologists intends to study and hopes to achieve through the research

Question 4

How might a sociologist formulate a hypothesis? What is an advantage of a hypothesis?

Answer 4

• sociologist thinks up a possible explanation
• might draw upon previous research
• the hypothesis gives direction to research and focus to questions

Question 5

The third stage of designing a social survey is to operationalist the concept. What does operationalising mean, what purpose does it serve?

Answer 5

• putting the concept or idea into a measurable form

Question 6

The fourth stage of designing a social survey is a pilot study. What is this and why is it carried out?

Answer 6

• smaller scale study carried out prior to the main study

- to see whether the method works ie. to review, refine, redraft

Question 7

How does a sociologist decide who to include in their research? This is the fifth stage

Answer 7

• assess their target/ research population

- who will be relevant for the research, who possesses characteristics which are important to study

Question 8

What is the basic purpose of sampling? Why is this important?

Answer 8

• to ensure that the people selected for the sample are representative of the larger target/ research population
• it means generalisations can be made to cover the entire target/ research population

Question 9

Name the four types of representative sampling

Answer 9

• random sampling
• quasi-random/ systematic sampling
• stratified random sampling
• quota sampling

Question 10

Why may it not be possible to create a representative sample?

Answer 10

• social characteristics of the research population may be unknown and therefore it would be impossible to create a sample that was an exact cross-section of it
• may be impossible to find/ create a sampling frame for that research population
• potential respondents may refuse to respond

Question 11

What two non-representative sampling techniques could be used?

Answer 11

• snowball sampling

- opportunity sampling