Research Methods Flashcards
What are the two ways in which sociologists research society?
Empirical research
Conceptualised research
What is empirical research?
Research involving active investigation of particular aspects of society and they way people interact with each other
Provides a check as to whether sociological concepts actually correspond to the way that social life is conducted by real life people
What is conceptualised research?
Ideas are devised as ‘concepts’ to describe and explain the workings of society
Forms of social organisation and resulting social institutions which people create and reproduce everyday become defined in sociological terms
What is quantitative data?
Data which is expressed in a numerical or statistical form
Useful for establishing pattens or identifying similarities and differences between phenomena
Includes questionnaires and data analysis of government statistics
What is qualitative data?
Data which is expressed textually instead of in the form of numbers
Composed of in depth descriptions of social life
Includes observations and unstructured interviews with open questions
More valid which means it provides a clear and true picture of the social reality of the lives of the participants
Quantitative research method examples
Questionnaires with closed questions Data analysis Structured interviews Longitudinal study Survey
Qualitative research methods
Unstructured interviews
Open questionnaires
Focus groups
Record keeping
Primary research examples
Surveys Questionnaires Interviews Observations Original paintings Song Novel Letter
Secondary research examples
Analysing Articles Documentaries Media analysis Film review Historical records Analysing Biography/autobiography
What does validity mean?
Associated with qualitative research
Do the finding give a TRUE and ACCURATE picture of what is being studied
You are getting information from people + listening to what they say and what they say is VALID
What type of research is validity associated with?
Qualitative
What does reliability mean?
Associated with quantitative research
Can the results be REPEATED by the same sociologists
Will repeating this give you REPLICABLE results
If it can be repeated it is a reliable methods of carrying out research
What type of research reliability associated with?
Quantitative
Name strengths of using a questionnaire for social research
Can be used for reaching a larger and more representative samples of people
Postal questionnaires can be used if the research population is geographically dispersed across the country
Less time consuming + cheaper
Ensures that the sociologist has minimum contact with the respondent - researcher will not influence results
Respondents will be anonymous when being asked sensitive and embarrassing questions
High in reliability
Produced lots of statistical data which can be compared, correlated and turned into graphs
Name weaknesses of using a questionnaire for social research
Low response rates or even no response - response rates less than 50% can undermine the validity of research findings
Postal questionnaires suffer the worse response rates - can be difficult to motivate people to return postal questionnaires
Criticised for producing data that is low in validity - argued that real life is too complex to categorise in closed questions
Danger dye to misinterpretation of questions
People can lie or misinterpret themselves
Interpretivist sociologists argue that questionnaires that use closed questions with tick box responses suffer the ‘imposition problem’ - means they measure what the sociologist thinks is more important rather than what the person completing the questionnaire experiences
