research methods Flashcards
practical issues affecting choice of methods
- time and money
- requirements of funding bodies
- personal skills such as being able to build rapport
ethical issues affecting the choice of methods
- informed consent
- confidentiality and privacy
- harm to research participants such as psychological damage
- vulnerable groups
(child protection, consent from parents and children and provide info in a language the child can understand)
theoretical issues
validity- does it produce a true or genuine picture of what something is really like
reliability- can it be repeated by someone else and give the same results
representativeness- does the study represent many groups in society
sampling techniques
- random sampling
- systematic sampling: the nth person in the sampling frame is selected
- stratified random sampling- breaks own population the population (gender ethnicity) and gets people based on these proportions
- quota sampling- stratified as above but then a quota is made of say. 20 females and 20 males
issues with using lab experiments
practical
- society in complex. it is impossible to identify and control all the possible variables that might exert and influence on a child’s education achievement
- small samples makes it difficult to investigate large social phenomena such as religion reducing representativeness
ethical
- lack of informed consent. difficult to obtain from children or people with learning disabilities due to lack of full understanding
- harm to participants. experiments such as milgrams experiment caused participants to dig nails into flesh, sweat and tremble out of fear. 3 full blown seizures were recorded
theoretical
- hawthorne effect. lab isn’t a natural environment thus behaviour in this condition is unnatural. people know they. are being researched and could act in a way they believe the researcher is looking for so invalidating the validity
-
alternative to lab experiments
fields experiments
- natural surroundings
- participants don’t know they are being observed and so don’t have the Hawthorne effect
the comparative methods
- instead of researching poepel the research is done in the mind of the sociologist
- identifies two groups who are aligning all major respects except for the variable in question
- compares the groups to see if the variable has any effect
(an example is Durkheim’s study of le suicide he predicted that protestants would have a higher rate of suicide than Catholics due to lower stress put on integration into the religious group)
ethical issues of field experiments
- they work best when the participant is unaware. causing issues of deception and a lack of informed consent
advantages of questionnaires
practical
- quick and cheap so can gather large amounts of data from a geographically widespread area especially if it’s online or postal. (Connor and Dawson sent 4,000to study factors affecting wc choice to go to uni or not)
- data easily quantifiable
theoretical
- high reliability. no researcher there is influence respondents answers. if researchers use a similar sample and some questionnaire high reliability in outcomes
- due to large sample sizes standing a better chance of being representative of the wider population
ethical
- although they may include sensitive questions they arnet obligated to answer them
disadvantages of questionaires
practical
- data is limited due to the brief natures of the questions which makes respondents more likely to partake limits what can be taken from the research
- if it is postal or online can be guaranteed the people whom it was addressed to completed it
theoretical
- low response rate can cause unrepresentative results (white sent 10,000 but only got 4.5 back due to the sensitive nature of questions). those who respond may not have to work to be as busy, or those with very strong views and so off-balance results
- low validity due to detachment. not as personal as other methods lack of contact with respondent means there is no way to clarify questions or deal with misunderstandings
-
advantages of structured interviews
theoretical
- large numbers who can be surveys increase chances of obtaining a representative sample of the population higher response rate than questionnaires due to connection with the researcher
- reliable as its easy for the researcher to standardize and control them so can be repeated easily
practical
- can cover large numbers of people because there are cheap and quick to administer
- easily quantifiable as they use close-ended questions
ethical
disadvantages of structures interviews
practical
- more. costly than questionnaires to train interviewers
- cant match the potentially huge numbers reached by questionnaires
theoretical
- low validity due to the fact that the interviews have very little freedom to explain questions and clarify misunderstandings
- low validity as people may lie and exaggerate
- low validity due to inflexibility of the questions
advantages of unstuctured interviews
theoretical
- rapport means higher validity as participants feel more comfortable participating and give true answers (Labov made children feel more comfortable nu sitting on the floor and allowing friends to be present to gain more accurate responses)
- higher validity due to flexible nature of questions participants have the freedom to express views more
disadvanatges of structured inverviews
practical
- time and sample size. can be time consuming and limit about of people who can be researched
- training needs to be more through and need to be more qualifies so will be more expensive
theoretical
- reliability is none due to the fact its not standardiesed and each interview in unique
- could lack validity due to interviewer bias or demand characteristics making answers void and null
example of a study that improved validity of interviews
- becker used aggression, disbelief, and ‘playing dumb’ as ways of extracting sensitive info from Chicago schoolteachers
what is a participant observation?
the researcher takes part in an event or everyday life of the groups in question
what is a non-particpant obersvation
the researcher just observes and doesnt get involved
issues with participant observations on the researcher
- acceptantce into the group may be hard due to the issue of gaining trust. (gang leader for the day study by Venkatesh was achieved as he had an acquaintance on the inside)
- going rogue is a possibility which means the researcher may become biased due to becoming over-involved with said group
- getting out is easier than getting in but it can still be hard to adjust back to normal life and loyalty to be group may prevent them from disclosing everything they have learnt
advantage of overt observations
- avoids ethical issue of obtaining information through deceit and when studying deviant groups joining in with them
- allows the researcher to ask the naive but important questions that only an outsider could get away with
- can take notes openly and not miss anything
disadvanatges on overt obs
- a group may refuse the researcher permission
- risk of Hawthrone effect
ethical issues with covert observation
- immoral to deceive people. no informed consent
- may have to participate in immoral or illegal activities to make them seem legit
practical issues with covert obersvations
cant write notes down in real time relying on memory makes the data less valid
practical advantages to participant observation
- may be the only viable method to research deviant groups especially gangs
- can build a rapport
theoretical advantages to participant observations
- validity. observing people allows rich qualitive data that provides an insight to their true selves and how they live
- researchers can gain verstein or ;empathy towards groups by putting themselves in their shoes which can be helpful to gain different viewpoints and understanding of how different social groups function giving uniquely valid data
practical disadvantages to participant observations
- time consuming
- personally stressfull and demanding is covert
- requires observational and interpretational skills
- age, gender and social class can restrict what groups can be studied
ethical issues with participant observation
- deceiving people to obtain info is immoral
theoretical issues with partipant obs
- s,all sample size means the results are representative this doesn’t provide a sound basis for making generalizations
- very low reliability due to the fact that social groups vary massively. participate obs depends so much on personal skills of a lone researcher that its hard to replicate
- positivists argue it lacks validity due to the fact that its so subjective rather than telling it ‘as it truly is’
what are the two main sources of secondary data
official statistics
documents
what are the practical issues with official stats
as they are collected by the governemnt there may be no statistics available on a specific topic that. sociologists are looking at. durkehim couldn’t find any relevant stats on religion and suicide because that info wasn’t important to the state
practical advantages on official stats
they are a free source of huge amounts of data saving sociologists time and money
theoretical advantages of using official statistics
- most official sats cover a large number of people, the census covers a whole population, providing a very representative sample for sociologists to use and analyse
- reliable as they completed in a standardised way by trained staff
theoretical disadvantages of using offical stats
- lack of validity due tot he ‘dark figure’ of statistics. police stats don’t record all crimes or over report working class crimes, education stats don’t record all racists incidents in school
- may not be reliable as memebrs of the public may fill out form incorrectly
why do positivsts like stats
people like durkheim see stats as valuabe sources of research because they are ‘socal facts’ and use these stats to test their hypothesis
why to interprestivists hate stats
people such as atkinson regard offical stats as lacking validity as they don’t always represent the real world.
ex. suicide stats arent the real picture, only the amount of coroners who ruled deaths as suicide
what are the three different types of documents
- public documents: produced by governemts, schools, businesses etc.
- personal documents: letters, diaries, photo albums and biographies
(thomas and znanieki used 764 letters to explore experiences of polish immigrants to the USA) - historical documents: anything from the past
according to john scott what criteria are needed for evaluating documents
- authenticity: is the document what it claims to be, is there any gaps? ed the so called ‘hiteler diaries’ were later proven fakes
- credibility: was the author sincere? thomas and knaniecki’s letters could have contained lies about how good the us was to justify their decision
- representativeness: if the evidence in the document is a-typical its not safe to generalise from it. ex thomas and znanecki’s letter were only by the literate immigrants
- meaning- doesn’t it need to be translates or have meanings of words changed over time
what are the advantages of using documents?
- personal documetns enable research to get close to the individuals reality giving rich detailed qualitative datte (interpretivist)
- only way to study the past
- cheap
- may offer a check on primary research results
