Research Methods

Question 1

What is stratified sampling ?

Answer 1

Where the sample frame represents your chosen group of participants. If you want to research doctors than 8% have to be Asian as 8% of doctors are Asian.

Question 2

What is random sampling?

Answer 2

If you need this explaining to you just give up revising now

Question 3

What is systematic sampling?

Answer 3

Picking every Nth person on a list.

Question 4

What is snowball sampling?

Answer 4

Where participants are asked to recruit other participants in order to accumulate a larger sample size quickly.

Question 5

What is quote sampling?

Answer 5

Where the researcher is told to have the sample fit a certain quote EG, of 90 people 30 must be double-amputee hill billies.

Question 6

What are the two main ways in which surveys are carried out?

Answer 6

Questionnaires and structured interviews

Question 7

How can a structured interview yield more valid results than a questionnaire? What is the downside of this however?

Answer 7

Having the interviewer present means questions can be clarified if the respondent is unsure. However this is more time consuming and expensive.

Question 8

How can the validity of a structured interview be affected on a theoretical level by the differences between the interviewer and the respondent?

Answer 8

The respondent may change their answers depending on the age, ethnicity, or gender of the interviewer. For example somebody with more conservative views on women and the home may not feel comfortable expressing that to a female interviewer.

Question 9

How does interviewer skill effect the validity of interviews?

Answer 9

The nuanced facial expressions or tone of an interviewer may affect the answers of a respondent and therefore the experiment is less repeatable.

Question 10

Which interview type is more reliable ?

Answer 10

Structured

Question 11

Why do positivists have a preference for questionnaires?

Answer 11

The data is detached from the researcher and therefore more objective and valid.

Question 12

How representative are questionnaires?

Answer 12

Depending on the sampling questionnaires have the potential to be extremely representative as they can be issued to large amounts of people and you control who answers the questions.

Question 13

What are some practical advantages to questionnaires?

Answer 13

Cheap and quick

Question 14

Ethical advantages to questionnaires?

Answer 14

Informed consent is obvious
Relatively unintrusive

Question 15

What is the imposition problem?

Answer 15

As the researcher choose what questions are on the questionnaire they dictate what is important and not the respondent.

Question 16

How do interpretivists use the detached nature of questionnaires to critique it’s validity?

Answer 16

They argue that the lack of close contact between the respondent and the researcher means you cannot guarantee the respondent is interpreting questions correctly.

Question 17

What is one issue with questionnaires based on the credibility of the respondents?

Answer 17

They could lie

Question 18

Why do all self completion questionnaires suffer from the same issue of representativeness?

Answer 18

A certain demographic is likely to respond.

Question 19

What is a practical concern for questionnaires?

Answer 19

Relatively superficial data as they are brief answers

Question 20

When it comes to experiments what is crucial for obtaining objective knowledge?

Answer 20

That the independent variable is the only thing that changes.

Question 21

Which is more reliable lab or field experiments?

Answer 21

Lab

Question 22

Why are experiments not particularly well suited to sociological research?

Answer 22

Labs don’t accurate portray society. Field experiments are difficult to control and therefore don’t produce the most valid of data.

Question 23

What is a practical factor that limits experiments as a research type?

Answer 23

Sociologists often aim to study large groups, too large to be incorporated into one study.

Question 24

Why are human’s and the ways in which they interact with society difficult to control with in an experiment?

Answer 24

Emotions

Question 25

What are longitudinal studies?

Answer 25

When data is collected at specific intervals overtime to illustrate a change.

Question 26

What is sample attrition and why is it particularly related to longitudinal studies?

Answer 26

Sample attrition is when you lose members of your sample. This is more applicable to longitudinal studies as they are more demanding.

Question 27

What are some practical concerns over longitudinal studies?

Answer 27

Time consuming
Expensive
Continuity of researcher

Question 28

What is a participant observation?

Answer 28

When the researcher joins their target group for a sustained period of time to observe their behaviour.

Question 29

What are the two types of participant observation?

Answer 29

Overt –> They know they are being researched
Covert –> Undercover observation

Question 30

What is a practical advantage to covert observations?

Answer 30

Allows access to deviant groups that may be difficult to access otherwise.

Question 31

What is a significant theoretical advantage to both forms of participant observation?

Answer 31

Validity - as you can see what the group does instead of just hearing them say what they might do. Actions speak louder than words.

Question 32

What are three factors of participant observations that increase validity?

Answer 32

–> You can see what people do instead of just trusting their word.
–> It’s a natural environment not one created for observation.
–> Easier to gain significant depth of analysis and research.

Question 33

What German phrase can be applied to participant observations?

Answer 33

Verstehen

Question 34

Why are participant observations much more flexible than other forms of research such as questionaries?

Answer 34

For a questionnaire you ave to have ideas you want to research before hand in order to form questions. Observations are more open.

Question 35

What is one ethical advantage to participant observations?

Answer 35

It’s client led. This avoids the master-client relationship interpretivists argue develops in many forms of quantitative research.

Question 36

Why are participant observations unreliable?

Answer 36

They are very dependant on researcher skill.

Question 37

What is a theoretical disadvantage to participant observations and it’s sampling?

Answer 37

Small sample size and thus small representativeness.

Question 38

What is a theoretical disadvantage to participant observations?

Answer 38

Hawthorne effect.