research methods :(

Question 1

what are positivists

Answer 1

see society as shaping the individual and social facts shape individual action. social sciences should therefore use “scientific” techniques to uncover the laws that govern societies just as scientists have discovered the laws that govern the physical world

Question 2

what methods do positivists use

Answer 2

prefer quantative methods such as structured questionnaires and official statistics as they have good reliability and representativeness. gets an overview of society as a whole uncovers social trends, such as the relationship between educational achievement and social class

Question 3

whats an example of positivist research

Answer 3

Durkehims’ study of suicide used official statistics and other quantitative data to analyse why the suicide rate varied from country to country

Question 4

what are interpretivists

Answer 4

individuals are intricate and complex and arent puppets who react to external forces. people experience and understand objective reality in different ways, therefore scientific methods arent appropriate as they rely on stats that are socially constructed (scientific sociology)

Question 5

what methods do interpretivists use

Answer 5

qualitative methods such as unstructured interviews or participant observation. in order to understand human action we need to achieve ‘Verstehen‘, or empathetic understanding – we need to see the world through the eyes of the actors doing the acting

Question 6

whats an example of interpretivist research

Answer 6

Paul Wills’ Learning to Labour aimed to understand the world from the point of view of the participants with participant observation

Question 7

whats primary data

Answer 7

first-hand information collected by sociologists themselves for their own purposes.

Question 8

what are examples of primary data

Answer 8

social surveys, participant observation, experiments

Question 9

whats secondary data

Answer 9

information gathered by by someone else for their purposes which sociologists can then use.

Question 10

what are examples of secondary data

Answer 10

official statistics prod by government or documents

Question 11

whats quantitative data

Answer 11

any data that can be represented as numbers and statistics. often collected through structured interviews and questionnares

Question 12

whats one positive and one negative of quantitative data

Answer 12

more reliable however doesnt provide meaning behind behaviour

Question 13

whats qualitative data

Answer 13

non-numerical data that gives a feel to what something is like and give rich descriptions of people’s feelings and experiences. often collected through structured interviews or documents

Question 14

whats one positive and one negative of qualitative data

Answer 14

good when researching sensitive topics however its open for interpretation

Question 15

practical issues - time and money

Answer 15

qualitative data takes more time than quantitative, secondary is often quick and free to access unlike primary. e.g lone researcher doing a small scale project may be cheaper to carry out but take years to complete

Question 16

practical issues - requirements of funding bodies

Answer 16

research institutes, businesses organisations that provide funding may require results in a particular form e.g government department funding research into educational achievement may want pass rates and require quantitative data meaning researcher will have to use methods like questionnaires

Question 17

practical issues - personal skills and characteristics

Answer 17

sociologists may possess personal skills that can affect their ability of using certain methods e.g participant information requiring ability to mix with others as well as good observation skills

Question 18

practical issues - subject matter

Answer 18

may be harder to study a specific group or subject by one method than another e.g may be hard for male sociologist to study all-female group with participant observation, or questionnare for those who cant read/write

Question 19

practical issues - research oppurtunity

Answer 19

sometimes oppurtunity to carry out research occurs unexpectedly and so may be impossible to use certain methods e.g glasgow gang leader gave a sociologist oppurtunity to spend time with the gang unexpectedly, giving him no choice but to use participant observation

Question 20

ethical issues - informed consent

Answer 20

research participants should be offered the right to refuse to be invovled and made aware of all aspects of the research

Question 21

ethical issues - confidentiality and privacy

Answer 21

researchers should keep identity of the participants secret to avoid possible negative effects. their privacy should also be respected and information kept confidential

Question 22

ethical issues - harm to research participants

Answer 22

protection from harm - physical or psychological harm e.g sensitive topics such as domestic violence

Question 23

theoretial issues - reliability

Answer 23

ability to replicate research to get similar results is important to positivists as it’s a feature of scientific inquiry

Question 24

theoretial issues - validity

Answer 24

how closely a research study mirrors the natural settings of people’s real experiences - interpretivists prefer validity and insight they gain from methods that find out about people’s first-hand experiences

Question 25

theoretial issues - representativeness

Answer 25

is the research meant to represent society as a whole so it can be applied to other areas of the population - positivists have large scale findings whereas interpretivists concerned with interpreting the viewpoints of individuals in society

Question 26

what are two advantages of self completed questionnares

Answer 26

t - higher chance of being representative
p - able to survey a large amount of areas

Question 27

wat are two disadvantages of self completed questionnares

Answer 27

t - validity? people may lie or give desired answers
t - low response rate which may distort data

Question 28

whats an example of a self completed questionnare study

Answer 28

callender and jackson - researched w/c attituedes about debt and how this influenced decisions abt going to uni
positivists - able to study large group and collect numerical data but low response rate