Research Methods

Question 1

What is primary data?

Answer 1

Collected first hand by sociologists

Question 2

What is secondary data?

Answer 2

Information used by sociologists that has been collected by someone else

Question 3

What is quantitive data?

Answer 3

Information in numerical form

Question 4

What is qualitative data?

Answer 4

Information in a written form goes more in depth

Question 5

What are the 3 factors that influence choice of methods?

Answer 5

Practical
Ethical
Theoretical

Question 6

What are practical factors?

Answer 6

Time and money
Funding bodies
Personal skills
Gaining access
Subject matter
Opportunity

Question 7

What are ethical factors?

Answer 7

Informed consent
Confidentiality
Participants
Vulnerable groups
Covert research

Question 8

What are theoretical factors?

Answer 8

Validity
Reliability
Representation

Question 9

What are positivists and their characteristics?

Answer 9

‘the scientists of sociology’
Scientific
Objective
Large scale
Reliability
Trends/patterns
Representative
Quantitative

Question 10

What are interoretivism and their characteristics?

Answer 10

‘the investigation journalists of sociology’
Non-scientific approach
Subjective
Validity
Verstehen
Qualitative

Question 11

What are the 8 primary methods?

Answer 11

Questionnaires
Laboratory
Field experiments
Structured interviews
Unstructured interviews
Group interviews
Participant observation
Non-participant observation

Question 12

What are the 4 secondary methods?

Answer 12

Official statistics
Documents
Content analysis
Sampling

Question 13

What are the 4 ways questionnaires happen?

Answer 13

Telephone
Email
Post
Face to face

Question 14

What is the study for questionnaires?

Answer 14

Census- Structured postal questionnaires sent by the government every 10 years to find out about the population and there is a legal requirement for each household to do it
Asks about income age and religion

Question 15

What is a laboratory experiment?

Answer 15

A test set in an artificial setting

Question 16

What is a study for laboratory experiment?

Answer 16

Milgram- Seeing if people would harm others when told to do so by a higher authority by increasing levels of electric shocks

Question 17

What are field experiments?

Answer 17

Set in a real life setting

Question 18

What is a study for field experiments?

Answer 18

Rosenthal and Jacobson- IQ tested pupils and told some that they were spurters and these made the most progress as the teachers labelled them positively

Question 19

What are structured interviews?

Answer 19

A set of standardised questions

Question 20

What is a study for structured interviews?

Answer 20

Young and Willmott- Used to research extended families in east London with questions asked with limited range and took between 10-30 mins

Question 21

What are unstructured interviews?

Answer 21

Set of unstandardised questions

Question 22

What is rapport?

Answer 22

Establishing a good relationship between interviewers or researcher and their subjects

Question 23

What is verstehen?

Answer 23

Gaining empathy and understanding through their research

Question 24

What is ‘going native’?

Answer 24

Becoming and relating to a group that is being researched

Question 25

What is the Hawthorne effect or social desirability?

Answer 25

Making your answers desirable to the researcher or acting like you think the researcher wants

Question 26

What is a study for unstructured interviews?

Answer 26

Dobash and Dobash- Used statistics from police court records to find information on domestic violence victims which took 8 hours because they were in depth and found that marriage legitimates violence against women and men having authority

Question 27

What is the study for group interviews?

Answer 27

Willis-Wanted to know what impact their WC backgrounds had on educational progress and encouraged respondents to talk

Question 28

What is peer group pressure?

Answer 28

Participants may change their answers in order to fit in with the group

Question 29

What does covert mean?

Answer 29

Where the participants do now know about the research- undercover

Question 30

What does overt mean?

Answer 30

Where the participants do know about the research- researcher open about it

Question 31

What is the study for covert participant observations?

Answer 31

Humphreys- Men who participated in sexual activity in public and asked to take part in market research and found that 14% were secretly gay and other in heterosexual relationships who wanted secret sex

Question 32

What is the study for overt participant observations?

Answer 32

Barker- studied a controversial religious sect so attended meetings workshops and activities and found no evidence of brainwashing

Question 33

What is the study for overt non-participant observation?

Answer 33

Willis

Question 34

What are official statistics?

Answer 34

Secondary source of data produced by the government

Question 35

What is the study for official statistics?

Answer 35

Durkheim- studied suicide and compared suicide rates based on marital status, children, area and gender

Question 36

What is a personal document?

Answer 36

Written by individual for own purposes

Question 37

What is a public document?

Answer 37

Accessible to public

Question 38

What is a historical document?

Answer 38

Personal/ personal documents produced in the past

Question 39

What is the study for documents?

Answer 39

Anne Frank- Deep insight into how people were treated during the holocaust

Question 40

What is the study for content analysis?

Answer 40

Cohen- How the media presented mods and rockers and they exaggerated events

Question 41

What is content analysis?

Answer 41

A tool for researchers to easily determine the presence of certain words, themes or concepts

Question 42

What is random sampling?

Answer 42

Each person has an equal chance of being selected Rosenthal and Jacobson

Question 43

What is stratified random sampling?

Answer 43

Sorting the individuals into groups by gender or age Crime survey

Question 44

What is volunteer sampling?

Answer 44

Individuals come forward to take part in the research Dobash and Dobash

Question 45

What is opportunity sampling?

Answer 45

/participants who are both accessible and willing to take part are targeted Griffin

Question 46

What is snowball sampling?

Answer 46

Where one participant refers the researcher to another potential participant so the sample gradually gets bigger Humphreys