Research Methods Flashcards
What practical issues might a researcher have to face?
Time
Research opportunity
Access
Money
Personality skills of research
What ethical issues might a researcher have to face?
Deception
Right to withdraw
Invasion of privacy
Protection with consent
What may be difficulties when researching pupils?
-Power and status
-Ability and Understanding (especially with wording of questions)
-Vulnerability and ethical issues (such as psychological harm)
-Laws and gatekeepers (limited access)
-Answers provided may be dishonest and invalid because they might be trying to look good and they may not be comfortable with the interviewer or researcher
What difficulties are there with researching teachers?
-Power and status
-Trying too hard to impress the researchers
What are the difficulties with researching classrooms?
-In a controlled setting (less natural environment)
-Teachers and pupils will try too hard to impress
-Gatekeepers (keeps access limited)
What are the difficulties with researching schools?
-Data will be confidential, so researchers may only have access to false data (e.g false attendance levels due to high levels of truancy)
-Law and gatekeepers
What are the difficulties with researching parents?
-Parents have to be willing to participate in the first place
-They may be hard to contact (limiting access)
-Some parents may have differing attitudes towards school (based on their social class)
-Parents may not understand questions worded in a complex way due to their ability and understanding (because of their culture/ethnicity, or their social class background)
-Parents will try too hard to impress researchers to make themselves look good
What are lab experiments and what are its advantages?
They are controlled experiments in an artificial environment:
-They’re reliable
-They’re a detached method, so researchers’ feelings won’t interfere with the experiment
-It identifies cause and effect relationships
What are disadvantages of lab experiments?
-Can only be used in closed artificial systems (therefore can’t study large-scale social issues and wider society)
- Informed consent would mean subjects are informed of all details of the experiment (can cause Hawthorne effect): subjects therefore have to be deceived
- Minor harm such as psychological harm can be caused, though this can be justified ethically if the results gained yield significant social benefits
What methods in context are there for lab experiments and what are their practical issues?
- Harvey and Slatin (1976) used photos to examine whether teachers had preconceived ideas about their students;
however they didn’t use real students (so any findings on stereotyping and labelling may be inaccurate)
-Charkin et al (1975) used 48 uni students to teach a 10yr old boy a lesson;
however they weren’t real teachers (so any findings on teacher-pupil interactions may not be useful when studying the effects of teacher-pupil interactions)
What are field experiments and what are their advantages?
These are experiments carried out in social settings:
-They avoid artificiality (unlike lab experiments)
-More natural and valid for real life
What are disadvantages of field experiments (especially in schools) ?
Practical issues:
-More time consuming
-Gatekeepers in schools and workplaces
-Less control over all variables, meaning there’s uncertainty as to whether we’ve found the true causes and effects or not
Ethical issues:
-Unethical as subjects won’t have informed consent most of the time
Theoretical issues:
-Not reliable
-May not be representative sometimes (so generalisations may not be made)
What are the two types of field experiments?
Actor tests: Involves physical people in the experiment
Correspondence tests: doesn’t involve real people but rather trying to analyse the relationship between independent and dependent variables
What method in context is there for field experiments and what are the disadvantages?
Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) where they gave students fake iq tests and told teachers they had identified 20% of students who were likely to overachieve because of the iq test (though they were chosen at random):
-Such an experiment can’t be conducted today because of gatekeepers and children having more rights
-The other 80% of students won’t have benefitted from this experiment
-Study isn’t replicable, therefore low in reliability
-Study isn’t accurate as it was claimed that teachers’ expectations influenced teacher-pupil interactions; though researchers didn’t observe classroom interactions
What is a comparative method and what are its advantages?
This is a thought experiment where sociologists use their mind and create theories:
-Doesn’t involve real people
-Avoids artificiality (unlike in lab experiments)
-Avoids ethical issues (such as harming/deceiving subjects)
-Positivists can interpret data and find patterns
