Research methods Flashcards
What are questionnaires?
It is compromised of a standarised set of written questions that result from operationalising a hypothesis. it is mostly used to gain a large quantity of quantative data from a large group of people without regard for geographical location as they can be self-completed through being distributed by post, person, newspapers or online. Since there is no researcher to explain or clarify the question, it must be asked in a clear and simple way and concepts fully operationalised that are free from bias or providing a loaded emotional response that undermines the validity. Open question tend to be avoided as it decreases the attention span of the participant so instead tick boxes, true/false or attitudinal scales are used
What are the benefits of questionnaires?
- Low-cost method
- Can be used on a large scale beyond geographical borders increasing the representativeness and generalisability
- Not a time-consuming method
- Anonymity and confidentiality can be ensured
- Limited researcher bias
- Allows an understanding of sensitive topics as people complete them in the comfort of their own home
- In the eyes of positivists, they are an objective and value-free tool which produces standardised quantative data that can be compared based on time and social group. Since there is minimised researcher bias, the results can be replicated
What are the limitations of questionnaires?
- Poor response rates that can undermine the representativeness as those who have responded are self-selected and may be more likely to have a special interest in the research reducing the validity as it is biased
-Limited in-depth responses - Participants may not want to engage in the research as they feel frustrated that the research design doesn’t allow them to elaborate on their feelings on emotions
- Misunderstanding the question
If it is about deviant activity, people may refuse to co-operate as they might be worried that information will be used against them - If it s a sensitive topic, participants may lie to improve social desirability
- Interpretivists believe they have low validity as quantative data is artificial measuring tool as trust and rapport is not gained with the participant and the close-ended questions reduce their ability to explain their answers reducing the ability to understand the participant’s social reality. This can be adapted to interpretivists through using qualitative methods alongside, open-ended questions, follow-up questions and pilot tests
What are structured interviews?
The research reads close-ended questions from an interview schedule and writing down usually their fixed choice of response. it is simply a questionnaire completed in person so there is not a chance to deviate from the questions or ask to clarify vague responses as it is usually quantative
What are the benefits of structured interviews?
- It is easy to ensure that the target population is interviewed
- The instructions and aims can be clearly defined to the participant reducing the potential for non-response
- Better response rates than questionnaires
- Scientific as the interview schedules are highly reliable
- Can be used on a large amount of people as the time it takes to complete them are reduced
- Allows for comparison between participants
- Positivists believes it has scientific qualities of reliability, objectivity an quantifiability reducing researcher bias and consistency for a comparison of patterns and trends. It can easily measure a hypothesis about social phenomena through data on specific variables and the relationship between them
What are the limitations of structured interviews?
- Interviewer bias as the participants may be influenced by the interviewer’s reaction making the results biased
- Expensive
- Inflexible
- Time-consuming
- Participants may play into the social desirability effect where their opinions, attributes and actions unconsciously change as they want to be viewed as socially desirable
- Gomm argues that it demands artificial responses shaped by how those being interviewed may interpret the researcher’s aims and motives either by pleasing them or being seen as socially desirable leading to undesirable activities being underreported
- Interpretivists believe the questions being asked are superficial and fails to achieve verstehen by only revealing evasive, partial or false information. This is also due to inflexibility by limiting follow up questions to understand why people behave as there is a gap between what they do in theory and in practice due to limited truth. This can be adapted through removing time constraints, encouraging long answers, interviewers can be trained to adapt to the individual and their responses, combine with qualitative methods and open-ended questions
What are statistics?
Official statistics are numerical quantative data gathered by the office for national statistics (ONS). Non-official statistics are collected by non-state organisations like charities and political groups to being attention to a social problem since they have invested interest. Both reveal patterns and trends in order to measure the extent of a social phenomena
What are the benefits of statistics?
- Easy and cheap for sociologists to access from government websites
- up to date
- If a sociologist uses it, there are limited ethical obstacles with limited connection between the researcher and participant ensuring privacy and confidentiality and limited exposure of harm
- Useful comparative value with different factors and/or over time to access the success and failure of a social policy
- ## Generalisable as proportionate sampling is used to reflect a large range of characteristics within society. This is valuable in the eyes of positivists as it produces social facts (Durkheim) as it scientific methodology through a representative sample allows statistical analysis on a macro-scale
What are the limitations of statistics?
- Data isn’t collected for the sociology project so it may not reflect the complexity of the social phenomena and the operationalisation of concepts may be different in the eyes of sociologists due to a lack of objectivity, political agendas and biases
- May be altered in order to spread political messages
- Trends could lack validity as methods and definitions may vary based on governments
- Interpretivists believe statistics are socially constructed y powerful state agencies as they choose what is recorded therefore revealing more about who collected information. They also believe they say little about the human experiences that underpin the statistics and this is only achieved in conjunction with qualitative methods to triangulate their findings to understand the complexity of the social reality
What is content analysis?
A quantative method to analyse media products by counting the frequency of certain words or images helping to identify patterns helping positivists to identify priorities and concerns of society in the given context. Counting helps to operationalise the researcher’s hypothesis such as understanding how women are presented. it can also produce qualitative data through the sociology focusing on the message and connotations, symbols create which is known as semiology
What are the benefits of content analysis?
- Cheap and large volumes of data can be collected
- It a longitudinal version of content analysis is used, media representations can be compared over time
- The study can be easily repeatable
- It is seen as reliable by positivists as the identification of patterns and trends can uncover biases. The clear coding system and objective criteria means their evidence can be cross-checked and verified by looking at the same media using the same categories
What are the limitations of content analysis?
- Time-consuming
- It assumes the media content always has an effect on the audience
- May only tell the sociologist the prejudices of the creator rather than the context of society
- It is subjective
- It doesn’t tell the researcher about how the media is interpreted or how it affects people, it is just assumed
- Interpretivists would prefer a semiological process that is more time-consuming to achieve for improved validity however it would only reveal how the researcher would perceive the media not all members of the audience
What are overt and covert observations?
The observer acknowledges who they are whilst covert is when the researcher pretends to be a member of the social group being observed leading to ethical challenges and dangerous situations if the group is deviant. These only apply to participant observation where the researcher immerse themselves into the lifestyles of the social group they want to understand helping them gain verstehen which is participant observation. Overt is often supplemented with interviews to cross-check results improving validity. Covert is often used in fear of producing artificial results as they often need a gatekeeper especially with an accountable group however it can be stressful for the researcher
What is non-observation?
Non-participant observation involves the interviewer recording behaviour and interaction from a distance that can be either covert or overt. It often involves an observation schedule with expected behaviours increasing reliability as it can be repeated however it is difficult to operationalise the schedule in the first place. They often produce quantative rather than qualitative data but it makes in-depth observation notes. Since it is detached, the research is more likely to be objective as the group are not influenced by the observer but it needs to e supported by other methods to understand why they behave the way they do
What are the benefits of observation?
- Verstehen improves the validity of the research
- The truth is more likely to be recorded as it records their practiced behaviours rather than just trusting what they say and do in interviews
- It can be supplemented with informal questions if overt
- Can create new ideas altering the direction of the project especially for interpretivists as they are reflexive
- First hand and not the product of what they think is important like in interviews
- Understand the priorities of the social group
- Since it is somewhat of a longitudinal study, the researcher can understand how attitudes ad behaviours change over time
- It is only method to reach hard-to-reach groups like gangs wither covert or with access through gatekeepers for support or a service
- The observer engages in reflexivity as they record their interactions in a dairy to access whether the behaviour is as a result of their presence which are later discussed in respondent validation
What are the practical limitations of observation?
- During overt observation, the participants may be aware they are observed creating artificial behaviour therefore a setting in period where no notes are taken is usually required
- Observation get too attached to the social groups creating bias by reducing objectivity
- In overt observation, taking notes can be off-putting whilst during covert, it can create suspicion and danger for the interviewer
- Lots of time, dedication and money are needed
- it is difficult to be accepted into the social group they are studying
- It lacks generalisability as the observer cannot study large numbers of people or the wide context in which the research is studied in
What are the ethical limitations of observation?
- Covert observation can be rejected as it involves misleading the consent/agency of the participant through abusing trust
- The researcher may be forced to engage in illegal activity to reinforce trust
- Dangerous as it led to the murder of Ken Pryce in Bristol where he observed organised drug crime in the Caribbean
- The researcher needs to consider whether their report will harm the reputation of the social group
What are the theoretical limitations of observation?
- Positivists question its reliability as the findings cannot be classified as true as it is impossible to repeat to verify the data
- It lacks representativeness as the social group is quite small so it is hard to generalise members of a similar group
- It lacks a controlled environment as it lacks objectivity through following the behaviour of the participant however this doesn’t apply to non-participant observation as there is a list of things to look for in the behaviour increasing reliability as it could be replicated
- The success of the research is exclusive to the social group
What are unstructured interviews?
It resembles an informal conversation with open-ended questions to foster spontaneity, flexibility and trust therefore it is used in qualitative research as individual experience can be explored. The researcher has topic focuses aligned with the hypothesis but no pre-determined questions or schedule instead the researcher is reflexive providing sympathetic questions that support the flow of the conversation. If successful, a participant would feel relaxes because the questions are natural allowing them to willingly volunteer richly detailed and qualitative information that a formal research context wouldn’t open up rather than exclusively sticking to topic areas
What are the benefits of unstructured interviews?
- Flexible method allows the researcher to focus on why people behave and think a certain way
- They learn as they go along from unexpected findings
- Good for interviewing sensitive groups because trust is built
- Trust is established making them feel like their contribution is valued encouraging them to open up further improving reliability
- Trust will reduce the impacts of the interviewer effect
- Valid data as it uses valid first-hand accounts
- Ethnographic as they are conducted in a naturalistic environment rather than a formal interview setting reducing perceived threats
- Interpretivists believe this method produces valid data as trust encourages the participant to open up achieving verstehen
What are the limitations of unstructured interviews?
- Time consuming and expensive
- People may feel restricted to not tell the truth because they are not aware they behave in certain ways
- Data is difficult to analyse and compare with other participants
- Not representative and sample sizes are small due to time constraints
- The interviewer needs specialised training through interpersonal skills
- Positivists believe it lacks reliability as there is limited standarised questions meaning it cannot be replicated as it is a product of the relationship between the researcher and the participant. This makes is subjective and the potential for bias as it is unreliable
What are semi-structured interviews?
This mostly consists of a core set of generally open ended questions which are asked to all participants and then based on these answers, follow up question can be asked making each interview unique. Participants can ask for clarification and develop their responses. The reliability has been questioned as some participants need more probing more than others so each interview is not comparable
What are the benefits of semi-structured interviews?
- Combines the strengths of structured and unstructured interviews
- In the yes of interpretivists, still allows the breath and depth of data
- Less time consuming than unstructured
- Reflexivity
- The conversational nature builds up trust
- Some patterns from answers can be compared
- Deeper understanding of the social phenomena than structured interviews
What are the limitations of semi-structured interviews?
Positivists believe it will still lack objectivity and reliability as each interview will be different. This can be adapted through training interviewers to balance structure with flexibility, ensuring they can adapt to individuals but retaining focus
What is ethnography?
It is an approach to research through a qualitative project focusses on providing detailed description of everyday life and practices of a group of people reflecting their social reality. This is often long-term to describe the characteristics of the social group making the data descriptive and difficult to analyse so it involves a degree of interpretation by the researcher leading to subconscious bias. Unstrucutred interviews and participant observation are examples of these
What are the benefits of ethnography?
- Detailed qualitative data
- Can challenge stereotypes and assumptions
What are the limitations of ethnography?
- Interviewer bias
- Ethnically challenging
- Time consuming
How do positivists view ethnography?
It should be objective to draw generalisable conclusions therefore would prioritise documenting their behaviour and practices to statically understand their social reality
How do interpretivists view ethnography?
Through their approach of understanding the meaning placed on behaviour and practices, they aim for detailed qualitative data on an individuals’ social reality
What are mixed methods?
It involves combing both quantative and qualitative methods for a more comprehensive view of the social phenomena as the strengths of both are emphasised
What is triangulation?
Hobson defines it as the use of more than one method of research in order to assess the validity of one’s methods and data produced. It involves first using quantative methods and then qualitative to enhance the validity of findings through accuracy as it improved the researcher’s understanding of the social phenomena
What is methodological pluralism?
The employment of more than one research method to build a more comprehensive picture of the social phenomena rather than validity. This is because the range of methods could limit the disadvantages of ones such as interviews provide
What are the limitations of mixed methods?
- Expensive
- Produces vast amounts of data that can be difficult to analyse
- The nature of the social phenomena will dictate which method(s) to use and automatically rule out others
- Time-consuming
- Certain methods are prioritised due to the limited skill set of the researcher
- Contradictory evidence can be found making it difficult to understand what evidence should be used
