Research Methods

Question 1

What methods are used to gather primary data?

Answer 1

Social surveys
Participant observation
Experiments

Question 2

What is secondary data?

Answer 2

Information that has been collected or created by someone else.

Question 3

What sources are used for secondary data?

Answer 3

Official statistics

Documents

Question 4

What is quantitative data?

Answer 4

Information that is refers to in a numerical form.

Question 5

What is qualitative data?

Answer 5

Information that gives a feel for what something is like.

Question 6

How can quantitative data collected?

Answer 6

Opinion polls
Questionnaires
Structured interviews
Official statistics

Question 7

How can qualitative data collected?

Answer 7

Participant observation
Unstructured interviews
Letters
Newspaper articles

Question 8

What practical issues influence a researchers choice of method?

Answer 8

Time and money
Requirements of funding bodies
Personal skills and characteristics 
Subject matter
Research opportunity

Question 9

What ethical issues influence a researchers choice of methods?

Answer 9

Informed consent 
Confidentiality and privacy
Harm to research participants 
Vulnerable groups
Covert research- (secret)

Question 10

What theoretical issues influence a researchers choice of methods?

Answer 10

Validity
Reliability
Representativeness
Methodological Perspective
Conclusion

Question 11

What is triangulation?

Answer 11

Using 2 or more sources or methods to obtain a more rounded picture by studying the same thing from several view points.

Question 12

What are the 4 process’s of research?

Answer 12

Formulating an aim or hypothesis
Operationalising concepts
The pilot study
Samples and sampling

Question 13

What is operationalising concepts?

Answer 13

Turning concepts into working definitions.

Question 14

What is a pilot study?

Answer 14

Trial run of draft version of questionnaire or interview

Question 15

What is sampling?

Answer 15

The process of creating or selecting a sample.

Question 16

What is the purpose of sampling?

Answer 16

To ensure the people who have been chosen to include are representative or typical of the research population.

Question 17

What is a sampling frame?

Answer 17

A list of all the members of the population we are interested in studying.

Question 18

When is a reserve sample used?

Answer 18

If someone is unavailable so they are replaced by someone from the reserve sample.

Question 19

What are the four different sampling techniques?

Answer 19

Random sampling-Names out of a hat

Quasi random sampling- Every 10th or 100th name on the list.

Stratified random sampling- First Stratifying the population (into eg boys and girls) then random sampling from each so total is representative of the whole.

Quota Sampling- Similar to stratified sampling but researchers go out to to find the right number of each sort of person required.

Question 20

If not possible to create a representative sample what do sociologists use?

Answer 20

Snowball samples

Opportunity samples.

Question 21

What is snowball sampling?

Answer 21

Collecting a sample by contacting a number of key individuals, who are asked to suggest others who might be interviewed and so on adding to the sample snowball fashion until enough data has been collected.

Question 22

What is opportunity sampling?

Answer 22

Choosing from individuals who are easiest to access. Examples include selecting from passers by in the street or from a captive audience such as a class of pupils.

Question 23

What is a disadvantage of both snowball sampling and opportunity sampling?

Answer 23

Both aren’t very representative.

Question 24

What is good about snowball sampling?

Answer 24

It is a useful way to contact a sample of people who might otherwise be difficult to find and persuade to take part. Such as criminals.

Question 25

What is primary data?

Answer 25

Information that is created by the sociologist themselves.

Question 26

What methods do positivist sociologists like to use and why?

Answer 26

Quantitative methods as they are reliable.

Question 27

What methods do interpretivist sociologists like and why?

Answer 27

Qualitative methods that are valid.

Question 28

What do positivist sociologists want to identify?

Answer 28

They want to identify the underlying causes of people’s behaviour.

Question 29

What do interpretivist sociologists want to understand?

Answer 29

They want to understand how people give meaning to the social world around them.

Question 30

What is a positivist sociologists assumption on society?

Answer 30

They assume that society has an objective factual reality-it exists ‘out there’, just like the physical world.

Society exerts an influence over its members, systematically shaping their behaviour patterns.

Positivists research uses quantitative data to uncover and measure these patterns of behaviour.

Question 31

What is a interpretivist sociologist assumption on society?

Answer 31

Interpretivist a reject the idea of an objective social reality-we construct reality through the meanings we create in our interactions with others.

Our actions are based on meaning we give to situations, not the product of external forces.

Interpetivists research uses qualitative data to uncover and describe the social actors ‘universe of meaning’.

Question 32

What are the advantages of a questionnaire?

Answer 32

Practical advantages- Quick and cheap
Reliability- Results are likely to be the same if repeated. 
Hypothesis testing
Detachment and Objectivity- Unbiased
Representativeness
Ethical issues- Fewer ethical problems

Question 33

What are the disadvantages of a questionnaire?

Answer 33

Practical problems
Response rate
Inflexibility
Questionnaires as snapshots 
Detachment
Lying,forgetting,right-answering
Imposing the researchers meaning