Research Methods (facts, started on questionnaires then stopped)

Question 1

What acronym is used and what do the letters stand for?

Answer 1

P - practicality
E - ethical
R - reliability
V - validity
E - examples
R - representative
T - theoretical

Question 2

What are the benefits of lab experiments?

Answer 2

• completely reliable
• very detached method
• scientist’s personal feelings and opinions have no effect on the conduct of the outcome
• positivists like it as they see it as being an objective way to conduct research

Question 3

What are the disadvantages of lab experiments?

Answer 3

• society is very complex and it would be impossible to identify/ control all the variable that might impact our behaviour
• small scale so reduces their representativeness
• many sociologists see labs as artificial environments that would produce artificial results
• if people know they are being studied, this would change their behaviour ie. Hawthorn Effect

Question 4

Why are field experiments more likely to be used?

Answer 4

• take place in subject’s nature surroundings
• make research more valid and realistic
• avoid the Hawthorne Effect by ensuring they’re not aware they’re in an experiment

Question 5

What are the disadvantages of field experiments?

Answer 5

• unethical

- they’re more realistic but there’s less scope for control over variables

Question 6

How does the comparative method differ from the other experiments?

Answer 6

• it is a ‘thought experiment’ and doesn’t involve investigating people at all

Question 7

What are the benefits of the comparative method?

Answer 7

• ethical
• avoids artificiality
• can be used to study past events

Question 8

What are the disadvantages of the comparative method?

Answer 8

• gives researcher even less control over variables

- can be even less certain whether this method has really discovered cause of something

Question 9

What are the practical advantages of questionnaires?

Answer 9

• quick and cheap way of gaining large amounts of data from a large sample, even if geographically dispersed
• no need to recruit and train interviewers/ observers to collect data
• data is easy to quantify, particularly with closed questions

Question 10

What are the reliability advantages of questionnaires?

Answer 10

• standardised and fixed that can be used by any researcher, respondents are given identical instructions, can be easily repeated
• no researcher present to potentially influence answers
• one researcher’s study can be easily repeated and checked and comparisons can be made

Question 11

What are the hypothesis testing advantages of questionnaires?

Answer 11

• particularly useful testing hypotheses about cause and effect
• take a scientific approach so attractive to positivists

Question 12

What are the detachment and objectivity advantages of questionnaires?

Answer 12

• detached and objective

- sociologist’s personal involvement is kept to a minimum (especially with online and postal questionnaires)

Question 13

What are the representativeness advantages of questionnaires?

Answer 13

• collect information from a large sample of people
• researchers who used questionnaires are more likely to try to obtain a representative sample, allowing findings to be generalised

Question 14

What are the ethical advantages of questionnaires?

Answer 14

• respondents are under no obligation to answer

- anonymity is guaranteed