Research Methods- Research Design

Question 1

How does specialist skills influence sociologists when choosing a research methods?

Answer 1

Sociologists often specialise in different fields of the subject and may choose a topic they have knowledge and expertise about

Question 2

What influences a sociologist when choosing what to research?

Answer 2

• Experience and knowledge
• Topics they find enjoyable and interesting
• Topics popular in sociology at the time
• Research that could help develop solutions to social problems
• May feel that a particular issue is ignored

Question 3

What are sources of funding?

Answer 3

Charities, industry, government and government agencies

Question 4

What is a gatekeeper?

Answer 4

The organisation which funds the research and has the final say in choice of topic, way research is conducted, and whether a topic is worth researching

Question 5

What decides if a topic is viable?

Answer 5

Potential subjects must give their cooperation in the study

Question 6

How does a study improve employability?

Answer 6

Interesting, original or popular topics that are well researched have a better chance of having their work published which improves a researchers standing in academia

Question 7

How can a sociologist respond to another’s work?

Answer 7

Use research to prove they are right or wrong, or add something to the topic

Question 8

What is an important feature in any sociological report?

Answer 8

Reviewing and critiquing existing data and the researcher then analyses this to help clarify any issues around the subject

Question 9

What information does the researcher get from reviewing the field?

Answer 9

Useful information on types of methodology used in previous studies

Question 10

How does a researcher narrow down their research after choosing a broad topic area?

Answer 10

Coming up with a single research question that their researcher aims to answer

Question 11

What are the features of a good research question?

Answer 11

• Focuses on one part of the topic

- Clear and easy to research

Question 12

What does questions being value-free mean?

Answer 12

• Shouldn’t be biased

- Shouldn’t suggest potential social changes

Question 13

What is a hypothesis?

Answer 13

A statement that makes a prediction and acts as a starting point for research

Question 14

What does a hypothesis state?

Answer 14

A relationship between two factors

Question 15

What is operationalisation?

Answer 15

Measuring concepts by measuring something else that’s linked to the concept called an indicator

Question 16

When do researchers operationalise concepts?

Answer 16

Every time they conduct a piece of research because you can’t research something if you can’t measure it

Question 17

What happens once researchers have operationalised concepts?

Answer 17

They need to be able to justify how they operationalised their concept which is often a subjective process and may be criticised by other researchers

Question 18

What is triangulation?

Answer 18

When sociologists try to combine different methods or data to get the best out of all of them

Question 19

How does triangulation increase validity?

Answer 19

It gives a more detailed picture than when you only use one method

Question 20

What does triangulation allow you to do?

Answer 20

Check different sets of data against each other, and combine strengths and weaknesses of different types of data

Question 21

What issues does triangulation have?

Answer 21

Can be expensive and time-consuming, not always possible to use triangulation

Question 22

What is a pilot study?

Answer 22

A small-scale practice run of a study

Question 23

What is the purpose of a pilot study?

Answer 23

Allows you to test the accuracy of questions, check if there are any technical problems in research design, make study more valid and reliable, test how long research will take, train interviewers

Question 24

What are issues with pilot studies?

Answer 24

Can be time-consuming, expensive and create lots of work

Question 25

What are strengths of pilot studies?

Answer 25

Show that project is feasible and help secure research funding

Question 26

What do social surveys do?

Answer 26

Collect information about large target populations

Question 27

Who uses social surveys?

Answer 27

Positivists as a primary source of quantitative data

Question 28

What can data from social surveys be used for?

Answer 28

Data is analysed to discover overall patterns and trends

Question 29

Why are social survey used by government agencies and research companies?

Answer 29

They’re reliable

Question 30

Why do sociologists need a sample?

Answer 30

It’s too expensive and time-consuming to sample the whole target population

Question 31

What makes a sample representative?

Answer 31

If the characteristics of the sample reflect characteristics of the target population

Question 32

What is representativeness?

Answer 32

The extent to which a sample represents the target population

Question 33

When is it possible to make generalisations about the wider target population?

Answer 33

If the sample is sufficiently large and representative

Question 34

What is generalisability?

Answer 34

The extent to which you can generalise a sample to the wider population

Question 35

What is a sampling frame?

Answer 35

A complete list of the population being sampled which needs to be accurate, complete and without any duplicate entries

Question 36

Random sampling

Answer 36

Names are taken completely at random by a person or a computer so each member of the population has an equal chance of being selected

Question 37

Systematic sampling

Answer 37

Choosing a random starting point in the sampling frame and selecting every nth value

Question 38

Multi-stage sampling

Answer 38

Selecting a sample within another sample, often used to select samples for opinion polls to measure voting intention

Question 39

Stratified random sampling

Answer 39

Population is put into segments called ‘strata’ (groups based on age, gender etc) and then selected at random from within each segment

Question 40

Quota sampling

Answer 40

Like stratified random sampling but not random

Question 41

What are types of representative sampling?

Answer 41

Random sampling, systematic sampling, multi-stage sampling, stratified random sampling, quota sampling

Question 42

What are types of non-representative sampling?

Answer 42

Snowball sampling, purposive sampling, opportunity sampling

Question 43

Snowball sampling

Answer 43

Finding initial contacts and getting them to give you more names for your research

Question 44

Purposive sampling

Answer 44

When researchers select non-representative samples, often in order to falsify a hypothesis

Question 45

Opportunity sampling

Answer 45

Researchers use captive audiences and go to public areas and select people who are willing to participate