Reserach Methods Flashcards
Primary data
Info collected by sociologists themselves for their own purposes
Secondary data
Info that has been collected or created by someone else for their own purposes, but which the sociologist can then use
Quantitative data
Info in a numerical form
Qualitative data
Info in a letter form
Practice issue examples
Time and money
Requirements of funding bodies
Personal skills and characteristics
Subject matter
Research opportunities
Ethical issue examples
Informed consent
Confidentiality and privacy
Harm to research participants
Vulnerable groups
Covert research
Theoretical issue examples
Validity
Reliability
Representativeness
Methodological perspective
What does PERVERT stand for?
Practical
Ethical
Representative
Validity
Examples
Reliability
Theoretical
What do positivists favour?
Quantitative data
Scientific law
Prove hypothesis
Seek reliability and representativeness
What do interpretivist’s favour?
Qualitative data
Uncover the meaning that people give to their interactions
Seek validity through verstenen (emotional/empathetic understanding)
Random sampling
Simplest technique, where the sample is selected purely by chance
Systematic sampling
Where every nth person in the sampling frame is selected
Stratified random sampling
The researcher first stratifies the pop in the sampling frame by age, class, gender, etc
Quota sampling
Pop is stratified and then each interviewer is given a quota which they have to fill with respondents that fit these characteristics
Triangulation
When sociologists use two or more methods or sources to obtain a more rounded picture by studying the same thing from more than one viewpoint
How could a sociologists experience of education alter their research?
It can dull their awareness of just how different educational environments are from other social settings
The sociologist would have also had to have been successful in education which may make it difficult for them to empathise with students in an underachieving, anti-school subculture
What is a lab experiment
An experiment taken place in a laboratory where they can control the experiment
What was the aim of Bandura’s ‘Bobo Doll Experiment’?
To investigate if social behaviours can be acquired by observation and imitation. This is called social learning
What was the hypothesis of the Bobo Doll experiment?
The boys would be more aggressive then the girls
Children were more likely to copy adults of their gender
Children would act aggressively if they saw an adult act in that way
What was the method used in the bobo doll experiment?
There were 36 boys and 36 girls aged 3-6
24 children were exposed to aggressive adult behaviour, 24 were exposed to non-aggressive adult behaviour and 24 were the control group and were not exposed to any adult role models
What is a practical issue of lab experiments?
Can only study small samples
People may act differently as a lab is not a natural setting which can affect the results
What are the ethical problems of lab experiments?
Lack of informed consent
Deception
Harm
Hawthorn effect
Labs are not natural or normal environments, meaning people may behave differently. This will ruin the experiment, which depends on the subjects responding to the variables that the researcher introduces into the situation, not the fact that they are being observed
Field experiments
Conducted in a natural setting as opposed to the artificial environment created in lab experiments
What is Rosenhan’s 1973 ‘pseudo-patient’ experiment?
8 ‘pseudo-patient’ presented themselves at institutions across the country with the same symptoms, they reported hearing voices that said, “thud, empty, hollow”
They were all admitted and diagnosed with serious mental health disorders
The ‘pseudo-patient’ spent between 7 and 52 days in psychiatric institutions; not one hospital staff member identified the participants as fake patients
Comparative method
Involves comparing two or more similar societies or groups which are similar in some respects but varied in others, and looking for correlations. This can be across time and place. There are no research participants as such, it is a ‘thought experiement’
What is an example of a lab experiment used to investigate education?
Harvey and Slatin examined whether teachers had preconceived ideas about pupils in different social classes
They shows 96 teachers 18 photos of children from different social backgrounds and the teachers were asked to rate the students on performance, parental attitudes to education, etc
W/c children were rated less favourably, especially by more experienced teachers
Example of a field experiment used to investigate education
Rosenthal and Jacobson’s sputters experiment
Practical strengths of questionnaires
Quick and cheap so can gather large amounts of data
Data easy to quantify
No researchers needed
Practice limitations of questionnaires
Tend to be limited and superficial
Has to be brief so people will do it
Ethical strengths of questionnaires
Pose fewer ethics, problems
With sensitive questions, respondents are usually not obligated to answer
Ethical limitations of questionnaires
May not be completely confidential of personal details
Strengths of questionnaires for positivists
Reliable
Generalisable
Representative
Produces quantitative data
Limitations of questionnaires for interpretivists
Fail to maintain validity
How reliable are questionnaires?
There is no researcher present to influence the respondents answer
Can be repeated easily
However the answers are not always correct
How representative are questionnaires?
Can collect into from a large number of people, the results stand a better chance of being truly representative of the wider population
Postal questionnaires can receive small samples because people cannot be bothered to post them back
How valid are questionnaires?
Detached and objective as no personal involvement with researcher
You can’t know if the return questionnaire was actually completed by the person to whom it was addressed
You can’t guarantee that the potential respondent had actually received the questionnaire
Structured interviews
Interviewer is given strict instructions on how to ask the questions
They are conducted in the same standardised way each time
Unstructured interviews
Like a guided conversation
Interviewer has complete freedom to vary the questions, their wording, order, etc from one interview to the next
Semi structured interviews
Each interview has the same set of questions in common, but the interviewer can also probe for more info
Group interviews
Focus on discussions where participants can throw ideas around the group and stimulate each others thinking which produces richer and more reflective data
Strengths of structured interviews
Training interviewers is straightforward and cheap
Suitable for gathering factual info
Results easily quantified
Limitations of structured interviews
Closed ended questions restrict interviewees
Interviewers have little freedom to explain questions
Strengths of unstructured questionnaires
Interviewer can develop a rapport with interviewee
Good for researching sensitive topics
Limitations of unstructured interviews
Time consuming
Smaller sample size
Less likely to be representative of wider population
What are the advantages of interviewing students to investigate education?
Access and response rate- if researcher can get support for the study then students can be released from lessons which will increase the response rate
What are the disadvantages of interviewing students to investigate education?
Young people may not want to talk and may not understand questions
Contents of the interviews could be easily spread throughout the school
Unethical if students feel unsettled
What did Patrick use participant observation to study?
Used a covert study to study a violent and delinquent teenage Glasgow gang
Patrick didn’t carry a weapon or engage in fights with rivals
Patrick left Glasgow quickly when the violence became too unacceptable for him and he felt threatened
Overt observation
The researchers makes their true identity and purpose known to those being studied
Covert observation
The study is carried out ‘under cover’. The researchers real identity and purpose are kept concealed from the group being studied
What are the three problems of conducting a participant observation?
Getting in
Staying in
Getting out
Practical advantages of participant observation
Sociologist can build a rapport with the group and gain their trust
Practical disadvantages of participant observation
Time consuming
Researcher needs to be trained
Ethical disadvantages of participant observation
You have to deceive people in order to obtain info about them
May have to participate in illegal or immoral activities
Official stats
Any set if data collected by the government or other official body
Practical strengths of official stats
Free source of huge amounts of data
Stats allow comparisons between groups
Show trends and patterns over time
Practical limitations of official stats
Gov. collects stats for its own purpose and not for the benefit of sociologists, so there may be nine available for the benefit of the sociologist
The definitions that the state uses in collecting the data may be different from those that sociologists would use
What are documents?
Sources with non-statistical content. They can be contemporary or historical
Public documents
Produced by organisations such as gov. departments, schools, welfare agencies, businesses and charities
Personal documents
Include items such as letters, diaries, photo albums, and autobiographies. These are first person accounts of social events and personal experiences
Historical documents
A public or personal document created in the past
What are the four potential limitations which might undermine the usefulness of documents according to Scott?
Authenticity
Credibility
Representativeness
Meaning
Content analysis
A method used to analyse qualitative data. It allows the researcher to take qualitative data and turn it into quantitive data
What are the practical issues with using official stats to investigate education?
Govs collect stats for their own policy purposes and these may not be the same as the sociologists
Are official stats representative when used to investigate education?
Some official stats on education are highly representative
All state schools complete a census 3x a year- this collects info on pupils attendance, ethnicity, gender, numbers receiving school meals, etc
Are official stats reliable when being used to investigate education?
Positivists favour official stats because their reliability means that they can be used to test and re-test hypotheses and thus discover cause and effect relationships
Are official stats valid when used to investigate education?
Interpretivists question the validity of official stats. They argue that stats are socially constructed
Schools may manipulate their attendance figures by redefining their absence members as being on study leave it additional work experience
What are the practical issues with using documents to investigate education?
Personal documents are mote difficult ti access- Hey made use of notes girls passed to each other in class to understand their friendship patterns. However, the notes weren’t always easy to obtain
Some educational documents are confidential so sociologists may be unable to gain access to them
What are the ethical issues with using documents to investigate education?
There are more ethical problems over public documents
Hey collected notes that girls had passed to each other:
Some offered the notes freely
Some were collected from desks after the lesson
In one case a teacher took them from the bin and offered them to Hey
In this case she didn’t gain informed consent
Are documents representative when being used to investigate education?
Some official documents are legally required if all schools and colleges so it is more likely that we can form a representative picture of certain incidents in schools across the country
Personal documents are less representative
Are documents reliable when being used to investigate education?
Many public documents are produced in a systematic format which enables researchers to make direct comparisons
Are documents valid when being used to investigate education?
Documents can provide important insights into the meanings held by teachers and students and can therefore be high in validity
However all documents are open to different interpretation
