Sociology Paper 2 Research Methods

Question 1

What is Validity?

Answer 1

How accurate your research is to social reality including the population, time period and other situations. Preferred by interpretivists

Question 2

What is reliability?

Answer 2

Research findings are consistant and can be repeated, important to positivists as it generates quantitative data

Question 3

What is representativeness?

Answer 3

Is the research a fair reflection of the target population

Question 4

What is generalisability?

Answer 4

Can research be applied to the wider target population

Question 5

What is positivism and interpretivism?

Answer 5

Positivism is the belief that humans exist outside of social structures and therefore thoughts and beliefs are made by these structures, humans beings are controlled like puppets.

Interpretivism is the belief that humans are not treated like objects, they are aware of their choices and their behaviour is not determined by social structures

Question 6

What is value freedom or objectivity?

Answer 6

Research should be free of opinions, political views and personal prejudices.

Question 7

What is quantitative data and qualitative data?

Answer 7

Quantitative data is data that is usually in numerical form, it is put into charts and graphs where it is used to establish links of human behaviour.

Question 8

What is qualitative data?

Answer 8

Data that is put into words, preferred by interpretivists and it is usually collected through unstructured interviews

Question 8

What is qualitative data?

Answer 8

Data that is put into words, preferred by interpretivists and it is usually collected through unstructured interviews

Question 9

What is verstehen?

Answer 9

Empathising with the participant by viewing them from their own POV

Question 10

What is reflexivity

Answer 10

How the researcher reflects on their actions and how it would affect their research.

Question 11

What is researcher imposition?

Answer 11

When the researcher imposes their ideas, opinions and values onto the participant

Question 12

What is operationalisation?

Answer 12

Breaking down terms so they can easily be understood and consistantly measured

Question 13

What is a gatekeeper?

Answer 13

Someone who controls access of information being studied

Question 14

What is secondary data statistics?

Answer 14

Official statistics collected by the government e.g. ONS statistics and CENSUS

Question 15

What is a longitudinal survey?

Answer 15

Survey that studies people over a long period of time

Question 16

What is an ethnography?

Answer 16

Writing about the way of living in a certain culture or social group

Question 17

What is a focus group interview?

Answer 17

Getting a group to discuss an issue rather than a question

Question 18

What is mixed methods and pluralism?

Answer 18

Using multiple methods to collect data

Question 19

What is triangulation?

Answer 19

Using multiple research methods to check validity of findings.

Question 20

What are the advantages and disadvantages of questionairres?

Answer 20

+ Easy to use, collect data easily, less time consuming, confidentiality friendly, good for representiveness

• Leading questions, vocab may not be understood, poor return rate, low in validity therefore not preferred by interpretivists

Question 21

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Structured Interviews?

Answer 21

+ Generates quantitative data, easy to explain and use, better response rate

• Investigator effects, demand characteristics, social desirability, participants give false answers, no elaboration, researcher imposition problems

Question 22

What are the advantages and disadvantages of an ethnography?

Answer 22

+ Preferred by interpretivists, Promotes verstehen

• Investigator effects, poor reliability and hard to generalise to other things

Question 23

What are the advantages and disadvantages of unstructured interviews?

Answer 23

+Preferred by interpretivists, generates trust, less interview bias, rich in validity

• May leave out certain information, can not put into graphs and tables, less representiveness therefore difficult to generalise to a bigger group, expensive and time consuming

Question 24

What are the advantages and disadvantages of observations?

Answer 24

+ can promote objectivity, good for validity if done naturally, preferred by interpretivists as it promotes verstehen,

• Behaviour may be imitated if they know the observer is there, problems with objectivity, observation may be dangerous, expensive and time consuming, lacks reliability and representativeness