Stages of research Flashcards
What factors influence the choice of research for a sociologist?
- Gaining money from funding bodies (governments, charities and universities) to fulfill their priorities and agendas
- Building up existing research especially if it is limiting to gain insight into the real social world beyond objective insights into patterns and aspects of human behavior
- The researcher’s theoretical perspectives
- Current events such as in the 1970s with focus in feminist movements as women entered education and the workforce
- The extent of power of the research subject justifying the limited research on headteachers and in closed institutions as access is required through a gatekeeper
- Cost as sociologists may choose questionnaires, group or structured interviews and secondary data as it is low-cost, time efficient and easy to gain data from a large group of people
How did surveys by Townsend (1979) and the Breadline Britain (1990) influence the social policies of the labor government?
To reveal the extent of poverty however it was somewhat disregarded by the conservative government as the research findings and ideology didn’t align
What are aims?
They state the overall purpose and goal of the research through a focus social group to understand their experiences identifying challenges and inequalities and there are usually up to 3
What is a hypothesis?
It is a scientific, testable statement that predict a correlation or cause and effect relationship between two or more variables often based on pre-existing material making it informed and less likely to repeat what has already been studied. positivists often start with it as they approach research in a scientific manner
What is a directional hypothesis?
Predicting the specific relationship between variables
What is a non - directional hypothesis?
Simply stating there will be a relationship without specifying a direction
What are research questions?
They guide the investigation by breaking down the aim into more 5 - 6 specific questions to focus their data collection and analysis
What is primary data?
Data that is collected by the sociologist from the community themselves gaining a deeper understanding of the social phenomena through surveys, interviews, observations, field experiments (real-world setting) and labatory (in a controlled environment to control other variables to make the research focused) in order to test the influence of variables
What are the benefits of primary data?
- It is extremely relevant to the needs to the research
- The researcher has control ensuring quality and accuracy
- It is original as it hasn’t been interpreted and analysed by others
- It is easily repeatable
- More up to date
What are the limitations of primary data?
- It can be time consuming and expensive for the both the researcher and the government
- Potential for subjectivity as the researcher’s values and beliefs can influence the project
- They may look for data that fits within the hypothesis
- The sample needs to be large in order for it to be credible
What is secondary data?
Data that is pre-existing as it has been collected by others or produced by another person or organisation for other purposes which is ready to be analysed and interpreted as they are published or written down such as official government statistics, previous research, mass media reports from newspapers, magazines and online content and historical primary documents
What are the benefits of secondary data?
- It is less expensive and time-consuming
- Provides access to large datasets allowing for analysis of broad social trends
- There is a large variety that is freely available for the researcher
What are the limitations of secondary data?
- May not be relevant for the needs of the research
- There may be biases and inaccuracies as the researcher has no control how it is collected
- Outdated
- Official statistics may reflect the biases of those who are in power
- Comparisons may be difficult as the way things are measure could change over time
- May lack authenticity because of the effects of aging
- The documents may not be representative of the wider population
- The secondary research may reveal a one-sided perspective which may act as a echo-chamber for the researcher
What is operationalisation?
It is the process of turning a concept defined in the research aim/hypothesis into something that can be consistently measured and quantifiable such as turning social class into 8 measurable NS-SEC categories
How can operationalisation be evaluated?
- It ensures a shared understanding of the concept through standardised questions as it is a concept rather than a fact allowing for it to e measurable through consistency
- Positivists require it as it assists reliability as responses can be replicated
- It aids objectivity as potential biases are removed
- It can lead to the oversimplification of a concept as its meaning is broken down
- The choice of indications are subjected to the researcher’s own perspective
What are pilot studies?
There are small-scale studies given to a few participants in order to reveal potential problems such as ambiguous questions tainted with bias, technical difficulties, ethical concerns, questions that can lead to upset, a lack of representative sample
and if the interviewers are well-trained. This makes sure that that data collected is required so edits through the research methods can be made ensuring efficient and effective data collection to improve time and resources to fit the criteria of the research
What is data collection?
It involves the active process of carrying out research such as delivering questionnaires, interviews or observations in both qualitative (written data) and quantative (statistics) form
What are potential issues with data collection?
- Creating a representative sample
- Access through gatekeepers
- Ethical guidelines
- Systems to accurately and organise data such as standarised forms, audio recoding interviews or detailed field notes during observations
- The availability of time and resources
- Maintaining objectivity through reliable data
- Observers bias where the observer finds evidence that fits their hypothesis
- Conformation bias through seeking information that confirms rather than contradicts their beliefs
- Cultural sensitivity
- Political pressure
What is respondent validation?
It involves the researcher gaining feedback on the study from a sample of participants as they have access to findings which they can confirm, clarify or challenge. Findings are shown in a clear and accessible way for participants through limited jargon, experts from interviews , transcripts or notes and sharing drafts of findings. Participants can ask open ended questions about their experiences increasing a sense of trust as they are provided with a voice as it is based on the knowledge that the researcher comes from a different social background as is ill-equipped
What is the evaluation of respondent validation?
- It improves the validity of a project as analysis can be refined
- It is only done on a small scale to improve time and resources but the extent of validity is limited as a result
What are longitudinal studies?
A way that a study is carried out by gathering data over a long period of time with the same group of people meaning that participant’s answers are not damaged by memory loss because time is not a limiting factor
What is the national child development study?
It explored changes in children’s behaviour and attitudes from 40,000 children born in one week in march who are influenced by class, education and family
What is Citizen 2000?
It was a channel 4 documentary that followed a group of children in 1982 until they reached the age of 18 in 2000
What is the British household panel survey?
It ran from 1991-2009 that collected annual data from a sample of households on employment, health and family relationships
What are the benefits of longitudinal studies?
- It allows the tracking of causes and consequences of change over time
- It produced qualitative and valid data focuses on verstehen
- Allows the exploration of social factors as it may differ based on participants born in the same year for example
- Allows hypothesis to be modified as the impact of long-term influences become clearer
What are the limitations of longitudinal studies?
- Significant investment of time and resources
- Changes may only be significant to the research population limiting generalisability
- Participants may drop out or die or the researcher may lose track of them (rate of attrition) undermining the representativeness of the original sample
- Objectivity is hard to maintain due to long-term connections
- It is expensive
- The original sample may bias the results as the work out the intentions of the project
- The original research team may change or lose sight of original goals
What is data interpretation?
It is the process of analysing the collected data from the research to draw conclusions in order to answer the research questions. This is done through finding patterns, trends and relationships between variables. The data is first checked for mistakes, incomplete responses and categorising data depending on its type. Qualitative can be analyses through the narrative to understand their experiences and perspectives. However it can be limited due to subjectivity forcing them to be reflexive about their own role in the research process
Why do positivists find it important?
It should e carried out objectively and data should not be selected just to support the hypothesis. They seek out identifiable and graphical patterns and trends
Why do interpretivists find it important?
They seek out themes and categorising through coding segments of the text such as quotes compared to patterns and trends through reflexivity and respondent validation
What is the relationship between sociology and social policy?
- Social policy refers to attempts by governments to influence how society is organised and how member of society should behave which may have immediate or more gradual effect
- Sociologists can be seen as merely to collect evidence for social policy makers with no concern how the data is used as they lack a moral responsibility
- But, they should take responsibility of how the findings are translated because society is characterised by a conflict of interests between
different social groups - It can help understand the nature and extent of social problems, the effectiveness of existing policies, the potential consequences of new policies and the impact of stereotypes
