strengths and weakneses of methods

Question 1

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of covert participant observations. Relate some issues to education.

Answer 1

Strengths
1. Practical - Cover observations will make it very easy to uncover real life behaviour this is because students wont know that they are being researched, this avoids the Hawthorne effect and means that behaviour that people may want to hide ie labelling from teachers or bullying can be uncovered. Less time consuming than other methods such as interviews as school environments are busy and hard to organise specifically around exam season and busy teachers.

2. Theoretical - Interpretivist would favour this method because it means that in depth knowledge can be obtained easily, social behaviour can be observed relating to how they vew education and can look at wider social factors such as responses to rqacism , labelling etc
3. Ethical-

Weakness
1. Practical issues- Because the observation is done covertly it means that the it will be difficult for the researcher to note down any findings this can lead to possible researcher bias and fails thus failing to provide a true valid picture.

2. Theoretical - positivist would argue that this method fails to gain reliability , which means that the research couldn’t be repeated and gain the same result
3. Ethical issues- this is because covert obs mislead teachers and students through deception. this is where the researcher pretends to be something/someone they aren’t to gain information about the person. There is a lack of informed consent which would make parents feel uncomfortable aswell as children. Issues regarding sensitivity.

Question 2

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of using non participant observations

Answer 2

Strengths
1. Practical- Less time consuming than using participant observations this is because participant observation re quires researcher skills whereas non participant does not. This makes it easier to observe students and teachers. Its naturalistic this is because the researcher is observing students in a natural setting such as the classroom this makes it more effective in observing there natural behaviour.

2. Theoretical- interpretivists would argue that this method is high in validity because it reflects reality and allows a true picture of teachers/students/parents to be observed, positivist would also favour this over participant observations because the researcher can be detached from the researcher there is a lack of rapport and verstehen being obtained because this method is value free.
3. Ethical-

Weakness
1.. P- TIME CONSUMING- this is because the research takes place in a school which can be difficult to organise because of the busy nature of education specifically around exams. Access- its hard to access all social settings in education such as the staffroom , meetings with parents , teachers meetings where they discuss at risk students, marginalised students whom may join subcultures they reject authority. this means that a true picture cant be painted of education sice so much is restricted because of the gatekeepers.

2. T- produces qualitative data which is in the form of recordings of the researchers findings. Positivist would argue that this means that there is a lack of cause and effect/ trends are correlations that are being made. This make it hard to compare the affects of labelling/ educational achievement/ bullying/subcultures on a national level. Lacks reliability and objectivity . Also fails to provide good verstehen this is because there’s no interaction with students which means they cannot gain a good understanding or get into the heads of the subjects
3. E- some information that may be heard may be sensitive and this is specifically an issue in education where working with young people/ children

Question 3

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of using statistics in education

Answer 3

Strengths
1. P- Accessibility- stats are easy to acess which means that it avoids extensive costs and makes it less rime consuming to compare grades/behaviour/ parental attitudes on a wider level

2. E- lack of ethical concerns this makes it a useful and effective method for studying in education where there are young people and children. there is a lack of deception and no need for informed consent.
3. T-

Weaknesses
1. P

2. E
3. T