Types of Research Methods Flashcards
Observation - Definitions
Definition:- The observation research method where they watch people in a social situation and record what is said and done.
Overt observation: the people do know that they are being observed.
Covert observation: the people do not know that they are being observed.
Participant: the researcher will be involved in what is being observed.
Non-participant: the researcher may be involved and an active part in what is being a observed..
Practical assessment of observation
Advantages -
- Spending more time on research makes results more valid
- Going to different areas to generate more findings makes results more reliable
- Easiest method for approaching and understanding participants
Disadvantages -
- Gaining access is an issue
- Costly and time-consuming; takes a long time to get valid results and researchers and travel is expensive
Ethical assessment of observation
While conducting research you have to be mindful of the ethical issues which may arise, especially for observation. However, observation is a great way to get high validity in results, so it is common apon lots of sociologists. Observation is great because you can conduct research with low bias, as the participant is in their natural environment. However, if the observer is identified by the participant than validity can be compromised, this only happens if the observation is non-participant. In some cases ethical issues are obsolete as the research may not be in private places. Ethical issues are always taken into consideration as they can be violating of someone’s personal space or even against the law, some of these may include, homes, families and schools. Researchers can negate this by changing some of their ways of research from non-participant to participant observation. E.g It would be unethical to conduct research in a house of a domestic violence victim, so they would change it to an interview where they can observe how the participant talk, acts and their body language.
Theoretical assessment - participant and non-participant
Participant Observation -
A- This method is typically interpretivist; this is advantageous for achieving valid results, but it introduces issues with reliability due to the small and sometimes unique nature of the sample being studied
A- This is argued to be important in understanding people’s meanings, and thus helping us to understand society, and the most realistic way to do so is through this method
A -They utilise a qualitative approach, which is strong for asserting ‘verstehen’ and explaining quantitative data
D -However, there are issues with experimenter bias due to insertion into the environment, and internalisation of the norms of their situation and how this may clash with their values - risk of losing objectivity
D - Hard to repeat, and so may lack reliability (negative for positivists)
Non-participant observation;
A - This allows or avoidance of issues of bias by being in the community, but it does present issues of not being able to fully attach meaning to what is being observed and so provides less insight
A - More objectivity (positivists)
A - Avoids the Hawthorne effect of as participants do not know they are being observed
Theoretical Assessment - covert and overt
Covert observation -
A - Covert observation is high in validity, making it a very good method for interpretivists who prioritize this in their research
A - Because of the presence of the researcher, they can properly assign meanings to the behaviour shown; also, the researcher can detect behavior that may not be shown in a less realistic environment
D - However, notes have to be remembered - this can create bias or effect detail that could be provided
Overt observation -
D - Hawthorne effect is created, influencing the validity of the study
D - Not always representative
A - Positivist objective
A - Can gather detail needed without needing to use memory
A - Do not have to change sociological identity to fit the group
A - High in reliability
General strengths and weaknesses of observation
Strengths:
- it is less hypothetical as they are able to capture people’s actual actions, instead of having to image what may happen.
- It is the simplest and most common type of research
- There’s is greater accuracy because it means that they don’t have to examine how reliable and accurate the data gathered is because they are there to witness.
- It is a universal method for both physical and social sciences.
Weaknesses:
- Human bias since the observer is human so may be able to gage empathy or feel for the person/situation being observed.
- Some of the observations may not be open to observation; for example, specifically intimate or private occurrences.
- There is a lack of reliability because if the observations are overt as they may alter their actions in order to present themselves in particular ways for the observation.
- The investigation may be slow as some observations take longer periods of time due to validity.
- Observation can be expensive, such as travelling and equipment valid for each observation.
Surveys and Questionnaires - Types
Questionnaires are a list of questions that are distributed by sociologists to people taking part in research.
2 types: open-ended and closed questionnaires
- Open-ended questionnaires - less structured than closed questionnaires. Questions cannot be diverted.
- Closed questionnaires - those in which the respondent has to choose from a limited range of responses. Two of the most common types of closed questionnaire are yes and no, or scaled questionnaires. Where the respondent is asked to either strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree with a particular statement
How are Questionnaires Distributed?
- Mailed - post or email
- Face to face with researcher present
- Handed out to be returned
A social survey involves obtaining information standardised from large groups of people.
- The main survey methods are questionnaires and structured interviews.
- Surveys are carried out by a wide range of organisations such as government departments, schools and colleges, businesses and market research and consumer groups.
- A social survey goes deeper than a questionnaire and often involves more than one form of data collection
Surveys and Questionnaires - Sampling Methods
- Random Sampling - an unbiased way of selecting a sample where there is equal chance for everyone/ every part of the sample to be chosen
- Systematic Sampling - when a researcher selects every nth person on the sampling frame to be part of the sample. The nth number is selected by dividing the target population size (the number in the sampling frame) by the desired sample size.
- Stratified Sampling - the total population is divided into smaller groups or strata to complete the sampling process. The strata are formed based on some common characteristics in the population data.
- Quota Sampling - a type of non-probability sample in which the researcher selects people according to some fixed standard.
- Multistage Sampling - often used to collect data from a large, geographically spread group of people in national surveys.you draw a sample from a population using smaller and smaller groups (units) at each stage.
- Snowball Sampling - researchers generate a pool of participants through referrals made by individuals who share a particular characteristic of research interest with the target population.
Surveys and Questionnaires - Family and Education examples
Education - Willis, Learning to Labor
Family - Ann Oakley, Sociology of Housework
Surveys and Questionnaires - Advantages
Advantages - Closed questionnaires:
- Fairly quick to complete
- Produce standardised data
- Reliable as researchers can check findings and repeat research
Advantages - Open questionnaires
- More valid data - people say what they really mean
- More detail and depth - higher validity
- Imposition problem is less serious
Advantages - online questionnaires / self completion
- Relatively cheap, don’t need to pay interviewers
- Collects data from a large amount of people in a widespread geographical area - more practical
- No problem with interviewer bias / imposition
- People can reply at their leisure, not just when the interviewer is present, giving more accurate and in depth answers
- Sensitive, personal, embarrassing or stigmatised topics will have better response
Surveys and Questionnaires - Disadvantages
Closed questionnaires:
- Meaning of questions may not be clear to some respondents
- Imposition problem - risk that researcher is imposing their own views on the people being researched, and so it lacks validity
Open questionnaires:
- Variety of answers makes it difficult to quantify and classify results
- Meaning of answers are unclear to researcher
- Wide variety of answers makes it difficult to compare to other data
Self completion questionnaires -
- Not everyone will respond
- Not representative
- Lack of varied representation in responses as only those interested will reply
- People may not give valid truths due to confusion over questions - no interviewer present to prompt replies or explain
- No way of knowing whether the correct person completed the survey - someone else may have done it for them
Wider disadvantages -
- They can constraint or distort the way respondents answer = they may lack validity as participants can be influenced to respond in a desired matter (social desirability)
- Post/mail questionnaires = respondent could interpret the questions in a way that is not beneficial to the researcher / some people may be triggered by certain worded questions (e.g domestic violence)
- Not generalisable = if the sample groups are small they may not be representative of the whole population
Content Analysis
- Content analysis is a systematic research method used mainly to look into social life by interpreting both images alongside words, images and media, such as art, music, film and documents.
- This process focuses on human communication, allowing the researcher to analyse a piece of written material. This is done by ‘coding’ which breaks down the text into categories for analysis. Quantitative methods through counting, and collecting data mean that content analysis is a positivist research method.
Content Analysis - Practical advantages and disadvantages
Advantages -
- Finding correlations and patterns in how different concepts are conveyed
- Can provide historical insights over a period of time
- Qualitative data can be transformed into quantitative data to make things easier, such as statistical analysis
- This process is cheap
- If taking from secondary data, can be non-time consuming
Disadvantages -
- Depending on different people, bias can change the interpretation of different views
- Can be very time consuming
- Can not interpret any deeper meaning or explain reasons for any data patterns
- Artefacts can quickly become out of date and non- reliable
- If taking from primary data, can be very time consuming
Content Analysis - Ethical advantages and disadvantages
Advantages -
- They are easily available so others can easily access them
- It’s not disruptive to the people being analysed
- An effective ‘code’ means that all the data is analysed and viewed the same
Disadvantages -
- Bias becomes a big opportunity as content analysis involves interpreting data
- Can’t generalise artifacts from other cultures, as there becomes a risk of ethnocentrism
- The Original creators work who is analysed needs to be properly recognised. Risk of copyright, plagiarism
Content Analysis - Theoretical Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages -
- Based on words, images and sounds
- It’s cheap
- It’s reliable
Disadvantages -
- Researcher can misinterpret the context of the image, document or music.
- If the coding is inaccurate, the findings are invalid
- The initial coding can be time consuming since its crucial in establishing the categories to be analysed.
