Topic 1 Quantitative Research Methods

Define an Interview.

A meeting or discussion, where one person asks questions to one or more people in order to extract information or perspectives.

What are the 3 main types of interviews?

• Structured interviews

• Semi-structured interviews

• Unstructured interviews

Define structured interviews.

Set list of questions that is not deviated from. Pre planned and fixed

Define a semi-structured interview

List of questions, interviewers are free to add extra questions or leave out questions

Define unstructured interviews.

No pre-set questions, free flowing conversation. Researcher would have some themes to work with, discussion could go anywhere

Define group interviews.

• Also known as focus groups

• Interviewees sit together to respond to questions. They interact and influence eachother tesponses, members of groups can raise questions

What are 5 practical advantages of structured interviews.

• Quick and cheap. Young and willmott complete 933 interviews on families in east london

• Gather straightforward factual information

• Easily quantified as closed ended questions

• Training interviewers is straightforward

• High response rate. Young and Willmott only 54/987 refused.

What are 3 practical disadvantages of structured interviews

• Inflexible

• Need to have prior knowledge

• Only a snapshot of one moment of time

What are 3 theoretical advantages of structures interviews?

• Standardised measuring instrument, reliable

• Easy to replicate, ‘recipe’ pre-coded

• Representative, large data set and high response rates.

What are 3 theoretical disadvantages of structured interviews?

• Only those with time to be interviewees may be unrepresentative

• Feminists argue structured interviews distort womens’ experience

• Higher risk of misunderstanding

What are 3 key studies that use interviews?

• Labov- Academic Ignorance and Black intelligence. Black students spoke more freely when interviewed by black researcher than white

• Gerwitz- Used interviews to indetify 3 types of parents

• Willis- Learning to Labour.

Define secondary data.

Refers to data that is already available to the sociologist as opposed to primary data which they produce themselves

Explain secondary data and what it may include.

• May include official statistics and documents

• Official stats are quantitative data gathered by governments or other official bodies. Could be about births deaths marriage

• Documents are any written text such as personal diaries government reports medical record

What are 3 key features of official statistics?

• Pre-exisiting

• Produce quantitative data by government bodies

• Used for policy making

What are 4 practical advantages of official statistics?

• Low cost, free resource

• High response rate. State has power to compel people to respond, census refusal was only 5%

• Little time, easy to access

• Identify trends and patterns overtime

What are some practical disadvantages of official statistics (4)

• Subject matter, gov has didferent definitions to sociologists and definitions change overtime

• Lack of depth of detail

• Miscalculations

• No access to private data