Methods

AQA Sociology A Level Theory and methods

primary data

Collected first-hand by the researcher

secondary data

information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for another purpose

Quantitative data

numerical data

qualitative data

descriptive data (words)

questionnaire

A printed or written form used to obtain information from a respondent. (primary data)

Interviews

person-to-person conversations for the purpose of gathering information by means of questions posed to respondents (primary data)

Observation

the action or process of observing something or someone carefully or in order to gain information. (Primary data)

Experiments

Test your hypothesis. You may need to do this step more than once to see if the results are the same each time. (Primary data)

Official statistics

Existing sources of quantitative data compiled by government agencies such as the Home Office.

content analysis

a systematic analysis of the content rather than the structure of a communication, such as a written work, speech, or film

Positivism (Auguste Comte)

the application of the scientific approach to the social world

Reliability

consistency of measurement

Closed questions

Questions that can usually be answered with yes or no.

structured interview

a research procedure in which all participants are asked to answer the same questions

Social Facts (Durkheim)

Durkheim's term for a group's patterns of behavior. Sociology is the science of social facts, which are "things in themselves" not reducible to other orders of human life such as - and especially - the psychological.

interpretivist approach

views communication as creative, uncertain, and unpredictable, and thus rejects the idea that a single reality exists or can be discovered; researchers using this approach primarily seek to understand and describe communication experience

Social action theory

A way of viewing socialisation, emphasising social action

unstructured interview

involves asking probing questions to find out what the applicant is like

participant observation

a naturalistic observation in which the observer becomes a participant in the group being observed

Validity

True to life