Research methods

How does time and money affect the type of research carried out?

bigger research projects are more expensive but can be quicker as multiple people can be hired to process the information but small scale cheap ones may take a long time

How can the requirements of funding bodies affect the type of research carried out?

they may require certain information certain formats so the research must fit those requirements

How can personal skills and characteristics affect the type of research ?

they will have to choose a method which fits with their skills best

How does subject matter affect the type of research ?

methods should be appropriate for the subjects and topic that is being studied

How does research opportunity affect the type of research ?

opportunities may arise quickly and so the normal preparation may not happen so the method may have to fit with that

How does doing research on vulnerable groups affect the research?

these groups will need to be protected

What are the problems with conducting covert research?

unethical to deceive or lie to gain trust or information but may be justified in certain circumstances

What is representativeness?

whether the sample of participants are representative to the target population

What are the two research methodologies?

positivists and interpretivists

What is the positivists research methodology?

believe that structures of society shape up and that using quantitative data we can identify the patterns of society

What research methods would positivists use?

questionnaires,structured interviews, experiments and stats

Which perspectives subscribe to the positivist view?

marxists and functionalists

What is the interpretivists view on research?

believe that we give meanings to things through interactions and that qualitative data will allow us to understand meanings

What kinds of research do interpretivists prefer?

participants observation,unstructured interviews and personal documents

Who would subscribe to the interpretivists view?

interactionists

How does perspective of the sociologist influence the topic of research?

they will research what will go with their perspective e.g. feminists may research about domestic violence

How does societies values influence research topics?

the biggest sociological issues will be what is researched most

How may practical factors influence research topics?

some things may not be possible to research as that information is kept secret

How do funding bodies influence research topics?

they choose what to put money into and so can decide on what topics are researched

What is triangulation?

studying a topics using multiple methods from multiple viewpoints

What is a hypothesis?

possible explanation that can be tested by collected evidence

What do you do if you find that your hypothesis is false?

discard it and move on and use what you have learned to try to do more research

What is the advantage of a hypothesis?

it gives a focus and direction for your research

What are the disadvantage of hypothesis?

it may limit your research to one topic

Which group prefers hypothesis’ ? Why?

positivists as they want to find cause and effect relationships

What is an aim?

A general statement of what is being research and what they hope to achieve

What is the advantage of an aim?

is more general you are more free to research whatever seems interesting or noteworthy

Which group prefers having an aim? Why?

interpretivists they focus on the individual experience

What is operationalisation?

converting a concept into something we can measure

Why do we need operationalisation?

allows us to correlate information and test our hypothesis

Why may operationalisation cause problems?

sociologists may operationalise variables differently making it difficult to compare research

Why do interpretivists avoid operationalisation?

they want to see what meanings their actors give to words not provide their own meanings

What is a sample?

smaller sub-group drawn from a wider population that you want to study

What is the purpose of sampling?

as we cannot study the entire population we must take a smaller representative group

Why do positivists like samples?

it allows them to make general and law like statements about the group

What is quota sampling?

giving each interviewer a quota of people with certain characteristics to meet

Why may it not be possible to use representative sampling?

social characteristics of the research population are unknown,difficult or impossible to find/create sampling frame,potential respondents may not want to participate

What is snowball sampling?

starting with a few people who can then contact others who they know to take part in the study

In which situations may people use snowball sampling?

when the research population is very secretive or difficult to contact

What is the problem with opportunity sampling and snowball sampling?

they don’t produce representative samples

Why do interpretivists not care about having a representative sample?

they want valid data which will help them understand those people they are studying and don’t want to make generalisations

What is a case study?

a detailed examination of a single case or individual

What is the key limitation of case studies?

they are not representative and cannot be generalised

What are the 4 main uses of case studies?

suggests a hypothesis,provides a detailed insight,study exceptional cases, illustrate general points in quantative studies

What is essential for generalisable findings?

representative samples

What are the 5 main groups to study in education?

pupils,teachers,parents,classrooms and schools

What did Hill (2005) identify as difficulties with researching pupils?

power and status, ability and understanding, vulnerability

Why does power and status make it difficult to study pupils?

may be difficult to get children to openly state attitudes and views,

How may the power imbalance between teachers and students affect research?

the teachers could select students who reflect well on the school

Which methods of research may be better for studying students?

informal methods such as group interviews

Why do formal methods of research reinforce power imbalances when studying students?

they allow researcher to control questions asked and how the students answer

What may influence how teachers respond to the researchers?

their relationships with the teachers and authority

What is more likely to be limited in children making it more difficult to carry out research ?

vocab, self-expression ,confidence and thinking skills

What needs to be done to make sure that children can understand the questions?

words used in the question

Why may it be difficult to gain informed consent from children?

not mature enough to understand to consent

What consideration are needed to be made to research children?

they may need more time to understand the question and answer, may struggle to recall relevant detail

What may affect the answers children give?

class, age and ethnicity

What needs to be considered when considering researching children?

whether they it is absolutely necessary

What are children more vulnerable to ?

physical and psychological damage

What information cannot be kept unless absolutely necessary?

personal data

What are ‘gatekeepers’?

people who control access to children

What makes it more difficult to get access to children?

having more gatekeepers

What act was responsible for creating DBS checks?

safeguarding vulnerable groups act of 2006

Who has special codes of practice for researching children?

UNICEF, Barnardo’s and national children’s bureau

Why can organising children be easier than adults?

they have to be in school in certain times

What do Barnardo’s stress is the most important things when researching children?

informed consent

When does special care have to be taken when researching certain groups?

special needs children

What may limit the amount of research that can be done on teachers?

they are often overworked limiting the amount of time that can be taken on research

Why may reseachers need to find a cover to research teachers?

they may not welcome research into their classroom

Why may having a cover not provide an accurate representation of teachers?

the covers often have lower status than the teachers so they may treat them differently

What did Goffman (1969) find about teachers?

they can manage the impressions of students, researchers ect.

What will reseachers have to do to accurately research teachers?

they will have to find a way to find the ‘back stage’ person

Where may a researcher go to find ‘back stage’ environment?

staffroom

What is the problem with ‘backstage’ environments?

a new person may be treated with suspicion

Why may teachers not answer questions truthfully?

any negative comments may not damage their career

Which methods are best to study teachers?

observational methods

How may headteachers influence research?

they may choose teachers that will reflect well on them

Why are classrooms a unique social setting?

they are a closed social setting with physical and social boundaries

Why may the classroom not reflect how those peple actually feel?

it is highly controlled and surveyed and teachers and pupils are experienced in hiding their feeling and thoughts

Why are classrooms easy to observe?

they have around 30 people and two social roles

Why are classrooms difficult to access?

they have lots of gatekeepers

What may affect how students respond to being studied?

their peer groups, insecurities and peer pressure

Why do students need to be supervised when answering questionnaires?

peers may influence their answers

What may group interviews be influenced by ?

the dominant attitudes of the peer group

What is the experimental group?

the group where you change the variables

What is the control group?

the group when you don’t change the variables

Why are lab experiments highly reliable?

steps are precisely recorded so it can be repeated exactly, bias cannot affect the results as the researcher only manipulates variables and records results

Why do positivists use lab experiments?

they allow for them to establish cause and effect, it is reliable, conditions are controlled and easier to replicate

What is the problem with studying lab experiments?

It is impossible or unethical to control all variables,may not be generalisable

What are the practical problems of lab experiments?

cannot identify and control all variables,cannot be used to study the past, only use small samples making them un representitive

What is the problem with studying children and people with learning difficulties?

it is difficult to get informed consent

Which researcher deceived his participants?

Milgram (1974)

Which researcher cause his participants harm?

Milgram who caused psychological and physical harm with his experiment

How did Milgram justify his experiments?

they warned people about the dangerous of obedience and 74% of the participants said they learned something

What is the Hawthorne effect?

when people act how they think the researcher wants them to act which makes the research invalid

How was the Hawthorne effect discovered?

researcher Mayo found that the workers in a factory performed better no matter what he did suggesting that they were just acting how they thought he wanted them to

What is the problem with free will in research?

interpretivists argue that humans can’t be explained by cause and effect and so lab experiments aren’t suitable

What is the comparative method?

a though experiment where a sociologist where they identify two groups that are alike in most ways apart from the variable you are investigating then compare to see if the variable has any effect

What is an example of a thought experiment?

Durkheim study of suicides

What was Durkheim’s study of suicide?

a comparative experiment where he compared Catholics and protestant to see which group had higher rates of suicide