Studied by 4 people
What issue are considered to be Practical Issues?
Time and Money
Research Opportunity
Requirements of Funding bodies
Personal skills and characteristics
What issues are considered to be Ethical factors?
Confidentiality and privacy
Harm to participants
Informed consent
Covert research
Subject matter
Vulnerable groups
Conset - regarding guardians or parents.
What do positivist sociologists prefer in research?
These types of sociologists prefer:
Reliability
Replicability
Generalisability
Representativeness
What do interpretivist sociologists prefer in research?
These types of sociologists prefer:
Validity
True to real life representation
In depth, qualitative data.
What type of research methods do Positivist sociologists prefer?
These types of sociologists prefer research methods such as:
Lab Experiments
Questionnaires
Official statistics
What type of research methods do Interpretivist sociologists prefer?
These sociologists prefer research methods such as:
Participant Observations
Interviews
Documents
Questionnaires
Field experiments.
Give a practical strength of using field experiments to investigate the effects of teachers’ labelling.
A strength is that it will be conducted in a natural setting, this means that the researcher will be able to truly see how teachers label their pupil. This means that the experiment is likely to be high in validity, as the true behaviour of the teacher can be seen. This is also because the teacher will not be able to lie about their behaviour as to whether or not they label their students, as they would be able to in a questionnaire, as their real be behaviour will be seen and assessed by a sociologist in person. This therefore raises the validity of the study even more.
Give a criticism of using field experiments to assess teachers’ labelling being high in validity.
A criticism of this is that teachers are able to ‘impression manage’ when they are being assesed by the sociologist in the field experiment. This is because teacjers are used to constantly changing their behaviour as they teach different groups of teachers who they behave differently with. Additionally, teachers are likely to impression manage as they are aware that if they are caught labelling their students, then this can possibly put their job at risk, which would therefore reduce the validity of the field experiment.
Additionally, the Hawthorne Effect may affect the way that the students behave in the experiment, as class rooms are deemd as closed systems, and the sociologist is a completely new person to the children who is not usually there. As a result of this, the children amy then behave differently to how they would usually behave, which only further reduces the validity of the field experiment.
Give a practical weakness of using field experiments to investigate the effects of teachers’ labelling.
A practical weakness is that the school is unlikely to grant access as is teachers are discovered to be labelling their students, and the research is published, then this can have a negative effect on the schools reputation. This will mean that the schools ranking on the league table will go down., and as a result the school will not get as many students applying and so the school will become worse off. Additionally, the school may also select a lesson for the sociologist to investigate for them, in an attempt for the school to leave a good impression on the sociologist. This means that the field experiment will be small scale and so will lack representativeness. This will then negatively affect the generalisability of the findings.
Additionally, time and money is an issue. This is because the schooln may require a full for DBS check for the sociologist to be allowed access into the school. This is likely to be expensive
No lesson is exactly the same and so it would be difficult to rpelicate the findings. This shows that there is a lack of reliability.
Give an ethical strength of using field experiments to investigate the effects of teachers’ labelling.
An ethical strength is that the sociologist may be able to debrief the pupils and the teachers at the end of the study, and then ask them if they consent to their data being kept in the study or not. This is an ethical strength because the sociologist gains retrospective consent from the teachers.
Give an ethical weakness of using field experiments to investigate the effects of teachers’ labelling.
An ethical weakness is that using field experiments may be largely unethical due to the harm that it could cause, mainly to the teachers. This is because if confidentiality is not integrated into the study when it is being published, then the name of the school and the teachers name will likely be included in the reesearch, which can then have negative repercussions on both the school and the teachers life.
Additionally, the sociologist will ultimately be coming into contact, and be working with, children who are legally considered a vulnerable group. This means that the sociologist will need to gain the consent of the childrens’ parents and/or guardians.
Give a practical strength of using questionnaires to investigate the role of parents in their childs achievement in school.
A practical strength is that with questionnaires, they are easy to create and reproduce. This means that the same questions can be created and sent to all parents in the UK in order to look at patterns and trends nationally in things such as support with homework or parents’ involvement in school. This means that questionnaires will be very reliable in investigating the role of parents, as the same questionnaire can be used now, and then again in 10 years to see the changes. This may also be used annually to see how things change overtime.
Additionally, questionnaires are cheap to produce and no training required, this means that there should be a representative sample due to the large amount of people that the questionnaire can be sent to.
Additionally, by sending the questionnaire directly to parents, they are more likely to be honest, than if the questionnaire was sent to the parents via the children. This then increases validity.
Give a criticism of using questionnaires to investigate the role of parnets in their childrens educational achievement being practical.
A criticism of using questionniares to investigate the role of parents in their childrens educational achievement being practical is that parents are often busy and therefore teh return rate may be low. This then negatively affects the generalisability of the findings.
Additionally, working class parents may be concerned about the school judging them for not playing a big enough role in their childs education, as working class parents are more likely to work multiple jobs, and so be less involved in their childs education. This may then result in working class parents deciding to not complete the questionnaire, or may lie on the questionnaire. This then negatively affects the validity of the findings.
Give a practical weakness of of using questionnaires to investigate the role of parents in their childrens educational achievement.
A weakness is that by completing the questionnaire at home, the parents may be more like to complete the questionnaire but by using ‘socially desirable answers, especially concerning questions about the number of hours they spend with their child on homework, and so not include the true answer. This then means that there will be an issue with validity in the findings.
Additionally, parents may be less likely to naswer the more open ended questions due to the fact that they are busy and so the extent to which external factors such as parents own academic knowledge supports their own child’s progress is not known. The concept of ‘role’ needs to be operationalised in the research study also.
Another weakness is that the questionnaires have been decided by the researcher and so the researcher is imposing their own meaning of ‘parents role on childs educational achievement’ and so is not considering the parents’ own meaning.
Give an ethical strength of using questionnaires to investigate the role of parents in their childrens educational achievement.
An ethical strength is that consent is instantly gained when the parent fills out the questionnaire, as it is not possible to fill out a questionnaire without consenting to do it in the first place.
Additionally, there is no interaction with the researcher which could possibly cause stress.
Anonymity is guaranteed as long as the name of the parent is not ask ed in the questionnaire.
Give an ethical weakness of using questionnaires to investigate the role of parents in their childrens educational achievement.
An ethical weakness is that the questionnaire could still be distressing for parents who feel the school or researcher is judging their involvement in their childs education.
Give a practical strength of using unstructured interviews to investigate the effect of streaming in schools.
A strength is that the sociologist can gain a rapport with the teacher of the pupil in order to gain a fuller understanding of why streaming occurs or how it affects them. This then has a positive effect on the validity of the findings.
Additionally, the soicologist will be able to gain an understanding from the pupils perspective vs the teachers perspective. This again increases the validity as the data produced is rich in detail.
Additionally, if interviewing the pupils, there is a chance that they may misunderstand the question, and so not give a satisfactory answer. However, since it is a face to face research method. The researcher has the opportunity to rephrase or explain the question to the child to allow them to understand the question, which then has a positive impact on validity.
Give a practical weakness of using unstructired interviews to investigate the effect of streaming in schools.
A practical weakness is that this is an incredibly time consuming method, as the researcher would need to provide the school with a DBS, which is expensive. Additionally, the interviews with the students would need to be analysed to then be turned into quantitative data which consume more time.
Additionally, the school is unlikely to provide the researchder access into the school anyway as if there is any negative finidngs that are found in the research concerning the school and how it streams pupils, then this will reflect badly on the school.
Give an ethical strength of using unstructured interviews to investigate the effect of streaming in schools.
An ethical strength of using the unstructured interview is that by doing it face to face, the researcher has the opportunity to remind the students and the teacher that they have the right to withdraw if they feel uncomfortable.
Give an ethical weakness of using unstructured interviews to investigate the effect of streaming in schools.
An ethical weakness of using an unstructured interview is that it is largeky unethical in the sense that streaming and sets can be a sensitive topic for the students that are in lower sets, and this can be embrassing for those students. Additionally, infomred consent may be an issue as due to the fact that the study is concerning school, the students may feel that they have to take part i the study, and so may agree to the study, even though they may not want to.
Give a practical strength of using structured interviews to investigatete the influence of the family on pupils’ education.
A practical strength of using this type of interview is time and money. This is a strength as structured interviews are seen as a good way to gather basic data in a short amount of time. There is less training required and less qualitative data to analyse. As a result, the researcher can ask the same questions to each parent in order to look at certain patterns and trends on issues such as parents’ education or language spoken at home. This then likely has a positive impact on the reliability of the findings.
Additionally, the intervew is done face to face, so there will be a much higher response rate than that of questionnaires, and the structured interview is less likely to cover any topics that may be deemed as sensitive topics, so more participants may feel as they can participate. This then has a positive effect on the generalisability of the research findings.
Give a practical weakness of using structured interviews to investigate the influence of the family on pupil’s education.
A practical weakness of this type of interview is that it is more structured than an unstructured interview and is only looking at the factual findings. This means that it would be hard to use this method to discuss more indepth topics such as child rearing techniques. This then has a negative impact on the validity of the findings.
Additionally, there is an element of researcher bias, as the researcher is the one who likely formed the questions, this means that there will be little room for the psrents to add what they may feel is important to the research.
Give an ethical strength of using structured interviews to investigate the influence of the family on pupil’s education.
An ethical strength of using this type of interview is that because the family of the student is being interviewed about how much they participate in the students education, it is less likely that the researcher will be working with vulnerable groups.
Additionally, because the interview is being done face to face, the researcher is able to remind the participants of their rights to withdraw if they please.
Give an ethical weakness of using structured interviews to investigate the influence of the family on pupil’s education.
An ethical weakness of using this type of interview is that there may be a power imbalance when conducting the interveiw with the family, due to the researcher having to be more formal with them. This is then likely to lead to the parents of the student feeling as though they are being judged by the researcher.
Give a practical strength of using group interviews to investigate the reasons for subject choice made by pupils.
A practical strength is that with the other types of interview, the researcher wouldn normally have the most power in the interview, however in a group interview with pupils, their friends may allow the children to feel more comfortable in the situation, and so be more honest about the reasons for their sucject choices. This then increases the validity of the findings.
Give a criticism of using group interviews to invesigate the reasons for subject choice made by pupils being practical.
A criticism of this is that because the interview is a group interview, and there will be more than one student participating in the interview at one time, there may be peer pressure between the students, and as a result, this then negatively impacts the validity of the findings.
Give a practical weakness of using group interviews to investigate the reasons for subject choices made by pupils.
A practical weakness of this type of interview is that although the pupils have to attend school full time, they do not have a lot of free time during the day so it may be difficult to find a time they can all participate in the interview. This then has a negative impact on the representativeness of the study, and so also affects the generalisability.
Additionally, the dynamic between the different pupils involved in the interviews will mean that each interview will not be the same, and will give different results. This then negatively affects the reliability of the findings.
Additionally, time and money is an issue as the interview may be difficult to record and analyse as the students may talk over each other. This can make carrying out an analysing the interview long and maybe even expensive.
Give an ethical strength of using group interviews to investigate the reasons for subject choices made by pupils.
An ethical strength of using this type of interview is that a group interview cannot be carried out covertly, and so this means that there is no deception.
Additionally, although the students are a vulnerable group, they may feel more comfortable when they are surround by the peers, and so this may be a form of protection from harm.
Give an ethical weakness of using group interviews to investigate the reasosn for subject choices made by pupils.
An ethical weakness of using this type of interview is informed consent. The students will still need to be reminded that they have the right to withdraw, and that they should mot feel pressured to take part in the study.
Give a practical strength of using participant observations to investigate pupil exclusions.
*This may be done as a COVERT participant observation, by ‘adopting an appropriate role’*
A practical strength is that by posing as a teaching assistant rather than a teacher, the pupils may be more off guard, and therefore behave more naturally. This would tne allow the researcher to see how pupils self-exclude and which pupils are doing this more often. This then has a positive impact on the validity of the findings. Additionally, may adopting the appropriate role, a rapport can be built with the children to make them be more at ease, which again increases validity.
Give a practical weakness of using participant observations to investigate pupil exclusions.
A practical weakness is that access to the school will be difficult to gain. This is because it would be incredibly difficult to get into the school covertly. There would be cost implications such as DBS chekcs and possibly even training courses to gain appropriate qualifications. This may be expensive, and so time and money is affected. Additionally, it would be difficult to take notes especially when there are pupils who are already mistrustful of the staff.
Give an ethical strength of using participant observations to investigate pupil exclusions.
Not many ethical strengths, not an ethical method.
Give an ethical weakness of using participant observations to investigate pupil exclusions.
An ethical weakness is that serious harm can be caused to pupils who may build a rapport with the researcher only for them to leave and have deceived them.
Additionally, the researcher will be working with students who are a vulnerable group and even more vulnerable pupils are likely to be excluded. There is risk to the researcher also, as the school may sue them for posing as a teaching assistant.
Give a practical strength of using non-participant observations to investigate pupil behaviour in schools.
*This will be done overtly*
A practical strenhth of using this is that the researcher could use analysis categories such as Flander’s in order to objectively break down pupil behaviour into set categories. This means that multiple observers could observe the same lesson and hopefully come to the same conclusion. This means that there is likely to be high reliability.
Because this is being done using behavioural categories, this is likely to be easy to quantify. This means that time and money is positively affected.
Give a criticism to using non-participant observations to investigate pupil behaviour in schools being practical.
A criticism of this being practical is that by observing the children from the back of the classroom, this may cause their behaviour to change due to the Hawthorne Effect, as they may act up because someone new is in the room or they may behave better as they think they are being negatively observed. Ths then negatively affects the validity of the findings.
Give a practical weakness to using non-participant observations to investigate pupil behaviour in schools.
A weakness of using non-participant observations is that access to the school will still be an issue. This is because the school may be reluctant to allow the researcher to look at the behaviour of the pupils as this may reflect badly on them and affect their recruitment. This then negatively affects the representativeness of the findings. Alternatively, the school may preselect which classes the researcher is able to observe which then gives a warped impression of how good the behaviour is. This then negatively affects the validity and representativeness of the findings.
Additionally, the categories are made by the researcher, and they may not include all of the behaviours that the students may be exhibiting. Different researchers may interpret the behaviour in different ways, e.g. one may see a student of task while another may see a student thinking. This then negatively affects the validity of the findings.
Give an ethical strength of using non-participant observations to investigate pupil behaviour in schools.
An ethical strength of non-participant observations is that there is no deception, as this will be done overtly, and so consent will be given by the school and possibly by parents. Anonymity will also be ensured as the study is looking at behaviour and collecting statistical datam, so the names of the children will not be required.
Give an ethical weakness of using non-participant observations to investigate pupil behaviour in schools.
An ethical weakness is that the pupils and teachers may feel embarrassed when or if certain students start to exhibit bad behaviour.
Additionally, the pupils would need to give fully informed consent, knowing that they have the right to withdraw from the study at any point.
Additionally, the students and teachers should be debriefed at the end of the study, tell them the true aims and intentions at the end, and then asking them again whether or not they choose to continue with having their data used in the study, or whether they would like to withdraw.
Give a practical strength of using official statistics (secondary data) to investigate the academic progress of pupils in schools.
A practical strength is time and money. The schools have to report their exam statistics each year, so they are free and easily accessible. This means that the researchers can get statistics on different schools which then allows for them to be compared. This then shows that there is high representativeness, and so generalisability. National Testing and the move to progress 8, away from the A-C economy at GCSE,means that the results are collected in the same way, which then makes the findings from the study more reliable.
Additionally, the data is detached and the researcher cannot impose their own meaning, as the statistics are objective. This means that the researchers personal skills and characteristics cannot affect the data.
Give a practical weakness of using official statistics (secondary data) to investigate the academic progress of pupils in schools.
A practical weakness of using official statistics is validity. Whilst the statistics should be hard statistics, schools may only publish the statistics of the pupils who have full attendance, and therefore they may have ‘ghost data’ of pupils with attendance issues which is not published, and so not included in the researchers’ data.
Additionally, the problem with using statsitics is that only a number is seen which represents the pupils’ scores at the end of the academic year in a public exam. This does not represent how the individual children themselves progressed throughout their time during GCSE, and no personal circumstances are accounted for. This then again reduces the validity as it shows that the statistics are not true to life.
Give an ethical strength of using official statistics (secondary data) to investigate the academic progress of pupils in schools.
An ethical advantage is that the researcher is not working with the students, pupils or teachers, this means that no consent is required, there is no deception, and there is ensured anonymity.
Give an ethical weakness of using official statistics (secondary data) to investigate the academic progress of pupils in schools.
The only possible ethical weakness of using officialk statistics to investigate the academic progress of pupils is that teh school it self may be embarassed with the results that they have published, and so by using these results in the study, the school ranking on the League Tables may drop.
Give a practical strength of using documents (secondary data) to investigate the academic progress of pupils in schools.
*This would be done by using the pupils work as the documents*
A practical strength is that the the pupils work would give a greater insight into that students progress over the year. This then increases the validity of the findings. Content analysis could be used to look at the patterns and trends across different pupils’ work, which then increases the reliability of the findings, as a different researcher could use the same students work and use the same content analysis at a later date.
Give a practical weakness of using documents (secondary data) to investigate the academic progress of pupils in schools.
A practical weakness is that the schools are unlikely to give access to the researcher due to data protection laws. This will then negatively affect the representativeness, and so generalisability, of the findings.
Additional;y, the pupils work could be interpreted differently by different researchers and this still would likely not give a complete picture of the time the student spent in school that year, which as a result negatively affect the reliability of the findings.
Give an ethical strength of using documents (secondary data) to investigate the academic progress of pupils in schools.
An ethical strength is that progress reports for the child should already be anonymised already, and informed consent is not required as they are freely accessible.
Give an ethical weakness of using documents (secondary data) to investigate the academic progress of pupils in schools.
An ethical weakness is that using the pupils work could possibly cause embarrassment for the pupil.
Another issue is whether the child themselves has given informed consent for their work to be used in the research, or if it was just the school that gave informed consent. The researcher may need to debrief the children who’s work has been used and the school to inform them of the true aims and intentions of the study if they were not truthful at the beginning. This is decpetion.
