Research methods

What is primary data?

Information collected by the sociologist themselves for their own purpose

What is secondary data?

Information that has already been collected by someone else, but a sociologist can use

Give examples of ways of getting primary and secondary data

Primary - social surveys, observation, experiments

Secondary - official statistics, documents

What is qualitative data?

Opinion based data

What is quantitative data?

Numerical data

What are the practical factors affecting choice of method?

Time and money

Requirements of funding bodies

Personal skills

Research opportunity

Subject matter

What are the ethical factors affecting choice of method?

Informed consent

Confidentiality and privacy

Harm to participants

Vulnerable groups

Covert research

What are the theoretical factors affecting choice of method?

Validity

Reliability

Representativeness

Methodological perspective

What is a hypothesis?

A possible explanation that can be proved wrong or right

What is operationalisation?

Turning sociological ideas into measurable figures

What is a pilot study?

A trial run carried out before the main investigation on a small number of different participants.

What are some sampling techniques?

Random sampling

Quasi/systematic sampling

Stratified sampling

Quota sampling

What is an independent variable?

The factor you can change to see how it effects another variable

Name the benefits of lab experiments

Highly reliable

Easy to identify cause-and-effect relationships

Consent is given

What are some disadvantages of lab experiments

Artificial environment - hard to control variables

Cant study the past

Small samples = not representative

Lack of consent

Deception

What is the Hawthorne effect?

People are aware they are being studied and behave differently

How do field experiments differ from lab experiments?

They take place in natural surroundings

Those who are involved tend to not know they are being studied

What is the comparative method?

Comparing 2 or more similar groups and seeing the difference between them has any effect

Give an example of the comparative method

Durkheim’s study of suicide - compared the suicide rates of protestants and Christians to see which group had higher levels of integration

What are the practical advantages of questionnaires?

Quick and cheap method of getting large amounts of data

No need to train interviewers

Data is easy to quantify

Why do positivists favour questionnaires?

They produce quantitative data

Reliable/replicable

Detachment

Large samples

Give disadvantages of questionnaires

Data tends to be brief

Financial incentives may have to be used

Low response rates

Inflexible

Sociologist is too far away from participant

What are the 4 types of interview?

Structured interview - same questions asked to every participant

Unstructured interview - interviewer has complete freedom

Semi-structured - set questions but can expand

Group interview - multiple people being interviewed at once

What are the benefits of structured interviews?

Training interviewers is cheap and straightforward

Covers a large amount of people

Higher response rate compared to questionnaires

Quantifiable data

Reliable

What are the drawbacks of structured interviews?

Invalid as restricts answers

People may lie/exaggerate

Inflexible

What are the benefits of unstructured interviews?

Interviewer can develop a rapport with the interviewee

More opportunity for the interviewee to speak freely

Highly flexible

Can check for understanding

What are the drawbacks of unstructured interviews?

Time consuming'

More thorough training needed

Not representative

Open ended questions = not quantifiable

How can social interactions affect the validity of an interview?

Interviewer bias

Artificiality

Differences in status and power

Cultural differences

William Whyte

Went semi-overt in the “street corner society”

Structured observational schedule

A pre-determined list of the behaviours the sociologist is looking out for in the research

2 issues when conducting participant observation

1. Getting in, staying in and getting out

2. Whether to be overt or covert

Going native /  over-involvement

When the researcher becomes biased as they have simply become a member of the group

Advantages of overt observation

• Avoids ethical problems

• Allows researcher to ask important naive questions

• Researcher can openly take notes

Disadvantages of overt observation

• A group may refuse access to observe them

• Risks the Hawthorne effect from occurring

Advantages of covert observation

• Validity - obtains qualitative data about behaviours

• Flexibility - researchers decide when they want to research

• Sometimes covert research is the only way to gain access to research a group

Disadvantages of covert observation

• Time consuming

• Researcher needs training

• Stressful

• Ethical problems

• Small samples = not reprensentative

• Not reliable

• Researcher bias

Official statistics

Quantitative data collected by the government / official bodies

Advantages of official statistics

• Free source of huge amount of data

• Reliable - compiled in a standardised way

• Allow for comparisons

Disadvantages of official statistics

• Statistics may not benefit the sociologist

• Definitions change over time

• Some statistics are not reported e.g. crime

Positivist view on official statistics

Official statistics are “social facts” that are objective measures

Interpretivist view on official statistics

Official statistics are socially constructed by the decisions people have made e.g. to report it or to record it

Marxist view on official statistics

Irvine sees official statistics as serving the interests of capitalism (ideology)

4 factors for assessing documents

1. Authenticity

2. Credibility

3. Representativeness

4. Meaning

Advantages of documents

• Qualitative data

• Good at studying the past

• Cheap