methods in context

experiments to study education

example - teacher expectations

+set times and space make it easy for experiment to be organised.

+most easy to replicate such as ‘pygmalion in the classroom’

which was repeated hundreds of times’

-students vulnerable so less able to give consent.

-small scale so only small aspect of behaviour

questionaires

example - parental attitudes on education

+useful for gathering large information quickly

-response rates are low

+children have little attention span=questionnaires are affective

-not valid as experience of child is narrower

structured interviews

example - class and acheivement

+takes less time than unstructured interviews

+reliable-easy to replicate therefore patterns can be identified

+more valid than questionaires (young ppl have better verbal than literary skills)

-parental permission required

unstructured interviews

example - pupil subcultures

+better for overcoming power imbalance

-due to short attention span = unstructured interviews are too demanding

-interviewing kids takes more training

structured observation

example - classroom interaction

+lessons short so don’t get fatigued and can sit at back of class and record behaviour

-interpretivists criticise because ignores meaning

-not valid as Hawthorne affect applies + offputting

participant observation

example - classroom observation

+more valid cuz likely to overcome pupil teacher status difference

-difficult to know if behaviour is genuine

-children unable to give informed consent

oficial statistics

+gov collects stats so easy for sociologists to save time and money

+representative as schools complete census 3x a year

-interpretivists challenge validity as they see them as socially constructed.

documents

example - education in the past

+few issues with public documents cuz in he public domain

-personal documents have ethical problems

-unreliable cuz ppl make mistakes when filling them out.

+representative.