Research methods

Primary data

Information collected by sociologists themselves (social surveys , participant observation, experiments)

Secondary data

Information collected by someone else for their own purposes ( official stats, documents)

quantative data

Information in numerical form (GCSE grades, percentage of unemployment)

Qualitative data

Information in words (the feel of difference successes , like good grades)

Practical issues: time and money

Carrying out surveys takes time and money to complete

Practical issues: requirements of funding houses

Governments departments fund into educational achievement and target pass rates , so the sociologist may have to use questionnaires and interviews instead.

Practical issues: personal skills and characteristics

Not all sociologists have the skill to carry out fleshed out interviews , as participant observation and mixing well with students is required.

Practical issues: subject matter

It may be harder to study a particular group, such as male sociologist with an all girl group.

Practical issues: research opportunities

Some unexpected opportunities may appear , and there is not time to prepare questionnaires, surveys, etc. (Patrick: invited into a gang)

Ethical issues: informed consent

Participants should be offered the right to refuse involvement, alongside told all the relevant aspects of the experiment.

Ethical issues: confidentiality and privacy

Researchers should respect their privacy and keep their identities private to prevent possible negative effects.

Ethical issues: harm to research partipcants

Researchers should be aware of possible effect of their work on those being studied , and to avoid possible psychological damage.

Ethical issues: vulnerable groups

Special precautions should be taken of vulnerable participants like age , disability, physical and mental health, and consent of child and parent.

ethical issues: covert research

Researchers identity and research purpose and being hidden rises ethical issues, such as deceiving , and makes it impossible to gain consent.

Validity

Method that produces true/genuine picture of the research, such as participant observation

Reliability

Method of which is repeated by another sociologist should give the same results

Representativeness

If the people being studied are not a typical cross section. It would take a great amount of time and money to study everyone.

Oakley: sociology of housework

She did a non structured interview to produce a true image, she’s a female herself so she could get reliable answers, however it’s just a handful of women, not a wide range.

Positivism

Scientific study of sociology, quantitative data, reliable and representative data, objective , experiments and official stats, structured interviews

Interpretivism

Individual interpretations of the social world, feelings and opinions, subjective data, validity, unstructured interviews and participant observation.

Questionnaires: practical advantages

Quick , cheap, wide range. (Connor and Dewson posted 4K questionnaires) don’t recruit interviewers, easy to quantify and process.

Questionnaires: reliability

With postal online, there’s no researcher to influence answers, allowed comparisons over societies.

Questionnaires: hypothesis testing

Useful for cause and effect relationships , can make statements about possible causes.

Questionnaires: detachment and objectify

Unbiased method, personal involvement is at a minimum

Questionnaires: representativeness

Collectors from a large number of people

Questionnaires: ethical issues

Responders under no obligation to answer,but informed consent should be gained

Questionnaires: practical problems

Data is limited and superficial , may need to offer incentives for people to take part, wether potential respondent actually received questionnaire

Questionnaires: low response rate

Very few bother to complete and return (Hite: only 4.5% out of 100k returned), if follow up questionnaires are sent, higher response rate, difference in occupation/ views may response more quickly.

Questionnaires: inflexibility

Once completed, researcher is stuck with questions they asked and can’t explore new areas of interest. Unlike interviews, where more relevant questions asked.

Questionnaires as snapshots

Fail to produce fully valid picture as they don’t capture people’s artifture and behaviour

Questionnaires: detachment

Cociourel: data from questionnaires lack validity, questions detached from all primary methods.

Questionnaires: lying , forgetting and ‘right answerism’

Depends on respondents willingness to provide accurate answers, respondents may lie, forgetting, not know, try to second guess.

Questionnaires: imposing researchers meanings

Questionnaires more likely to impose the researchers own meanings than reveal these of the respondent. Shipman: when researchers categories are not the respondents.

Operationalising concepts

Turning a complicated , abstract concept into something understandable for the participants .

Probability sampling

Based on chance

Non probability sampling

Based on a characteristic

Structured/ formal interviews

Interviewer given strict instructions on how to ask the questions , and conduction, the same standardised way.

Unstructured interviews

Guided construction and freedom to questions.

Unstructured interviews: Advantage (Labov)

Labov: Speaking in unstructured manner allowed him to get clearer answers from black American children.

Unstructured interviews: Advantage ( Dean and Taylor Gooby)

Interviewees have freedom to answer

Unstructured interviews: disadvantages

Takes a long time, not many carried out , interviewer must have a background in sociology, needs good interpersonal skills, not very representative, answers cannot be preceded so quantity is difficult, critics argue it distracts information obtained.

Covert

Participant unaware

Overt

Participant aware