Research Methods
Questionaire
Positivist, self-completed form distributed by post, email or person. Pre-set questions, closed ended with pre-coded answers, OR open ended.
Questionaire - Advantages.
Practical, quant or qual, representative, reliable, ethical.
Questionaire - Disadvantages.
Response rate, low validity, unrepresentative (old or unemployed have time to do), no follow up question opportunity.
Interviews - Structured.
Positivist, face to face, pre-set questions.
Interviews - Structured Advantages.
Practical (training is cheap and quick), representative, quantifiable, reliable.
Interviews - Structured Disadvantages.
Lack validity (closed end may not fit what they want to say, and people may lie or exaggerate).
Interviews - Undtructured.
Interpretivist, open-ended, qual, relationship between people (rapport).
Interviews - Unstructured Advantages.
Rapport, Flexibility, Valid.
Interviews - Unstructured Disadvantages.
Not practical, Unprepresentative, not reliable as cant be repeated.
Interviews - Semi-structured.
Pre-determined set of questions with an opportunity to explore or ask follow up questions for more answers.
Interviews - group.
People are interviewed at the same time together
Interviews - Group Advantages.
Practical, spark debate so ideas can be created, ethical.
Interviews - Group disadvantages.
Conflict, not everyone will thrive (chance to speak), people wont be so open and honest so not valid.
Observations - Participant advantages
Valid (natural setting, authentic), (richly detailed andshows social data)
Observations - Participant disadvantages.
Unreliable, Unrepresentative, not valid (hawthorne effect, "going native"), ethical issues, practical issues (getting into or leaving group).
Observations - Non-participant advantages
Valid - limited risk of "going native"
Observations - Non- participant disadvantages
Not reliable, or representative.
Observations - Overt advantages
Ethical, Reliable, open note taking, can use interviews too
Observations - overt disadvantages
Not practical, Not valid due to Hawthorne effect, less reliable, not representative.
Observations - Covert advantages
Valid because less Hawthorne effect, first hand sight, in depth.
Observations - covert disadvantages.
Not ethical, not practical (gaining trust is time consuming)
Experiments
High degree of control on all variables. Manipulate variables to see what happens. Indipendent - changes. Dependent - measured. Control - doesnt change.
Experiments - Laboratory
Positivist, controlled environment, changes indipendent variable and sees effect on dependent variable.
Experiments - Lab Advantages
Reliable, identify cause and effect relationships well.
Experiments - Lab disadvantages
Artificial, Hawthorne effect, not ethical, unrepresentative, cant control all variables.
Experiments - Field
real world, created situation or adapted for research, unaware this is taking place.
Experiments - Field advantages
Less artificial, validity so no Hawthorne effect they will act normal.
Experiments - Field disadvantages.
Ethical issues, less variable control, limited application to social situations.
Official statistics - Advantages
Practical (government websites), regular so see trends (Census every 10 years), Representative.
Official statistics - Disadvantages
Government collects for own benefit so may not cover what sociologists want, definitions may be different (the definition of "poverty" may be different).
Documents - Personal, advantages
Valid (written for personal purposes), practical, shows different opinions and interpretations.
Documents - Personal, disadvantages
Some people dont produce personal documents, so their views arent seen but people with literacy skills are over represented. Personal documents are written with an audience in mind so personal bias may be present.
Documents - Historical, advantages
Allow comparisons over time (birth, death and marriage), help assess outcomes of social policies.
Documents - historical, disadvantages
Unrepresentative (lost or destroyed), might not be valid as written selectively, authenticity.
Types of research method.
Questionaire, Interview, Observation, Experiments, Official statistics, Documents.
Hawthorne effect
People who are the subjects of an experiment change or improve their behavior because it is being studied and not because of changes in the experiment.
"Going Native"
Where the researcher fails to balance the roles of participant and observer and, instead, simply participates like any other group member
Interpretivist
Prefer qualitative data
Positivist
Prefer quantative data
PET - meaning
Practical
Ethical
Theoretical
PERVERT - meaning
Practical
Ethical
Reliable
Valid
Examples
Representative
Theoretical
Primary and secondary data
Primary - from yourself, collected. Secondary - research that someone else has done and using their data.
Questionaire - example
Crime Survay in England and Wales
Interviews unstructured - example
Dobash and Dobash - unstructured interviews for domestic violence.
Interviews structured - example
Young and Wilmott research extended family in east london.
Participant observation - example
Humphreys - Tearoom Trade; impersonal sex in public places. Gay subcultures 1960s. Covert, but interviewed them a year later in disguise.
Non- participant observation - example
Research between students and teachers, Quantative data of types of interactions. 68% was teacher talk, 20% was student talk and 12% was confusion and silence.
Lab experiments - example
Bandauras Bobo Doll experiment: modelling of agression. Children watched a video of a man hitting the doll, and then went to seperate rooms and told different messages about the mans behaviour. They were then introduced to a similar result, children showed more agression when they werent told what was good or bad.
Field Experiments - example
Rosenthal and Jacobson - Pygmalion in the classroom. Effects of labelling, students given an IQ test, 20% were likely to spurt in the next year, which the teachers positively labelled. Those students (although random IQs) all did 20% better then the other pupils.
Official statistics - example
The UK census
Longitudinal Studies
Done overtime at regular intervals. "Seven Up" every 7 years same people interviewed to show difference.
Documents - example
Aries - experience of childhood through paintings. Childhood was socially structured.
Verstehen
Empathic understandinh of human behaviour, feeling of being put in the shoes of...