primary

• Practical issues

  -availability research grants

  -access to a sample

  -time
• Ethical issues

  -harm to participants

  -informed consent

  -confidentiality
• Theoretical issues

  -reliability and validity

  -different perspectives may have different biases and their research will reflect that (e.g. feminists concerned with gender inequality)
• Example of a lab experiment-

  Rosenthal and Jacobson- tested the theory of the self fulfilling prophecy by giving false info about IQ scores
• Example of a questionnaire-

  Douglas- used a questionnaire to study the factors influencing attainment in different social classes / census
• Example of a questionnaire-

  Douglas- used a questionnaire to study the factors influencing attainment in different social classes / census
• Example of an interview-

  -Labov- used interviews to study the linguistic ability of children
• Example of an observation-

  -Wright- conducted a classroom observation to study racism in education
• Positivism-

  -Comte and Durkheim

  -there are objective facts about the social world

  -you can look for correlations which may represent causal relationships

  -supports the use of quantitative data methods such as official stats which provide factual info

  -believe behaviour is shaped by external stimuli rather than internal

  -to be scientific you should only study what you can observe
• Interpretivism-

  -qualitative data

  -understanding of peoples unobservable subjective states are required which cannot be reduced to statistical data

  -people do not simply react to external stimuli, but interpret the meaning of the stimuli before reacting
• Quota sampling

  -establishes a predetermined number of people with each particular characteristic, once the quota is filled, no more people from that category are included

  -strength- advantages of stratified sampling (representative) but can be used without a sampling frame

  -weakness- may be less representative as access of potential respondents affects their chances of being included
• Evaluation of stratified sampling-

  representative but requires sampling frame which incLuke’s details of significant characteristics of population being studied
• Multistage sampling

  involves taking a sample from a sample (eg a sample of voters in a sample of constituencies)

  -strength- allows a broad based sample while saving time and money

  -weakness- less representative
• Snowball sampling

  members of a sample put researcher in touch with other potential members

  -strength - used with groups who are hard to identify or access eg criminals so saves time

  -weakness - not representative, they are likely to be very similar
• Longitudinal study

  The study of a group of people over an extended period of time

  -strength- allows the researcher to look at processes over time

  -weakness- time consuming, sample size is likely to get smaller as people drop out so becomes less representative.
• Triangulation

  involves the use of 3 or more sources of research methods in one study
• Triangulation

  involves the use of 3 or more sources of research methods in one study
• Types of triangulation-

  -triangulation- findings are cross checked using a variety of methods eg interviews are used to check responses in a questionnaire

  -facilitation-one method is used to assist another eg in depth interviews are used to devise questionnaire

  -complementarity-different methods are combined to dovetail different aspects of an investigation eg questionnaires are used to discover overall statistical patterns and participant observation is used to reveal the reasons for those patterns
• Purposes of triangulation (Bryman)-

  -check reliability

  -filling in gaps

  -obtaining different perspectives

  -solving an unexplained result