quick questions

• What advantages are there to using close-ended questions?

  • Data is usually easy to quantify
  • Can be processed quickly
• Why do critics argue that questionnaires lack flexibility?

  Once the questionnaire has been finalised, no new areas of research can be explored
• Two reasons positivists prefer questionnaires?

  • They are a detached and objective method
  • Easier hypothesis testing enables us to identify different causes
• Why are questionnaires seen as a detached and objective research method?

  The sociologist's personal involvement is kept to a minimum
• Why might detachment be a disadvantage in research?

  There is no way to clarify what this question means to prevent/deal with misunderstandings
• Why might questionnaires have a low response rate?


  Few of those who receive it bother to complete and return it
• How might questionnaires impose the researcher's meanings on respondents?

  By choosing what questions to ask, the researcher has already decided what is important. Questions may be worded in a leading way
• According to Weber, which is the stage of research into which values must not be allowed to enter?

  • Collecting data
  • Must be objective and as unbiased as possible to keep values and prejudices out of the process
• True or False: Relativism argues that everyone's view of the world is equally valid

  True
• What is Gouldner's main criticism of modern positivist sociologists?

  He believed they had stopped challenging authority and become like hired hands, taking no moral responsibility for their work
• Why do interactionists argue we should see things from the point of view of the underdog?

  To create balance in social research; unlike the powerful, the underdog is seldom heard
• What is meant by 'objectivity'?

  An absence of bias or preconceptions. Not allowing personal values / values to affect data
• Why do many sociologists wish to be seen as scientific?

  Science (and its research methods) have high status in academic circles and wider society