Research methods

Subdecks (7)

Cards (59)

  • Case studies
    • Detailed study of a specific person/subject
    • Advantages - detailed insight and quicker
    • Disadvantages - not representative or generalisable
  • Positivism
    • Believe that sociology is a science
    • Sociology can uncover real facts about the nature of society by observing and testing
    • Believe human behaviour is shaped by society
    • Prefer to use quantitative data because it can be tested
  • Interpretivism
    • Believe that sociology is not a science because it studies beings with consciousness
    • Takes a bottom-up approach, studying people not institutions
    • Prefer qualitative data due to high validity
  • Independent variable
    • The variable which changes the result
  • Dependent variable
    • The 'effect' of the cause, it relies on the 'cause' to change it
  • Lab experiments
    • A - Highly reliable and objective, researcher can manipulate variable to uncover cause-and-effect relationships
    • D - May not be practical or ethical, needs free will
  • Documents
    • Personal - diaries or letters
    • Public - school website, business files
    • Historical - cave drawings, Anne Frank's diary
  • Benefits of documents
    • Can produce quantitative data from qualitative data
    • You can tally up the instances of your hypothesis
    • Typically cheap and easy, allows for positivists to gather quantitative data from secondary sources
  • Assessing documents
    • Authenticity - how accurate is it
    • Credibility - is there further evidence to support it
    • Representative - does it show a personal idea or can it be applied to a whole society
    • Meaning - how has language and time effected it