Research methods

• 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