Research Methods

• Factors impacting a researcher's choice of topic: (5)

  1. Personal interest - e.g. Shakespeare is a wheelchair user ➡️ studies disability, McIntosh is a lesbian ➡️ studies homosexuality etc.
  2. Funding body - e.g. charity (J. Rowntree Foundation) or media org. (BBC)
  3. Topical issues/concerns - e.g. elections let you research voting patterns
  4. Time
  5. Access
• Describe aims:


  Vague, to find out more about a topic
• Describe research questions:


  More specific than an aim
• Describe a hypothesis:


  Even more specific than an aim/research question - it's a prediction that researchers test by gathering data
• Describe theories:


  Accounts describing how society works
• Define primary data:

  Data collected by the researcher specifically for research.
• Define secondary data:

  Data gathered by someone else.
• Problems of 1° data:

  • Time constraints
  • Ethical concerns
• Problems of 2° data:

  • Could be outdated
  • Risk of bias
• 2 examples of 1° data

  • Willis 'Learning to Labour'
  • McIntosh researching homosexuals
• Most sociological research is in the form of - studies.

  Snapshot
• Why are 'snapshot studies' unreliable?

  • Events in participant's lives could make their responses ungeneralisable
• Longitudinal studies

  • Over long period of time
  • Participants = cohort
  • Researcher follows 'cohort' + measures attitudes/behaviours @ regular intervals
• Biggest problem of longitudinal studies?

  Attrition rate
• Define attrition rate:

  Participants dropping out of study

  ➡️ Oftentimes the ones who leave are the most interesting + makes cohort ungeneralisable
• 2 examples of longitudinal studies:

  1. Millennium Cohort study
  2. Up series
• Millennium Cohort study

  • 2000-2011
  • Initial sample = 19,000 kids
  • Tracked kids till age 11 to study how early socialisation affected child development in health + educational outcomes
• Up series

  • Followed 10 boys + 4 girls since 1964
  • OG '7 Up' broadcasted in 1964 ➡️ '63 Up' broadcasted on 2019
  • Tracked how children's future hopes/aspirations changed over time
• PROs of longitudinal studies:


  • Reveal patterns + trends over time (unlike 'snapshot studies')
  • Making comparisons over time = identify causes (M. Cohort showed correlation between poverty + early impact on low educational achievement)
• CONs of longitudinal studies:

  • Sample attrition
  • Over a period of time = expensive + time consuming
  • Continuity issues - if the first researcher retires, the replacement won't have same rapport w/ cohort
  • Ppl act diff. when they know they're in a study
• Define operationalisation:

  Defining concepts in a way that's clear + measurable
• Issue w/ not operationalising concepts?

  Vaguely defined concepts = unreliable research
• Why should research concepts be operationalised?

  Allows other researchers to replicate methodology to see if they get the same results.
• 2 research concepts that should be operationalised:

  1. Ethnicity - e.g. 'Black + Minority Ethnic' (BAME) could mean all non-white ppl but some researchers use it to refer to Black- Caribbean/African only
  2. Social class
• Name a study that significantly relies on operationalisation:

  Wilkinson & Pickett - 'The Spirit Level' (2009)​
• Wilkinson & Pickett 'The Spirit Level' (2009)​

  • Tried to operationalise a V. vague concept; a society's health + happiness
  • Focus on 11 s. problems - e.g. violence, education, obesity etc.
  • Critiqued for operationalising some concepts but not all - e.g. ignoring suicide as a measure of society's h+h
  • Interpretivists call this 'researcher imposition'
• Define researcher imposition:

  When researcher imposes own views/beliefs/anxieties onto their research
• 1 solution to researcher imposition?

  Reflexivity
• Define reflexivity:

  Researcher constantly reflecting on the extent to which they're impacting their research + findings.
• What is a pilot study?

  A 'test drive' w/ few participants to test if an operationalised hypothesis acc. works.
• How can a researcher determine the credibility of their results?

  Respondent validation ➡️ returning data/results to participants to check accuracy + resonance w/ their experiences

  • Practiced by Interpretivists