Methods

• Experiments


  • High in reliability - steps followed can be repeated
  • Detached method so no influenced outcomes
• Practical problems with experiments

  • Impossible to control all variables
  • Can't study past
• Ethical problems with experiments

  • Lack of informed consent (hard to obtain from children etc)
  • Deception
  • Harm to participants (nerves etc)
• Positivists


  Prefer experiments as they produce reliable, quantitative data
• Field research


  • More naturalistic as it takes place in normal surroundings
  • No Hawthorne Effect
• Interpretivists


  Prefer field research
• Experiments


  • Milgram - response to obedience, electric shocks
  • Hawthorne Factory - productivity gain due to being watched
• Questionnaires


  • Advantages: Practical - quick and cheap, large geographical sample, easy to quantify, reliable as same questions asked in same order, no researcher to influence decisions, useful to study cause-and-effect relationships, ethical - no obligation to answer questions
  • Disadvantages: Practical - data tends to be superficial, incentives may need to be offered which adds to cost, uncertain whether person completed it themselves, low response rate, inflexible, lacks validity and contact - can't clarify questions, right answerism - give respectable answers, respondents may lie, researcher chooses questions so already decides what is important
• Positivists


  Prefer questionnaires as they produce representative, quantitative data
• Questionnaires


  • Census
  • Gillborn - setting, exam tiers and rates of exclusion - measure success of 'aiming high' project
• Structured interviews


  • Advantages: Practical - training interviewers is straightforward and inexpensive, easy to quantify, covers fairly large numbers, higher response than questionnaires - more representative, easy to standardise
  • Limitations: Practical - more costly than emailing questionnaires, can't match their potentially huge sample, those with willingness to be interviewed may be untypical e.g. Lonely - unrepresentative, lack validity as usually restricted by pre-set questions
• Positivists


  Favour structured interviews
• Unstructured interviews


  • Strengths: Import rapport and sensitivity - put interviewee at ease, encourage them to open up, probing can help stimulate ideas, clarifications can be made, flexible - can explore topics of interest
  • Limitations: Practical - long time to conduct due to depth, means smaller sample size unrepresentative, not reliable as not standardised, hard to quantify - less useful for cause-and-effect relationships
• Interpretivists


  Favour unstructured interviews due to open nature
• Other factors that can shape interviews: interviewer bias, artificiality, social desirability aspect, cultural differences
• Improving validity: Kinsey - asked questions rapidly to reduce thinking time to lie, Becker - used aggression, disbelief and playing dumb to extract sensitive information
• Interviews


  • Labov - used formal structure, black American children were "linguistically deprived", used unstructured and found to be competent speakers
  • Dobash and Dobash - study of domestic violence
• Non-participant observation


  • Researcher simply observes group
• Non-participant observation


  • Willis - 12 working class boys, 2 years
  • Goffman - covert observation in an asylum
• Official statistics


  • Advantages: Practical - free source of huge amounts of data, allows for comparisons, shows trends over time and cause-and-effect relationships, representative and reliable as follow set procedures
  • Disadvantages: Practical - collected for government purposes, may not be of any interest, definitions may differ - makes comparisons difficult
• Positivists


  Favour official statistics as they provide reliable, quantitative data that shows patterns over time
• Official statistics do not show the 'dark figure'
• Documents


  • Advantages: May be only source, personal documents allow researcher to get close to social actor's reality, offer extra check on primary research, cheap source of data
  • Disadvantages: Not representative or reliable - unique, only by literate groups
• Interpretivists


  Prefer documents as they are authentic, not usually written with research in mind, and provide qualitative data
• Scott's criteria for evaluating documents: authenticity, credibility, representativeness and meaning
• Documents


  • Census
  • Durkheim's Suicide study
  • Gewirtz et al - school brochures and prospectuses for studying marketisation
  • Aries - historical evidence about changes to childhood
• Overt observation


  • Advantages: Avoids deceit, can take notes openly, able to ask naive but important questions
  • Disadvantages: Group may refuse permission, risk of Hawthorne Effect
• Covert observation


  • Advantages: Practical - reduces risk of group refusing permission
  • Disadvantages: Practical - can't take notes openly, risk of cover being 'blown', addition of new member may still change behaviour, can't ask questions, Ethical - deceitful, can't gain consent until after, may have to participate in immoral or illegal activities
• Participant observation


  • Advantages: Able to obtain rich qualitative data, offers insight into meanings and views, flexible as doesn't start with fixed hypothesis
  • Disadvantages: Ethical - may restrict what groups can be studied, may not be representative as group studied is small, lacks objectivity - risk of 'going native', not reliable as hard to replicate, ignores wider structural factors that shape behaviour