sociology research methods

• practicality:


  seeing how feasible the data is. is it costly? is it easy to access? how much time was taken to complete it? are their any skills needed?
• ethics: wether the research is morally right or wrong.

  consider confidentiality; the research should be guarded as much as possible. risk or harm; the participant shouldn't be in any sort of danger. deception; has the interviewer given the participant false information misleading the key aspects of the interview. has there been informed consent? -participant has agreed to take part in the research.


  has their been a debrief? is anonymity an option for the participant? no evidence should be traced back to them.
• reliability: seen as repeatability.


  if you were to repeat the research would you be gaining the same results? Even if it was at a different time or place?
• validity:


  are you able to uncover the truth about social life? is the research obtaining verstehen?
• what reduces validity?


  social desirability bias- this is when respondent doesn't give truthful answers but what they believe will are them look good. this ONLY happens in interviews and questionares. ( most likely to happen when speaking about sensitive topics.) Hawthorne effect- Elton mayos experiment changing working conditions, the fact that someone was taking an interest in what they were doing and watching them changed their behaviour. this ONLY occurs in observation.
• representativeness:


  their sample group should be representative of their target population it should "mirror" it they do this so that they're findings can be generalised.
• theoretical views:

  positivists-believe people don't have free will, obtain knowledge through scientific methods, they believe people behave in patterned ways, ALL research should be REPEATED to uncover trends and patterns, they prefer QUANTITATIVE DATA, they want data high in RELIABILITY.
• interpretivism:


  they believe the individual is responsible for themselves, they try to obtain verstehen, they prefer QUALITATIVE data they value everyone opinions, want data HIGH in RELIABILITY.
• simple random sampling is when each member has an equal chance of being selected in the sample
• systematic random sampling- taking every 'nth' term from the sampling Frame
• stratified random sampling- dividing the target population into layers and picking individuals from the group
• snowball sampling- researcher contacts one person from the population and they introduce you to other people
• quota sampling- interviewing people on the street, an exact number of people.
• sampling frame?

  this is a full list of members of the target population e.g school register.
• probability sampling- each member has a known chance of being selected
• non probability sampling- a type of sampling used when a sampling frame is not available.
• questionares advantages : inexpensive, not time consuming, easy access, requires no skill- high in practicality ethics- obtains informed consent no deception or risk of harm, obtained confidentiality. high in reliability standardised questions.
• one disadvantage of using snowball sapling is sample bias. this refers to the fact that the participants may introduce others of a similar background such as social class or ethnicity. this reduces the representativeness of the study as the sample will not reflect or is not typical of the population so the findings cannot be generalised.in this case participants may introduce their friends who have similar attitudes towards higher education e.g they might be middle class and introduce their middle class friends.
• one disadvantage of using questionnaires is that they produce quantitative data. this means that the participant isn't able to elaborate on their answers because most of the questions are closed (meaning they select an answer from a list). this reduces the validity as the participants are limited to giving in depth answers and researcher cannot obtain verstehen. in this case, we will not be able to uncover people experience of poverty as they won't be able to expand their reasons feelings or situation of poverty.
• one disadvantage of using postal questionares is that they produce quantitative data which is numerical. this means that the researcher won't be able to gain an empathetic understanding. this then reduces validity as you aren't able to uncover the truth and clarify questions with your participants. in this case for example we won't be able to uncover peoples opinions on cohabitation.