Topic 1 choosing a research method

• Primary sources of data

  Information collected by sociologist themselves for their own purposes, obtain a firsthand picture of a group or society or to test a hypothesis

  • Methods for gathering primary data: surveys, participant observation and experiments
  • Examples of quantitive primary data- questionnaires and structured interviews
  • Examples of qualitative primary data- participant observation and unstructured interviews
• Secondary sources of data

  Information that has been collected or created by someone else for their own purposes, but which sociologist can then use

  • Sources of secondary data- official statistics and documents
  • Examples of quantitive secondary data- official stats
  • Examples of qualitative secondary data- letters and newspaper articles
• qualitative data

  Gives a feel for what something is like eg what it feels like to get good GCSEs

  • Evidence is gathered using participant observation giving us a feel of what it’s like to be a member of a particular group
  • In In-depth interviews, we can get this kind of information
• Quantitive data

  Information in a numerical form, e.g. statistics for example percentage of marriages that end in divorce

  • Information is collected by opinion poles and surveys
• Factors influencing choice of method: practical issues- time and money

  Different methods require different amounts of time and money and this may influence the sociologists choice

  • eg large scale surveys may employee dozens of interviews and data inputting staff and cost a great deal of money where as participant observation may be cheaper but takes several years to complete
  • Research is access to resources can be a major factor and determining which methods they employ
• factors influencing choice of methods: practical issues- requirements of funding bodies


  Research institutes, businesses and other organisations that provide funding for research may require the results to be in a particular form

  • eg Government department funding research into educational achievement may have targets for pass rates so require quantitive data to see if these targets are being met
  • This means sociologist will have to use a method capable of achieving this data such as questionnaires or structured interviews
• Factors influencing choice of methods: practical issues- personal skills and characteristics

  Each sociologist possesses different personal skills and this may affect their ability to use different methods for example participant observation usually requires the ability to mix easily with others as well as good powers of observation and recall

  • In-depth interviews for the ability to establish which not also sociologist have which may limit their choices on methods
• Factors influencing choice of methods: practical issues- subject matter

  It may be harder to study a particular group or subject by one method that another

  • It might be difficult for male sociologist to study and or female group by means of participant observation where is written maybe useless for studying those who can’t read or write
• Factors influencing choice of methods: practical issues- research opportunity


  Sometimes the opportunity to carry out research occurs unexpectedly, meaning it may not be possible to use structured interviews such as questionnaires as they take time to prepare
• Factors influencing choice of methods: Ethical issues- informed consent


  Research participants should be offered the right to refuse to be involved

  Research should also tell them about all relevant aspects of the research so they can make informed consent
• Factors influencing choice of methods: ethical issues- confidentiality and privacy


  Research should keep the identity of research participants in order to help prevent possible negative effects on them

  • Information concerning research participants should be kept confidential
• Factors influencing choice of methods: ethical issues- harm to research participants

  Research as need to be aware of the possible effects of their work on those they study, these can include police intervention, harm to employment prospects, social exclusion ect

  • Where possible researchers should anticipate and prevent such harm
• Factors influencing choice of methods: ethical issues- vulnerable groups


  Special cash should be taken where research participants are particularly vulnerable because of their age, disability, or physical or mental health

  • eg when studying school researchers should have regard for issues of child protection and must obtain the consent of the child and the parent
• Factors influencing choice of methods: ethical issues- covert research

  Covert research as when the research is identity and research purposes hidden from the groups being studied

  • This can create serious ethical problems such as deceiving or lying in order to win the trust or obtain information of people
  • It’s impossible to gain informed consent at the same time as keeping the research/purpose a secret
  • Sociologist argue the use of covert methods may be justified in certain circumstances, including gaining access to secretive, dangerous or powerful groups
• Factors influencing choice of methods: theoretical issues- validity

  A valid method is one that produces a true picture of what something is really like, it allows the researcher to get closer to the truth

  • Sociologist argue qualitative data methods such as participant observation give us a valid and truthful account of what is like to be a member of a group group then quantitive method such as questionnaires as participant observation gives us a deeper insight through firsthand experience
• Factors influencing choice of methods: theoretical issues- reliability


  a Reliable (replicable) method is one that when repeated by another research it gives the same results

  • Quantitive method such as written questionnaires tend to produce more valid results then qualitative method such as unstructured interviews
• Factors influencing choice of method: theoretical issues- representativeness

  Refers to whether or not the people in the study are at typical cross-section of the group we are interested in

  • If we insure our sample is repro representative or typical of the wide population we can use our findings to make generalisations about all of the group we are studying without actually having to study every single person that fits in this category
  • Large scale quantitive surveys that use sophisticated sampling techniques to select their sample and more likely to produce representative data
• Factors influencing choice of method: theoretical issues- methodological perspective 


  Sociologist choice of method is also influenced by their methodological perspective (view of what societies like and how we should study it) there’s two contrasting perspectives on the choice of methods positivism and interpretivism
• Factors influencing choice of method- positivists

  Save a structured non-participant observation as it achieves their main goal of reliability, generalisability and representativity

  • They quantitive data and establish cause and affect relationships
  • They like scientific explanations
  • And prefer questionnaires, structured interviews, experiments and official stats
  • Functionalists and Marxist often take a positive approach seeing society as a large scale structure that shapes our behaviour
• Factors influencing choice of methods- interpretivist


  Favour on structured participant observation as it achieves their main goal of validity, they like qualitative data and to see what people do rather than what they say they do

  • Participant observation, unstructured interviews and personal documents
• Factors influencing choice of topic- sociologist perspective

  The sociologist theoretical perspective is a major influence on their choice of research topic

  • eg a new right research and may study the effects of welfare benefits on the growth of loan parent families since the idea of welfare dependencies is central to their standpoint
• Factors influencing choice of topic- societies values

  Sociologist themselves part of the society they study and thus influence by its values

  • As these values change the focus of research,
  • the rise of feminism in the 1960s led to focus on gender inequality
• Factors influencing choice of topic- practical factors

  Practical factors, Such as the inaccessibility of certain situations for the researcher, may also restrict what topic they are able to study

  • eg although sociologist want to study global corporations and their decisions they aren’t able to because these are made in secret
• Factors influencing choice of topic-funding bodies

  Most research requires funding from external bodies. These include government agencies, the economic and social research council, charities and businesses

  • as a funding body is paying the research it determines what topic is to be investigated
• The process of research- formulating an aim or hypothesis

  My studies have a general a more specific hypothesis which is a explanation that can be tested by collecting evidence to prove its true or false

  • If the hypothesis turns out to be false, we must discard it
  • The advantage of a hypothesis is that it gives direction to our research and focus to our questions since the purpose is to gather information that will even confirm or disapprove of our hypothesis
• The process of research- formulating our hypothesis

  Positivists favour a hypothesis as the starting point as they see cause and affect relationships using qualitative method such as questionnaires they formulate questions designed to discover whether these factors are linked

  • Interpretivist favour abroad aim rather than a hypothesis as they’re interested in understanding actors meanings so the task is to find out what the actors themselves think is important rather than impose the research as own possible explanations in the form of a hypothesis
• The process of research- operationalising concepts

  Turning abstract concepts into measurable observations

  • Once we have operationaliased concept we can start devising questions that measure it
  • We can correlate this with information we collect to find out whether hypothesis is true or false
  • Problems can arise where different sociologist operationalise the same concept differently
  • Positivist are concerned to operationalise concepts because of the importance they place on testing hypothesis
  • Interpretivist less emphasis on operationalising concepts as their interested in actors own defintions
• The process of research- the pilot study

  Sociologist using social surveys (questionnaires and structured interviews) often carry out a pilot study before conducting their main study which involves trying out a draft version of the questionnaire/interview schedule on a small sample

  • This aims to iron out any problems refine or clarify questions and their wording and gives interviewers practice so the actual survey goes smoothly
  • Wilmot and young carried out over 100 pilot interviews to help them decide on the design of their study and the questions to ask
• The process of research- samples and sampling

  Sociologist have to choose a sample of the group to include in their survey, a sample is a smaller subgroup drawn from the wide group that we are interested in. The process of selecting sample is called sampling

  • The basic purpose of sampling is to ensure those people the way included in the study are representative or typical of the research population
• The process of research- the sampling frame

  To choose a sample, we need a sampling frame. This is a list of all the members of the population were interested in studying

  • Willmott and Young used the electoral register as there something playing frame
  • It’s important the list we use as a sampling frame is as accurate as possible and also up-to-date without any duplications otherwise the sample chosen may not be truly representative of the population
  • Once we’ve got the sampling frame, we can choose our sample from it
• The process of research: Sampling techniques- random

  Sample is selected purely by chance eg names out of a hat

  • Everyone has an equal chance of being selected
  • A large enough sample should represent the whole research population
• The process of research: sampling techniques- systematic

  Every nth person in the sampling frame is selected

  • willmott and young selected every 36th name on the electoral register
• The process of research: sampling techniques- stratified random

  Researcher breaks down the population in the sampling frame by age, class, gender ect

  • The sample is then created in the same proportions e.g. if 20% of the population are under 18 and 20% of the sample also has to be under 18
• The process of research: sampling techniques-quota

  The population is stratified e.g 20% of under 18s are in the population. There needs to be 20% of under 18s in the sample.

  • Each interviewer is given a quota, e.g. 20 females and 20 males which they then have to fill with the respondents who fit the characteristics
• The process of research- non-representative sampling 


  Practical reasons- there’s several practical reasons why it may not be possible to create a representative sample:

  • The social characteristics of the research population such as age, gender and class may not be known. It would just be impossible to create a sample that that was an exact cross-section of the research population.
  • Maybe impossible to find/create a sampling frame fill up particular research population
  • Potential respondents may refuse to participate
• The process of research: non-representative samples (practical reasons)


  When it’s not possible to obtain a representative sample sociologist sometimes use snowball or opportunity samples

  • Snowball samples involve collecting sample asking a number of key individuals to suggest others who may be interviewed This may help persuade others to take part, e.g. criminals
  • Opportunity sampling involves choosing from those individuals that are easiest to access e.g. asking people passing on the street
• The process of research: non-representative sampling (theoretical reasons)

  Even where it’s possible to create a representative sample some researches choose not to do so due to their methodological perspective

  • Interpretivist believe that it is more important to obtain valid data and an authentic understanding of actors meanings, because they’re less concerned to make general they have less need for representative samples