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Sociology
Research methods
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Created by
Yasmin ELSON
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Cards (31)
Validity
True /
accurate
Reliability
Repeatable
Quantitative
Numbers
Qualitative
Words
Primary data
By
researcher
Secondary data
Already
existing
Practical issues
Time
,
cost
,
access
Ethical issues
Confidentiality,
informed
consent,
deception
,
protection
from harm
Theoretical issues
P
Official statistics
Research by government
departments
and agencies on
social
issues
Self report study
Questionnaire
completed by offenders
British crime survey
Victim
study
Dark
figure of crime
Hidden
/
unreported
figures of crime
Weaknesses
of self report study
Box
validity
- exaggerated / downplay
representativeness
- generally younger people
relevance
-trivial crime reported
Weaknesses
of British crime surveys
rely on
memory
/ recollection
Can be
categorise
wrong
Exclude
white
collar crime
Strengths
of official statistics
readily available
cheap
large sample
Completion rate high
-
law
regularly
published
weaknesses
of official statistics
produced by
others
- not meet direct research needs
political bias
can influence
types
of documents
public - by
organisations
(OFSTED)
personal
-
first person feelings
(diary)
historical
- past (
newspaper
)
Mass media documents
- via
social media
benefits of
secondary
qualitative data
if no longer alive can still have data on
high validity
free to access and easily
available
Weaknesses
of documents
authenticity - genuine
credibility
- author sincerity
representativeness - time / place
meaning of data
Strengths
of documents
quick and readily available
require less active researching
usually valid and
insightful
insight in
history
Questionnaire
Preset questions - ususlly
self complete
(eg. At home, online, workplace)
Open
questions
Not fixed answer - answer how they wish
qualitative
(indepth)
Closed
questions
Fixed responses (
Eg. rank
/
Yes
or No)
Quantitative
(short)
Advantages
of questionnaire
quick
and
cheap
easy to
quantify
(find correlation)
reliable
-
repeatable
objective
-
unbiased
large
sample size helps make
representative
Disadvantages
of questionnaires
low
response rate -
complex language
/ people don’t have time
inflexible
- cannot change after published
only a
‘snapshot’
right
answerism - give wanted answer
meaning can be
confused
Practical
issues
Time, cost, ease, access, flexibility
Ethical issues
Confidentiality, consent,
deception
, protection from
harm
Theoretical
issues
Reliability
,
data type
, generalisability, objective
Triangulation
Using one
positivism
and one
interpretivism
Methodological
pluralism
Use 1+
positivism
or
interpretivism