Research

• Primary sources of information


  • Social surveys
  • Participant observation
  • Experiments
• Primary data


  • Information collected by sociologists themselves for their own purpose
• Secondary sources of information


  • Official statistics
  • Documents
• Secondary data


  • Information that has been collected by someone else for their own purposes
• Factors influencing choice of methods


  • Practical Issues
  • Ethical Issues
  • Theoretical Issues
• Practical Issues


  • Time and money
  • Requirement of funding bodies
  • Personal skills and characteristics
  • Subject matter
  • Research opportunity
• Ethical Issues


  • Informed consent
  • Confidentiality and privacy
  • Harm to research participants
  • Vulnerable groups
  • Covert research
• Theoretical Issues


  • Validity
  • Reliability
  • Representativeness
• Validity


  Producing a true or genuine picture of what something is really like
• Reliability


  • a.k.a. replicability, an exact copy of something
  • When repeated by another researcher, gives the same result
• Representativeness


  • Whether or not the people we study are a typical cross-section of the group we are interested in
  • If we are able to use our results to make generalisations
• Methodological perspectives


  • Positivism
  • Interpretivism
• Positivists


  • Prefer quantitative data
  • Seek to discover patterns of behaviour
  • See sociology as a science
  • Functionalists + marxists
• Interpretivists


  • Prefer qualitative data
  • Seek to understand social actors' meanings
  • Reject the view that sociology is a science
  • Interactionalists
• Hypothesis


  A possible explanation that can be tested by collecting evidence to prove it true or false
• If the hypothesis turns out false, we must discard it
• Aim


  • More general
  • Identifies what we want to study and hope to achieve through the research
• Operationalising concepts


  The process of converting a sociological concept into something we can measure
• Problems can arise when different sociologists operationalise the same concept differently
• Positivists


  • Prioritise operationalising concepts
  • Because of the importance they place on creating and testing hypothesis
• Interpretivists


  • Put less emphasis on operationalising concepts
  • More interested in actors' own definitions and understandings of ideas
  • Rather than imposing their own definitions of these concepts
• Pilot study


  • Often carried out before main study
  • Trying out a draft version of questionnaire/interview schedule on a small sample
• The aim of a pilot study is to iron out any problems + give interviewers practice
• Young and Willmott (1962)


  • Carried out over 100 pilot interviews
  • Allowed them to decide on the design of their study, questions to ask, how to word them
• Samples and sampling


  A smaller sub-group drawn from the wider group that we are interested in
• Sociologists often aim to produce generalisations that apply to all cases of the topic they are interested in
• The basic purpose of sampling is to ensure that the people we have chosen are representative of the research population</b>
• Positivists


  • Sampling is attractive to them
  • They wish to make general, law-like statements about the whole social structure
• Sampling frame


  A list of all the members of the population we are interested in studying
• Young and Willmott


  • Used the electoral register as their sampling frame
• Sampling techniques


  • Random sampling
  • Systematic sampling
  • Stratified random sampling
  • Quota sampling
• Random sampling


  • The simplest technique
  • Selected purely by chance
  • Everyone has an equal chance of being selected
• Young and Willmott


  • Used every 36th name on the electoral register for their sample
• Stratified random sampling


  • The researcher first stratisfies (breaks down) the population in the sampling frame
  • Separated into age, class, gender, etc.
  • The sample is then created in the same portions
• Quota sampling


  • The population is stratified
  • Each interviewer is given a quote which they have to fill with respondents who fit these characteristics
• Non-representative sampling


  • Snowball sampling
  • Opportunity sampling
• Snowball sampling


  • Collecting a sample by contacting a number of key individuals
  • They are then asked to suggest others who might be interviewed
• Opportunity sampling


  • Convenience sampling
  • Choosing from those individuals who are easiest to access
• Interpretivists


  • Believe it is more important to obtain valid data and an authentic understanding of social actors' meanings than discover general laws of behaviour
  • Less concerned to make generalisations
  • Less need for representative samples
• Five main groups and settings in educational research

  • Pupils
  • Teachers
  • Parents
  • Classrooms
  • Schools