RESEARCH METHODS

• primary data 


  info collected by sociologists first hand

  —e.g. social surveys
• secondary data


  info collected or created by someone else

  —e.g. official statistics
• independent variable

  the thing that is measured
• dependent variable

  the thing that is controlled
• reliability

  when the procedure can be followed by someone else exactly and get the same or similar results
• representativeness


  when the sample is large enough to represent the wider population
• field experiment

  • takes place in the pp’s natural habitat
  • the pps involved are not usually aware they are being studied, so there is no hawthorne effect
• positivists

  • prefer quantitative data
  • analysing data helps us discover cause and effect relationships of behaviour
• interpretivists

  • prefer qualitative data
  • sociology can NOT be a science
  • analysis of social actors is the only way to understand their behaviour
• the comparative method

  • carried out in the mind of the sociologist
  • doesn't involve the researcher experimenting on real people
  • it is designed to discover cause and effect relationships
• open-ended questions

  • allows free form questions
  • ’what‘, ‘how’, ‘where’, ‘when’
  • collects qualitative data
  • takes longer to gather info due to respondents needing to elaborate
• close-ended questions

  • limited answer options
  • yes or no/multiple choice questions
  • collects quantitative data
  • completed in a shorter time frame as answers are direct