Methods

• Attitude Survey - A survey asking people’s attitudes / opinions on a given topic
• Bias - A‌ ‌prejudice‌ ‌for‌ ‌or‌ ‌against‌ ‌a‌ ‌particular‌ ‌group‌. This bias then becomes relevant when carrying out research ‌
• Case Study - A detailed understanding of a certain topic, place, event etc
• Census - A government questionnaire sent every 10 years with questions regarding income, household numbers etc 
• Confidentiality - Private information about an individual will not be shared without their consent. This is important when writing up the findings of research
• Closed question - Questions that have limited response e.g yes/no 
• Content analysis - A method where you look at the content of media try to draw out patterns  / trends (often by counting how many times something appears)
• Covert observation - Watching people or groups without them being aware they are being watched
• Data - Facts, statistics or information that is collected 
• Data analysis - Looking at the data provided and trying to interpret it  (finding patterns and trends in the data)
• Data protection - Keeping people’s information and data safe 
• Ethical considerations - anonymity, confidentiality, informed consent.
• Ethical considerations - Whether the situation is deemed morally right or wrong. 
• Ethnography - Study of a culture, a group or human behaviour. Involves recording people's every-day behaviour and is therefore most associated with observations, and particularly participant observation.
• Field experiments - Take place in a real world context e.g in a school or a hospital
• Laboratory experiment - Take place in an artificial, controlled environment such as a laboratory
• Focus group - A group interview usually with small numbers of people usually with a similar demographic.
• Generalisations - Your findings can be applied to the whole population because your sample was representative
• Hypothesis - A prediction of what the research outcomes will be - testable statement
• Informed consent - Participants are told what the research is about and will involve and agree to take part with this knowledge. 
• Interview - A conversation between researcher and participant discussing a specific topic. Structured / unstructured
• Interviewer bias/effect - When the interviewer asks questions in order to get specific and potentially manipulated responses / the respondent gives answers that are expected of them
• Longitudinal studies - Research performed over a long period of time
• Mixed methods research - A mix of qualitative and quantitative data within a single investigation generated by using different methods
• Non-participant observation - Watching people activities in their natural setting without taking part 
• Observation - Watching people in everyday settings as part of your research
• Official statistics - Secondary data collected by official groups such as the government. Numerical data  
• Open-ended questions - When the participant can write as much as they want and are not limited to predetermined options
• Overt observation - When the participants being watched are aware that they are being watched.
• Participant observation - When a researcher joins a group of participants in its activities as a full member 
• Personal documents - First hand accounts of social events and personal experiences. Any document that belongs to someone (e.g. diaries, letters)
• Pilot study - A small-scale version of the research performed before the actual research to understand flaws and to iron them out
• Pluralism - More than one method used or multiple theories 
• Population - The group of people that the sociologists want to research and which the sample will be taken from
• Primary data - Collected by the sociologist doing the research 
• Qualitative data - Data using words, with depth. e.g. diary entries, research papers, newspaper
• Quantitative data - Data containing numbers usually statistics, e.g. percentages 
• Quality press - Newspapers / media that use more complex language
• Questionnaire - A list of pre-set questions that the respondents need to answer. they can be open, closed or a mixture of both
• Quota Sampling - You set your quota controles (e.g age, gender) then set about finding them