Summary SOCIOLOGY A LEVEL RESEARCH METHODS NOTES (A*)

choosing a research method
primary and secondary sources of data -

 primary - information collected by sociologists themselves for their own purposes
 first hand picture
 e.g. social surveys
 secondary data - information collected or created by someone else for their own
purposes e.g. official statistics

quantiative and qualitative data

 quantiative - refers to information in a numerical form
 qualitative - gives a feel for what something is like e.g. participant observation, in
depth interviews

Pratical issues

 time and money
 requirements 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
 methodological perspective

FACTORS INFLUENCING CHOICE OF TOPIC

 the sociologists perspective
 societys values
 practical factors
 funding bodies

the process of research

1. formulating an aim or hypothesis

, 2. operationalising concepts - define the key ideas - converting a sociological concept
into something we can measure
3. pilot study

samples and sampling - sampling frame - a list of all the members of the population we are
interested in studying

sampling techniques

 random sampling
 systematic - nth person
 stratified - proportions
 quota sampling
 snowball sampling - suggesting others
 opportunity sampling - those who are easiest to accesss


experiments
labatory experiments

 the experimental group - varies
 the control group - constant
 scientist manipulates the variables in which they are interested in order to discover
what effect they have

reliability

 other scientists can replicate it - highly reliable
 produces the same results each time

practcal problems

 society is too complex to reduce down to variables
 cannot be used to study the past
 usually only study small samples

ethical problems

 lack of informed consent
 deception
 harm

the hawthorne effect

 if people know they are being studied they may behave differently

free will

 our behaviour cannot be explained in terms of cause and effect

, field experiments

 takes place in the subjects natural surroundings
 those involved are generally not aware that they are subjects of an experiment
 the researcher manipulates one or more of the variables in the situation to see what
effect it has
 rosenhan

The comparative method

 thought experiment

1. identify two groups of people that are alike in all major respects except for the one
variable we are interested in
2. then compare the groups to see if this one difference between them has any effect


questionnaires
ADVANTAGES

practical -

 quick and cheap - gather large amounts of data from large numbers of people
 no need for interviewers or obserbers
 data easy to quantify

reliability -

 reliable - same respondants and questions can replicate the results
 no researcher present to influence the respondants answers

hypothesis testing -

 useful for testing hypotheses about cause and effect

detatchment and objectivity -

 ubiased
 sociologists personal involvement with their respondents is kept to a minimum

representativeness

 can collect info from a large number of people

ethical issues

 pose fewer ethical problems than most research methods
 sensitive questions - respondants under no obligation to answer