SOCIOLOGY UNIT 2-

RESEARCH METHODS (AQA)

TYPES OF DATA Qualitative: involves opinions and

values (words) Favoured by intrepretivists

Quantitative: numerical data. Favoured by positivists.

Primary data: collecting new data that hasnt been collected before and for the researchers purpose i.e. Surveys

Secondary data: collected old data that has been available before and has been collected by someone else. i.e. Official statistics.

EVALUATING DATA PET- Practical (funding, access to groups, time,

cost) Ethical (informed consent, confidentiality, psychological harm) Theoretical ( if data is reliable: can it be replicated, valid: is it true accurate picture of research group)

Research methods: experiment, questionnaire, interview, observation, official statistics, documents

Positivism (advocated by durkhiem) look for correlations, objective facts

Interpretive: interpret meaning of words, use qualitative data to do this.

SAMPLING Selecting respondents to carry out research: Unit: individual of a population/ frame: list of all

people in a population Random: everyone has an equal chance of being

selected. Large sample needed. Most representative Stratified: population divided based on variables such

as sex. Need sampling frame. Small sample Snowballing: members put researcher in touch with

possible respondents. Not representative. Good for groups that are hard to identify.

Opportunity: people put themselves forward and those who are easily accessible. Cant generalize. Easy, cheapest and quick

SURVEYS/QUESTIONNAIRES

Face2face: high response rate, opertionalize concepts. Interviwer bias, time consuming.

Telephone: cheap, easy. Response rates Postal: cheap, easy. Response rates, generalize. Internet: cheap, quick. Response rate, limited to those with

internet access. Fixedq: respondents restricted to limited answers i.e. Yes/no.

Quantitative data, reliable. Hard to opertionalize concepts, cant get qualitative data.

Openq: respondents allowed to provide their own response. Detailed data, opertionalize concepts. Time consuming, interviewer bias.

OVERALL: Large amounts of data collected quickly, easy to compare results.

People may act differently [hawthrone effect] data may be inaccurate, researches mat nor understand respondents reasoning.

INTERVIEWS Structured: pre-set of questions. Easy to replicate

and compare, less chance of interview bias. Lack of detail, hard to find out more

semi- structured: some fixed questions. Researchers influence the route of interview. Reliability.

Unstructured: few or no fixed questions. Researcher directs the interview, hard to replicate, time consuming, may go off track.

Individual: less time consuming. cant observe interaction

Group: closer to real life, may sway opinion OVERALL: validity may be affected. Larger sample

can be used. Interprevists favour it.

OBSERVATION Participant> overt (researcher can ask

questions, difficult to become full participant, research group may not want to be observed>covert (respondents are not aware of researcher) act more naturally, difficult to access some groups, unethical.

Overall: can be done with little preparation, in depth studies, unethical, samples may be too small to generalize, time consuming.

LONGITUDINAL STUDY Study of same people over long period

of time. Long term commitment, sample size can

affect validity Look over process for long time, valid Triangulation: using different research

methods to fill in data.

SECONDARY SOURCES i.e. Documents, diaries, official statistics Allow insight into peoples lives Cheaper, quicker Allow to study the past. May not be reliable May not be for the researcher purpose. Qualitative: historical data, content

analysis (comparing media studies). May not be representative, may be

untruthful, may be unreliablable.

WORDS YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR RESEARCH Case study-study in depth of something Collecitivits: grouping interests together Credibility: how believeable data is Factual survey: a survey collective detailed data Field experiments: conducted in natural setting Formal content analysis: analyis of media in numerical

data Hypothese: a statement to be tested in research Objectivity: making truthful statements about the world Operationalizing: breaking down a concept so it can be

measured. Official statistics: numberical data produced by the

government Private documents :i.e. Diaries Response rate: people who return the questionnaire