Research Methods - Introduction

Primary
Information by sociologists themselves for their own purposes. A first hand look into things.

Secondary
This info has been collected by the someone else for their own purposes and other sociologists can use
it.

Social survey; askings ps questions in written or verbal ways

Participant observation; sociologists join in with activities their studying.
Experiments; Field experiments or in cooperative method.
Official statistics; produced by the government, about divorce etc.
Documents; including TV broadcasts, letter diaries etc
Qualititative
This is descriptive data which gives a feel for what somethings like

In-depth interviews

Quantitative
This is data in the numerical form

Official statistics, opinion polls, market research, GCSEs.

Factors affecting choice of methods:

Practical issues;
1. Time; some methods take more time than others. E.g ps observation and unstructured interview
take more time than social surveys.
2. Finance; how much will the study cost to run? Some methods are cheaper than others. For
example conducting a large scale survey may cost a lot of money as would need to employ interviews
and data inputting staff.
3. Sources of funding; researching is usual funded by the government, businesses and voluntary
organisations. They may want to take certain form. E.g Quantitative data for statistics.
4. Personal skills and characteristics; different sociologists may have different skills. E.g Able to
build repors quickly.
5. Subject matter/personal danger; Some groups are less open for study E.g criminals, so
structured methods are not appropriate.
6. Research opportunity; If research opportunity suddenly appears, the researcher may have no
time to prepare lengthy questionnaires or interviews schedules.
Ethical Issues;
1. Informed Consend
2. Confidentiality
3. Protection from harm
4. Vulnerable groups (children, where its hard to get consent or language used, consideration)
5. Deception
Theoretical Issues:
Reliability = This is a method that is replicable (quantitative) and consistent
Validity = This is a method which produces a true picture of what something is really like (qualitative)
Representativenss = Whether the ps used are a true cross section of the people being investigated,
Methodological perspectives:
Positivisits
-Prefer quantitative data (surveys)
-See sociology as a science (objective, empirical, causal laws)

-Research could lead to improving society

-Reliability

Interpretativists
-Seek to discover patterns of behaviour

-Looks at a macro-level of society

-Qualitative data

-Understand social actors meanings. Individuals create society it doesnt exist outside of the individuals,
so we need to ask them to understand society. Means are constructed and reconstructed in social
interaction

-Validity