Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Experiments (Lab experiments (Evaluation (Practical strengths: easy to…
Experiments
Lab experiments
Practical
-
Due to the venue and equipment needed, it is often expensive
-
Ethical
There is no informed consent, but there is consent.
-
-
Theory
Positivists would use this because it is scientific and objective due to quantitative data, but many sociologists use the comparative method instead of this.
Evaluation
Practical strengths: easy to analyse and present data, control over situations (easy to gather data)
Practical weaknesses: can be expensive to higher a venue/equipment, and is often time consuming to actually conduct
Ethical strengths: consent can be gained, participants can be debriefed
Ethical weaknesses: no informed consent, no right to withdraw due to a lack of informed consent, deception and can cause harm
Theoretical weaknesses: it is an artificial environment, not valid
Theoretical strengths: trends can be established due to statistical comparison from quantitative data and it can be repeated in the future.
Field experiments
-
Ethical
It's covert, so there is no informed consent or consent
-
It's entirely confidential, and therefore anonymity is secured
-
Evaluation
-
-
-
Ethical weaknesses: Covert so therefore there is no informed consent or consent, no right to withdraw, difficult to debrief participants
Theoretical strengths: real life, therefore more valid, less chance of the Hawthorne effect, more replicable than covert observation because it's a standardised procedure
Theoretical weaknesses: lack of control over extraneous variables, hard to repeat in the future due to situational variables (same environment not guaranteed)
Practical
-
-
Due to it be quantitative data, it is easy to gather data and analyse it
The Comparative Method
-
Theory
Positivists use this method because it is scientific and objective and a suitable option to lab experiments. It's also reliable and practical, and not artificial.
Ethical
There is consent, including informed consent
-
-
-
Evaluation
Practical strengths are: it's easy to analyse and gather data, useful for studying past events, and the statistical data has already been collected so it is not time consuming or expensive
-
-
-
Theoretical strengths: not artificial-more valid, statistical comparison is an option which means correlations can be established and it can be repeated in the future.
Theoretical weaknesses: little/no control over extraneous variables (reduces validity), often researcher bias (lack of validity- 'thought experiment') and difficult to find a cause and effect relationship
Naturalistic experiments
Description: these types are rare in sociology (aside from John Gaventa's study) but they occur when researcher only want to measure the effect of something natural on another variable.
-