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Methods in context - Coggle Diagram
Methods in context
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Practical considerations
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Access - may be difficult to gain access especially
for a "niche" subject area (e.g, field experiments)
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Personal skills & characteristics (e.g, in depth interviews require the interviewer to develop a rapport - not all sociologists have this ability)
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Research Characteristics
Pupils
Power & Status
- children generally have less power = more difficult to
state attitudes / opinions openly
- schools - hierarchical institutions (teachers can influence
who is chosen for research to promote a good image)
- formal research methods (structured interviews / questionnaires) reinforce power differences
Ability & Understanding
- pupils vocabulary, self-expression, confidence etc are limited (particularly with abstract ideas)
- sociologists need to take care in how they word their questions to make sure they are understood clearly
- limitations in understanding = difficulty gaining informed consent
- young children require more time / attention
- pupils are not a homogenous group - not all the same
Laws & Guidelines
- DBS - may delay/ prevent research
- young people are more vulnerable to physical and psychological harm - ethical issues
- young person should be aware of what the research entails
- children are legally required to attend school = know where to find target group
Teachers
Power & Status
- power relationships are not equal
- nature of classroom reinforces the power of teachers -
researcher may be viewed as a 'trespasser'
- researchers need to develop a 'cover' of they intend to carry out covert investigations - have lower status = not treated as equals
Impression Management
- teachers are use to being observed / scrutinised (e.g, Ofsted)
- teachers role is to 'put on an act' - manipulating the impression that other people have of us
- as social actors we behave differently when on 'front stage' as opposed to when 'backstage'
- teachers may be reluctant to answer questions honestly as it may alter their career prospects
Classrooms
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Gatekeepers
- include headteachers, teachers and child protection laws
- more gatekeepers = difficult for researcher to obtain access
Peer groups
- young people may be insecure about identity status =
need to confirm
-e.g, in group interviews pupils may be hidden behind the
dominant attitudes of the peer group
Schools
Own data
- secondary data publicly available about schools
- exam results, Ofsted reports, government inquiries
- confidential = difficult access
- schools may falsify their data to seem more attractive
- legal tendency to record all racist incidents = tendency to downplay as to maintain a positive public image
The Law
- 'captive population' means the researcher knows
where everyone is
- schools operate in a particular legal framework = legal
duty of schools may mean researchers access is restricted
Gatekeepers
- head teachers / governors can refuse access to schools
- sometimes view research negatively
- some situations and school settings may be 'off limits'
School organisation
- schools are formal institutions with hierarchies
- in schools where there is conflict, researchers may be seen as 'the enemy'
- many schools are single-sex = issues regarding researchers gender
- school holidays / exam periods may limit research
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Parents
- pro-school m/c parents may be more likely to return
questionnaires = unrepresentative
- parental permission is required for many forms of research
(how likely may depend on parents permission)
- parents may engage in impression management
Access to parents
- most parent-child interaction takes place in the home =
private setting - few opportunities for observation
- parents are located outside school = difficult to contact
and research
- school wont release parents info to researchers
Questionnaires
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ADVANTAGES
Practical
- quick and cheap means of gathering large amounts of data
(especially postal)
- no need to recruit / train interviewers
- data is easy to quantify (especially closed-ended) - processed quickly by computer
Reliability
- if repeated, similar results should be obtained
- postal / online = no researcher present to influence respondents answer
- if differences are found these are 'real' differences
Hypothesis testing
- useful when testing cause and effect
- questionnaires enable identification of causes - attractive to positivist sociologists *scientific approach)
Objectivity
- positivists = objective (unbiased) method
- sociologists personal involvement with respondents is kept to a minimum
- good way of maintaining detachment
Representativeness
- collection from a large amount of people = truly representative of wider population
- allow us to make more accurate generalisations
Ethical issues
- may ask intrusive / sensitive questions BUT respondents under no obligation to answer them
- researchers should gain respondents informed consent, guarantee their anonymity and make it clear they have no right to answer the questions
DISADVANTAGES
Practical problems
- data tends to be limited and superficial
- need to be brief as unlikely to complete and return them if time-consuming
- may be necessary sometimes to offer incentives to persuade respondents to complete them
- postal / online: researcher cannot be sure if respondent has received it or who it was adressed to actually completed it
Low response rate
- especially with postal questionnaires
- higher response rate = if follow-up questionnaires are sent / collected by hand (adds to the cost and time)
- non-response often caused by faulty questionairre design
- if respondents are different from non-respondents this will produce distorted and unrepresentative results
Inflexibility
- once finalised, the researcher is stuck with the questions
- cannot explore any new areas of intrest
Detachment
- interpretivists argue data lacks validity
- fail to allow us to get close to the subject
- lack of contact = no way to clarify what the questions mean
(may be interpreted in a way that is misunderstood)
Imposing researchers meanings
- interpretivists argue questionairres are more likely to impose the researchers own meanings
- by choosing questions = already decided what is important
- closed-ended questions = have to fit views into one answer
Interviews
(structured, unstructured, semi-structured, group interviews)
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2 main approaches
Positivism = seek to discover patterns of behaviour and see sociology as a science
- prefer quantitative (seek to discover the objective scientific laws of cause and effect that determine behaviour)
- assume that society has an objective factual reality
- prefer questionnaires, structured interviews, experiments and official statistics - reliable / representative
Interpretivism = seek to understand social actors meanings and reject the view that sociology can model itself in sciences
- prefer qualitative (to gain a subjective understanding of actors' meanings)
- we construct reality through the meanings we create in our interactions with others
- prefer participant observation, unstructured interviews, personal documents - valid data
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Experiments
LAB experiments
(manipulates variables in which they are interested
to discover the effect they have - cause and effect)
Reliability
- lab = highly reliable
- detached method - researcher manipulates the variables and records the results
- advantage - can establish cause & effect
- favoured by positivists
Practical problems
- society is a complex phenomenon - impossible to
identify all the variables that may have an influence
- cannot be used to study the past
- usually study small samples - reduces representativeness
Ethical problems
- lack of informed consent - may be difficult from children / people with learning difficulties etc
- deception - misleading about nature of experiment
- harm
Hawthorne Effect
- unnatural / artificial environment = not valid results
- people behave differently
Free Will
- interpretivists argue humans have free will
- our behaviour cannotbe explained in terms of cause and effect
- sociologists therefore have two alternatives to lab experiments: 'field' and the 'comparative method'
FIELD experiments
(takes place in a natural environment
and participants are usually unaware of
the experiment)
Ethical problems
- children have more rights today = legal duty of care
- work best when those involved are unaware - requires
deception
Observation
Participant observation
(researcher takes part in an event / everyday
life of group while observing it)
Getting in
making contact
- may depend on personal skills, having the right
connections or pure chance
acceptance
- researcher has to win trust / acceptance
- researchers age, gender, class, ethnicity may
be a barrier
observers role
- one that doesn't disrupt groups normal patterns
- offer a good vantage point to make observations
Staying in
'going native'
- by over-identifying with the group the researcher may become bias = become a member of the group
- however... by remaining detached they risk not understanding
the events they observe
Overt observation
- researcher reveals identity / purpose to the group
and asks their permission to observe
- avoids ethical problem of obtaining info by deceit
- allows observed to ask the naive but important questions
only an outsider could ask
- observer takes notes openly
disadvantage
- a group may refuse researcher permission
- risks creating the Hawthorne effect
Covert observation
practical issues
- advantage: reduces risk of altering peoples behaviour
(preserves naturalness of peoples behaviour)
- requires researcher to keep up an act - risk of cover
being 'blown' (could lead to physical harm)
- cannot take notes openly = must rely on memory and the
opportunity to write them in secret
Ethical issues
- immoral to deceive people - no informed consent until
after the study
- may have to lie about reasons for leaving the group = unethical
- may have to participate in immoral / illegal activities