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Methods in Context - Coggle Diagram
Methods in Context
Questionnaires
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Access and Response Rate
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schools may be reluctant to distribute questionnaires as they may disrupt lessons or they reject to the chosen topic
When conducted in schools the response rate is likely to be very high as the students and teachers may feel complied to reply as the head teacher has approved it
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Practical Issues
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requires children to read and understand questions which some children may find more difficult than others
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Anonymity and detachment
Questionnaires can be good when researching sensitive issues as the anonymity can mean they are more prepared to give answers
It is difficult to build a rapport with the participants and this means the pupils are less likely to give full and honest responses
Children part of anti-school subcultures may be reluctant to engage when the document looks formal and like a test
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Lab experiments
Ethical Problems
Young peoples' vulnerability and their more limited understanding of what's happening mean that there's greater problems of deception, lack of informed consent and psychological damage
Narrow Focus
Usually only examine one specific aspect - This can be useful because it allows variables to be examined thoroughly
This sometimes means that research cannot be seen within the wider situation . For example identifying negative and positive body language - but what effect does this have on pupils performance ?
Practical Problems
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Sociologists are often interested in the large scale social factors or processes and these can not be studies in a small scale laboratory setting
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Interviews
Practical Issues
Young interviewees may be less articulate or more reluctant to talk, not understand the long complex questions or abstract concepts, have more limited vocab etc.
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Children have better verbal skills than written skills so interviews may be more appropriate than questionnaires
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Reliability and Validity
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structured interviews may not produce valid data since young people are likely to respond favorably to such a formal style
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Access and response rate
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schools may be reluctant to allow sociologists to conduct interview during lessons because of disruption
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Field experiments
Ethical problems
Field experiments work best when those involved are unaware that they are in an experiment - however this requires deception
Reliability
They are often replicated and results are able to be checked - but differences in school types, class, gender and ethnicity of the schools mean they are not fully correspondent