Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Research Methods - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Sullivan - Used these to study the impact of cultural capital, supporting Bordieu, culturally different.
    - - Speed
      - Lack of interviewer reduces cost and amplifies potential scale
      - Reliable, as they are easily repeated
      - Allows for comparison across time period, location etc
    - - Participants are restricted by their literacy skills
      - Inability to clarify or ask follow up questions
      - Opens issues with operationalising concepts
      - Inflexible and potentially invalid. Small snapshot of one time. Opens door to recency bias, acquiescence bias
    - - Advs.
        
        Schools are useful to sample in
        
        Prevents status differences from having an impact, as they can be completed away from "adults"
        
        School's can pressure students to answer, increasing sample size
      - Disadvs.
        
        Poorly operationalised concepts may prevent valid data
        
        Schools can be gatekeepers
        
        Whilst a correlation can be identified, it can't be examined effectively.
  - - - Standardised, larger sample size by using multiple (trained) interviewers
        
        Higher response rate means larger sample size
        
        Standardisation brings more reliability than unstructured interviews
    - - Atypical (Friendless, Jobless) people are more likely to have the desire or time to be interviewed
        
        Closed questions may not elicit valid data
        
        Misunderstandings cannot be clarified, leading to invalidity
    - - Advantages
        
        Better for young people, who have better verbal than literacy skills
        
        Schools can ensure students participate, increasing response rate
        
        BUT
      - Disadvantages
        
        Researcher participant dynamics may affect responses (Disobeying a perceived "Teacher")
        
        Schools can act as gatekeepers, preventing a study
  - - - Reliable due to huge levels of control allowing for replication
        
        Detached and objective, helping to test hypotheses and predictions
    - - This excessive control may undermine internal validity through the Hawthorne effect
        
        Often involve. deception and psychological harm
        
        Small samples and unnatural circumstances may cause a lack of external validity
    - - Advantages
        
        lack of requirement to involve real pupils makes it more ethical
        
        One variable can be controlled tightly
      - Disadvantages
        
        Real students are a vulnerable group, making it unethical;
        
        Ignores wider processes present in reality
        
        It is hard to replicate a whole school in a lab environment.
  - - - Free and easily available
        
        Allow comparisons between social groups
        
        Huge sample sizes, larger than any sociologist could obtain
    - - Changes in definition makes comparison different, e.g. definition of Covid related deaths over 2020-2021
        
        Errors may result in invalid data
    - - Advantages
        
        Schools must publish lots of data, granting sociologists easy access
        
        State schools complete censuses including most pupils
      - Disadvantages
        
        Limited to areas of interest for the government, not sociologists
        
        Changes in definitions and categories make comparisons harder. Flawed for identifying patterns over time
        
        Teachers may manipulate figures, off-rolling and changing governmental categories
- - - - Known Population - Probability
        
        Stratified Sampling - Ensures sample demographics match the population being sampled. E.g, When studying London, ensuring more minority ethnic groups are recruited.
        
        Issues: Requires detailed demographic information about population groups. Easy sometimes, hard at others.
        
        Random Sampling - Selects individuals randomly
        
        Easy to do, but will likely result in an unrepresentative sample size
        
        Opportunity - Sampling those who are immediately available to be in the study
      - Unknown Population - Non Probability (Like no. of homeless people)
        
        Snowball sample - A small core group recommends more participants, helping to understand the size of the population
        
        Quota Sampling - Selecting set amounts of certain groups, like women, pensioners etc.
        
        Volunteer Sample - People suggest participating as they respond to a callout