factors influencing sociologists choice of method
- Created by: Megan Stewart
- Created on: 22-02-14 19:50
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- factors influencing sociologists choice of method
- PRACTICAL ISSUES
- time and money
- different methods use different amounts of time and money.
- for example large scale surveys use lots of interviewers and data inputting staff and may require a great deal of time and money to get reliable and accurate results.
- requirements of funding bodies
- research institutes businesses and other orginisations that provide the funding for tearch may require the results to be in a particular form.
- for example a government may want quantitative data to be produced through research on education for example
- personal skills and characteristics
- each sociologist may have different skills affecting the type of research they can do or will be the most effective
- for example participant observation usually means the sociologist musty be able to mix wel with others and keep up an act if it is covert
- subject matter
- it may be harder to study particular groups by a certain method e.g it may be hard for a male sociologist to study a convent
- research opportunity
- sometimes the opportunity to collect information come out of the blue without time to prepare
- time and money
- ETHICAL ISSUES
- informed consent
- each participant should be offered the right to refuse to be studies however this does not always happen if the observation is covert
- confidentiality and privacy
- researchers should keep the identities of the participants private to prevent possible negative effects on them
- also the personal information of the participants should also be kept private and confidential
- effects on participants
- research participants may come into contact with police intervention, harm to employment, social exclusion and physiological damage
- vulnerable groups
- special care should be taken when dealing with participants with a disability, either mentally or physically.
- for example when studying children in schools there are child protection issues; e.g consent from both child and child parents.
- covert research
- this is deceiving and lying to the participantswith can be ethically wrong
- informed consent
- THEORETICAL ISSUES
- validity
- a valid method is one that produces a true or genuine picture of what something is really like.
- many sociologists argue that qualitative data is more valid that quanatitive
- reliability
- reliability is if the study can be repeated easily and the same results achieved.
- quantitative methods such as written questionnaires produce more reliable results.
- representitave-ness
- if a study is representative then it means the individuals studied and there actions are the same as a larger group of the same people; the sample is representative
- methodological perspective
- choice of method is heavily infulenced by there methodological perspective.
- for example an interpretivist prefers qualitive data and beleives sociology is not a science; they seek to understand the meanings behind the participants actions.
- however positivists prefer quantitative data that measures systematic behavior of the participants due to external influences such as society; they believe science can explain behaiour
- validity
- PRACTICAL ISSUES
- methodological perspective
- choice of method is heavily infulenced by there methodological perspective.
- for example an interpretivist prefers qualitive data and beleives sociology is not a science; they seek to understand the meanings behind the participants actions.
- however positivists prefer quantitative data that measures systematic behavior of the participants due to external influences such as society; they believe science can explain behaiour
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