QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
- Created by: missamy11211
- Created on: 06-06-17 14:46
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- Quantitative research methods
- practical issues
- time and money
- requirement and costs
- skills of researcher
- subject matter of study
- research opportunity
- Ethical issues
- informed consent
- privacy
- harm
- covert methods
- vulnerable group
- Theoretical issues
- reliability
- validity
- representativeness
- Positivism
- use quantitative: experiments, questionnaires,structured interviews, OS
- society is not random. Patterns influenced by members
- Interpretivism
- questionnaires - detached contact between researcher and responder
- cannot clarify personal meaning
- questionnaires - detached contact between researcher and responder
- Laboratory experiment
- controlled experiment - artificial environment - valuables exposed to one group not other (cause and effect). Group change = result of different treatment
- Practical issues:
- [open system] - open society = all variable cannot be controlled
- [Hawthorne effect] - if people aware will act differently
- [Expectancy effect] - researcher expectation affects outcome
- [Hawthorne effect] - if people aware will act differently
- [open system] - open society = all variable cannot be controlled
- Ethical issues
- [Informed consent] - must know risks + effects
- [Harm] - no harm must come to participants
- [Informed consent] - must know risks + effects
- Theoretical issues
- lack validity - only study small samples
- lack validity - created environment
- free will - our behaviour cannot be measured
- lack validity - only study small samples
- Field experiments
- takes place in subject's natural environment. Those involved do not know - factor is manipulated
- Rosenthal and Jacobson - teacher labelling study
- natural and avoids artificiality of lab exp.
- more natural means variables cannot be controlled
- unethical as participants do not know
- Questionnaire
- close ended set of questions. Open ended - own words
- quick and easy to distribute. cheap for large amount of data
- no need to recruit interviewers
- Practical issues
- people will not do it without incentives - low response rate
- incentives add to cost
- fails to capture full attitude of people
- findings can be generalised to wider society
- enables cause and effect to be tested
- reliable - can be replicated
- large scale quick distribution
- social desirability - lie
- Official Statistics
- data collected by gov. for non sociological purpose. Churches and charities = non official stats
- free sources of huge data - only state has enough money for big research
- state can force people to comply
- collected over time shows pattern
- Practical issues
- gov. purpose different to sociologists
- gov. different definitions - e.g. truancy different to sociologists
- highly representative - entire pop.
- different people get same results - reliable
- gov. follow procedures - reliable
- issue: some people may not fill in properly
- gov. follow procedures - reliable
- different people get same results - reliable
- can test cause and effect. See patterns. e.g. gender diff.
- socially constructed - attached labels to people
- should look at individual meaning
- Structured interviews
- conducted in same way. Q's wording tone of voice all the same
- Q's read and filled in by interviewer, not respondent. Social interaction
- quick and cheap
- higher response rates
- gather straightforward info
- ISSUE: because pre planned interviewer must have knowledge - hard to research unknown subjects
- highly representative
- reliable - can be repeated and trained to conduct same way
- enables cause and effect to be tested
- people may lie. Little freedom to explain
- practical issues
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