Research Methods

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  • Created by: llyuba
  • Created on: 02-02-18 09:37
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  • Quantitative
    • Statistics
      • Offical Statistics
        • Easy,cheap and accesable
        • Positivists favor because they are highly reliable
        • Representative  due to large scale studies
        • Open to political abuse
        • Interpretivists view them as a social construct
      • Secondary Data
      • Non - Official Statistics
        • produced by non-state organisations in order to publicize a social problem
    • Questionnaire
      • Low response rate
        • Interpretivists believe they produce data low in validity
          • Don't reflect reality
    • Research Methods
      • Qualitative
        • Observation
          • Particpant
            • Covert
              • Researcher conceals the fact that there's research taking place
            • Overt
              • Researcher joins in the activities and lets the participants know
                • Dangerous
          • Non-Participant
          • Etnographic
            • Particpant
              • Covert
                • Researcher conceals the fact that there's research taking place
              • Overt
                • Researcher joins in the activities and lets the participants know
                  • Dangerous
            • Data is hard to analyse because its normally descriptive
          • Interpretivists like this method
            • Verstehen
          • Only practical method available to research hard-to-reach groups
          • 'Observer Effect'
          • Ethical Issues as you can lie to people
          • May be subjective
        • Unstructured Interviews
          • No predetermined questionnaires/interview schedule
            • Open-ended questions with flexible responses
          • Useful when researching a sensitive group
          • Positivists do not like this approach due to lack of quantitative data impacting the realibility
        • Mixed Methods
          • Triangulations
            • 1 method that produces quantitative + 1 qalitative data
            • Checks the accuracy of teh data
            • Gives a complete picture
          • Methodologial Pluralism
            • Used to build up a fuller more comprehensive picture of social life
            • Expensive and produces vast amounts of data making it hard to analyse
    • Structured Interviews
      • Ethical = interviewer can explain the aims and objectives = gaining consent
      • Higher response rate
      • Positivists
        • Scientific as schedules are standardized
      • Expensive and time-consuming
      • Interpretivist argue it lacks validity
      • 'Interviewer Effect'

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