Social Surverys
- Created by: Emily Uffindell
- Created on: 14-03-14 20:16
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- Social Surverys
- Social surveys take two basic forms.
- Written questionnaires: which respondents are asked to complete and return by e-mail.
- Interviews: either face to face or by telephone.
- Types of question.
- close-ended questions: the respondent must choose their answer from a limited range of possible answers that the researcher has decided upon in advance, such as "yes", "no" or "don't know," or like multiple choice questions in an exam.
- Open-ended questions: the respondent is free to give whatever answer they wish, in their own words, and without any pre-selected choices being offered by the researcher.
- Choosing a topic
- Sociologists use surveys to study a wide variety of issues, but survey methods are not suitable for all subjects.
- For example, historical topics cannot be investigated, unless there are survivors that we can question.
- Once we have a suitable topic for research, there are a number of stages we need to go through before we can start gathering data.
- The first of these is to formulate an aim or hypothesis.
- Formulating an aim or hypothesis: most surveys either have a general aim or seek to test specific hypothesis.
- An Aim is a statement that identifies what a sociologist intends to study and hopes to achieve by carrying out the research.
- Often the aim will simply be to collect data on a particular topic.
- Sociologists develop a hypothesis by studying their previous work.
- Often the aim will simply be to collect data on a particular topic.
- The advantage of a hypothesis is that it gives direction to research.
- It will give focus to the questions that we ask in our questionnaires and interviews, since their purpose is to gather information that will either confirm or disprove our hypothesis.
- Creating a hypothesis requires imagination because we have to think up a possible explanation for longer.
- The important thing is whether the evidence gathered in our survey supports it.
- Discarding a hypothesis might seem like a bad thing, but in fact it means that progress has been made.
- If a hypothesis is false, we must discard it.
- It will give focus to the questions that we ask in our questionnaires and interviews, since their purpose is to gather information that will either confirm or disprove our hypothesis.
- An Aim is a statement that identifies what a sociologist intends to study and hopes to achieve by carrying out the research.
- The census of the entire population conducted by the government every ten years is designed to collect large quantities of data about many different aspects of British society.
- Other surveys seek to test one or more hypotheses.
- It is a possible explanation that can be tested by collected evidence to prove it is true/false.
- Formulating an aim or hypothesis: most surveys either have a general aim or seek to test specific hypothesis.
- The first of these is to formulate an aim or hypothesis.
- Once we have a suitable topic for research, there are a number of stages we need to go through before we can start gathering data.
- For example, historical topics cannot be investigated, unless there are survivors that we can question.
- Sociologists use surveys to study a wide variety of issues, but survey methods are not suitable for all subjects.
- Operationalising concepts
- Before we can test it, we need a working definition or our key ideas and concepts.
- Without a working definition, numbers wouldn't be able to be counted.
- Once there is a working or operational definition of our concept, we can set about writing questions that measure it.
- Operationalism: This process of converting a concept into something which it can be measured by.
- Operationalising may seems straight forward, but problems are caused when different sociologists try and operationalise the same concept differently.
- Operationalism: This process of converting a concept into something which it can be measured by.
- Before we can test it, we need a working definition or our key ideas and concepts.
- The Pilot study
- Defined as a trial run of research methods.
- Untitled
- Social surveys take two basic forms.
- Sociologists develop a hypothesis by studying their previous work.
- It will give focus to the questions that we ask in our questionnaires and interviews, since their purpose is to gather information that will either confirm or disprove our hypothesis.
- Creating a hypothesis requires imagination because we have to think up a possible explanation for longer.
- The important thing is whether the evidence gathered in our survey supports it.
- Discarding a hypothesis might seem like a bad thing, but in fact it means that progress has been made.
- If a hypothesis is false, we must discard it.
- Untitled
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