Quantitative Research Methods

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  • Created by: Lucy
  • Created on: 29-05-17 21:29

Quantitative Research Methods

Advantages

  • Practical: Control environment/ sure of the time limit
  • Ethical: informed consent is need/ can benefit society with findings- such as better teaching methods for pupils
  • Reliability: can be repeated (step2step)/ produces quantitative data/ it is a very detached and objective./ easily test a hypothesis seeing if the variables affect a phenomenon
  • Validity: no
  • Examples: Miligram
  • Representative: can be generalized to extent
  • Theory: positivists would see this as a theoretical strength
  • Explain: how methods work, can get overt - like someone signing up for something not truly aware off and overt experiments
  • Data: Quantitative Research / primary research

Disadvantages

  • Practical: Experiments are closed experiments whereas society is open experiment/ individuals are complex- unlike chemicals/ can't study the past/Money- employ people to carry it out
  • Ethical : informed constant- are vulnerable groups fully aware? if using convert methods/ Harm to subjects
  • Validity: lack in validity/ artificial experiment- not a true picture
  • Representatives: Even though it can be generalized, experiments can only study small samples there is a greater risk that they are not a representative cross-section of the population the researcher interested in. If so it can be generalized beyond the experiment. The higher amount of control the experimenter has makes the experiment unnatural/ things can be falisfed/ Hawthorne effect
  • Theory: Interpretative argue that humans have free will and therefore behavior is not caused by external factors, instead actions can only be understood with actions and choices we make.
  • Theory Positivists: they see also believe that it suffers important limitations even from their perspective

Evaluation

Positivists sociologists model their approach to research on the logic and methods of natural science a they may also occasionally use lab experiments.

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