AQA Sociology AS Method In context full revision notes
- Created by: abbygrace123
- Created on: 24-03-17 16:14
Fullscreen
Methods In The Context of Education
P - Practical Issues
E - Ethical Issues
R - Reliability
V - Validity
E - Empirical Research
R - Representativeness
T - Theoretical
P - Practical Issues
- Time and Money
- Funding
- Personal Skills and Characteristics
- Subject Matter
- Research Opportunity
E - Ethical Issues
- Informed Consent
- Confidentiality and Privacy
- Harm to participants
- Vulnerable Groups
- Covert Research
R - Reliability
- If another researcher took the experiment would they get the same results
V - Validity
- Is the data truthful
E - Empirical Research
- Examples of similar research
R - Representativeness
- Are you results representative of a larger sample/society in general
T - Theoretical Issues
- Which theoretical or methodological perspective would favour the method?
- Positivist - Prefer quantitative data, see sociology as a science to be mirrored on the natural sciences (structured interviews, questionnaires, experiments and official statistics etc.)
- Interpretivists - Prefer qualitative data, reject the idea that sociology is mirrored on sciences, an interpret data looking for subjective meaning (participant observation, unstructured interviews etc.)
- Useful Concepts-
- Gatekeepers - anyone or anything that has the authority (legitimate or not) to allow, prevent or limit your research
- Impression Management - social actors try to manipulate the impression other people have of us; this can be a barrier to research as the researcher has to fight this image
- Peer Group Pressure- respondents may feel pressurised into conforming to the views of the main reference groups; applies to teachers as well as pupils (e.g. in Group Interviews)
- Front-stage behaviour - Goffman suggests we put on an act when we are out there in the social world
- Back-stage behaviour - in front stage we may not show our true feelings so research needs to get backstage with the social actors
- Hawthorne Effect - when a respondents act up because they are aware that their behaviour is being studied
Studying Children
- Easy to find but difficult to access, they are mostly in schools though there are may gatekeepers in the way of accessing them for study (may need a CRB check before entering a school, child protection laws etc)
- Children are vulnerable because of their age- therefore are harder to study, questions must be simple and careful
- May be more naïve and so more truthful
- Informed consent- children may need extra protection from harm
- Less developed language capabilities may lead to misinterpretation on both parties
- Lower attention span may mean studies need to be shortened
- Issues with memory , memories may be partial or not recalled
- The power, authority and status of the researcher may intimidate the student or give answers they believe will please the researcher. Pupils with anti-school…
Comments
Report