practice exam questions 2:3

Saturday 6th February 2021

sociology 2:3 research methods 

you have been asked as a sociologist to investigate the subject chooses made by boys and girls in British schools.

identify what sociologists mean by a pilot study and explain why you might undertake a pilot study for this investigation. (4 marks)

a pilot study is a small scale test run designed to save time, money and resources in the long run by making sure everything is running smoothly before the full study. sometimes, a pilot study helps to shape the hypotheses or even convince the sociologist to drop the research altogether. there are a couple of reasons why you might want to undergo a pilot study, for instance when studying minors, there are ethical considerations, and a pilot study will bring those into the light so you can figure out how to avoid them.

identify one secondary source of information that you would use and explain why this source might be useful for your investigation. (4 marks)

i would use school reports from previous years to see if there are patterns in the years children got good grades. for example, there may have been an important academic figure that got a lot of media coverage in the same year that boys did better in exams than girls. 

identify one method of interviewing that you might use and explain why this method is better than postal questionnaires. (6 marks)

I would do group interviews, this is because children might find it easier to talk about their experience at school in a group rather than on their own in a one to one session…