Research methods

RESEARCH METHODS

Primary

• interviews - structured(questions)/unstructured(conversational)
• questionnaires/surveys - tick box/open(give own answer)/closed(predetermined)
• observations - Overt(tell participants)/covert(don't tell participants)

Secondary

• statistics - official(collected by government)/Non-official(collected by organisations, eg charities)
• pre-existing research
• personal/historical documents

Key concepts:

• validity - data is said to be valid if it is genuine and an accurate representation of what is being studied
• reliability - if a research is repeated and similar findings are recorded, then the data is seen as reliable
• representativeness - when considering the value of the findings of a study, it is important to ask how representative the people studied are on the whole population
• …