factors influencing choice of methods part 2

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  • Created by: Kayley20
  • Created on: 06-06-18 09:41
what is representativeness>
this efers to whther or not the people we study are a typical cross section of the gorup we are interested in- arge scale quantitaitve surbeys
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what is the positivists perspective on the choice of methods?
they prefer quantitative data, seek to discover patterns of behavior and see sociology as a science
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what is the interpretivists perspective on the choice of methods?
prefer qualitative data, seek to understand social actors meanings and reject the view that sociology can model itself on the natural sciences
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what are the 4 factors whcih influence choice of topic?
the sociologists perspecitve, societys values, practical factors and funding bodies
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how is the sociologists perspective a factor which influences choice of topic?
A new right researcher may study the effects of welfare benefits on the groth of lone parent families, since the idea of welfare dependency is central to their standpoint. In contrast, feminists are more likely to choose to study domestic violence.
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how is society's values a factor which influences choice of topic?
As values change so does the focus of research- rise of feminism in the 1960s led to a focus on gender inequality
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how is practical factors a factor which influences choice of topic?
practical factors such as the inaccessibility of certain situations to the researcher may also restrict what topic they are able to study
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how is funding bodies a factor which influences choice of topic?
Most research requires funding form an external body for example government agencies, charities etc as the funding body is paying for the research, it will determine the topic to be investigated
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what is triangulation?
using 2 or more sources or methods to obtain a more rounded picture by studying the same thing from more than one viewpoint
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what is a hypothesis?
A possible explanation that can be tested by collecting evidence to prove it true or false
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whatis the advantage of a hypothesis?
it gives direction to our research. It wil give a focus to our questions, since their purpose is to gather info that iwll either confimr or disprove our hypothesis
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why do positivists favour a hypothesis as starting point for research?
This is because they seek to discover cause and effect relationships e.g that large family size causes underachievement-they use quantitative method such as questions
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what is an aim?
it identifies what we intend to study and hope to achive through the research
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advantage of an aim?
more open-ended. we can gather data on anyhtign that appears interesting about a situation.
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why do interpretivists often favour a broad aim?
as they our interested in understanding actors meanings so the task is to find out what the actor themselves think is important, rather than to impose the researchers own possible explanations in the from of a hypothesis
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why are positivsts concerned to operationalise concepts?
because of the impotance they place on creating and testing hypotheses.
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why do interpretivists put less empahsis on operationalisng concepts?
because they are more interesed in actors own definitions and understadning of ideas such as 'class', 'achievement' etc than in imposing their own definitions of these concepts
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what is the basic aim of a pilot study
To iron out any problems, refine or clarify questions and their wording and give interviewers practice, so that the actual study goes as smoothlty as possible
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what is a sample?
A smaller sub group drawn from the wider group that we are interested in
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what is sampling
the process of creating or selecting a sample
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what is the basic purpose of sampling
to ensure that those people we have chosen to incldue in the study are representative or typical of the research population,including all the people we have not been able to include in the study
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what is a sampling frame?
a list of all the memebrs of the population we are interested in studying- must be complete and accurate, up to date without duplicaitons
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what are the different sampling tecnhiques?
Random sampling, Quasi random/systematic sampling, stratified random sampling, quota sampling
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what is random sampling?
simplest technique- selected by chance- equal chance of being selected- a large enough random sample shoild reflect characterisitcs of whole population
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what is quais random/systematic sampling?
where every nth person in the sampling frame is selected
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what is stratified random sampling?
researcher breaks dwon the population in the sampling frame by age, class, gender etc. The sample is then created in the same proportions
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What is Quota sampling
the popuation is stratified and then each interviewer is given a quota, which they have to fill with respondents who fit these charactersitics
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what are the practical reason for not being able to create a representative sample?
- the socail characterisitcs of the rsearch population, such as age, gender and class may not be known- impossoble to create a sample that was an exact crosss section of the research population.
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another practical reason for not being able to create a representative sample
It may be impossible to find or create a sampling frame for that partiuclar researhc population. For example, not all criminals are convicted, so there is no complete lsit available from whcih to select a sample
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what is snowball sampling?
involves collecting a sample by contacting a number of key indivudals, who are aksed to suggest others who might be interviewed, and so on, sdding to the sample 'snowball' fashion, unitl enough data has been collected.
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what is opportunity sampling?
choosing from those indiviudals whoa re eaisest to access- selecting from passers by in the street
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what is the positivists perspective on the choice of methods?

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they prefer quantitative data, seek to discover patterns of behavior and see sociology as a science

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what is the interpretivists perspective on the choice of methods?

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Card 4

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what are the 4 factors whcih influence choice of topic?

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how is the sociologists perspective a factor which influences choice of topic?

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