P.E.R.V.E.R.T

P.E.R.V.E.R.T

1. Practical

   • How much;
     • Time
     • Cost
     • Access
     • Travel time/cost
   • For example;
     • Not practical to give children/elderly a questionaire
       • Because they cant read/see/understand the questions
     • Attention span of sample
       • Young children will have a small attention span, so a long formal interview probably is not the best option
     • It can be too dangerous to do certain methods for certain situations
       • e.g it may be to dangerous to interview a street gang
     • Some people may be defensive in formal situations
       • so they may not give you the whole truth

2. Ethics

   • Whether it is morally/socially acceptable to do
   • Do not harm your subjects
   • Consent
     • The method used may not give informed consent
       • e.g a child can not give informed consent, they are not aware enough.
   • Confidnetiality
     • You must not make it clear who the subject is
       • anonymise your infomation
     • Do not inform others what the subject has told you
   • Consequences
     • Question whether the subject could get hurt from you using one method
       • you could hurt the person mentally, or lead them to getting physically hurt
     • Is it too intrusive?
   • Give people a range to hide in
   • Is the subject to sensitive?

3. Reliability

   • Can another researcher do your experiment getting the same results
   • Structured questionaires are a good method for reliability
     • Exactly the same questions, with no changing and the same subject should lead to the same results
   • Crime stats are generally reliable
     • easy to compare you can find them in the public domain (no ethical issues)

4. Validity

   • Is it true?
     • Are you likely to get the truth?
   • You are likely to get the truth in participant observation
     • More likely to get the truth in the subjects 'natural' setting than in a formal interview setting
   • Is you go natural to find how people normally act, how will your presence affect the way people act?
   • Secondary data is not valid as it is socially constructive
     • e.g in catholic countries families will cover up sucides as accidents, to save the deceased 'face'

5. Examples

   • Always use an example, to explain or illustrate your point.

6. Representativeness

   • Is this method likely to produce results that can be generalized?
   • e.g Large-scale more likely to be representative, but small-scale is more likely to provide valuable insights

7. Theoretical

   • Is the method more likely to produce value-free objective information?
   • Is the suggested method more associated with positivists or interpretivists?