Practical, Ethical and Theoretical Issues

Practical, Ethical and Theoretical Issues

1. Practical

   • Practical issues include all of the things benefits and problems sociologists may encounter involving the logistics of the study.
   • Time, money and resources
     • different methods require different amounts of time to initiate
       • large scale studies may need more people/take longer
         • money necessary to pay data-inputting staff
     • access to resources determine which method they employ
       • professor at a university likely has more resources than a young student
   • Requirements of funding bodies
     • research institutes and businesses may fund certain sociological studies
       • must approve of research being done, or funding may be withdrawn
         • e.g) Gov. agency may require quantitative data on educational achievement, so the sociologist will have to employ methods such as questionnaires
   • Personal skills and characteristics of the researcher
     • everyone has a different set of skills which may affect their suitability to use certain methods
       • participant observation requires good powers of observation and recall, as well as the ability to mix well with others
       • interviews require the ability to build a rapport
   • Subject matter
     • subject matter may be inappropriate for some methods
       • difficult for a male sociologist to use participant observation to research all-female groups
   • research opportunity
     • opportunities for research can occur unexpectedly
       • James Patrick was offered a chance to spend time with a gang 'out of the blue'
         • little time to prepare, must use participant observation

2. Ethical

   • Informed consent
     • research participants have the right to refuse to be involved in a study
       • researchers should tell people all aspects of the research, so they can make an informed decision
     • consent to be involved should be obtained before a study begins, and if the study is long, at various intervals throughout the process
   • Confidentiality and privacy
     • researchers should keep their participants' identities secret to prevent possible negative effects on them
       • e.g) being arrested, social stigma
     • other personal information of the research participants should also be confidential
   • harm to research participants
     • researchers need to be aware of the possible effects of their work on those they study
       • e.g) police intervention, harm to employment prospects, social exclusion and psychological damage
       • wherever possible, researchers should prevent such harm
   • Vulnerable groups
     • special care should be taken where research participants are considered vulnerable
       • e.g.) because of their age, disability, or physical and mental health
       • e.g) when studying children in schools, researchers should have regard for issues of child protection
         • obtain permission of both child and parent, and provide information in language the child can understand
   • covert research
     • this is where the researcher's identity and research purpose are hidden from participants
       • can create serious ethical problems
         • e.g) deceiving or lying to people in order to win their trust or gain information
         • impossible to gain informed consent with covert research
         • some sociologists claim use of covert methods are justifiable in some circumstances
           • e.g) access to secretive, dangerous or powerful groups
   • Ethics refers to moral issues of right and wrong. Some methods that sociologists use raise ethical concerns. The British Sociological Association sets out ethical guidelines for the conduct of research.

3. Theoretical

   • This refers to questions about what we think society is like and whether we can obtain an accurate, truthful picture of it. Our views on these issues will affect the kinds of methods we favour using.
   • Validity
     • a valid method produces a true picture of what something is really like
     • qualitative methods usually do this
       • participant observation gives deeper insight through first hand experience
   • Reliability
     • AKA replicability; whether the study can be repeated by another researcher to get the same results
     • often quantitative methods that are more reliable
   • Representativeness
     • are the people in the study a typical cross-section of the group we are interested in?
       • if so, we can make generalisations about this group from the findings of this study
         • can use a smaller sample than entire group
   • Methodological perspective
     • view of what society is like, and how we should study it
       • Positivism
         • prefer quantitative data
         • seek to discover patterns of behaviour
         • see sociology as a science
       • Interpretivism
         • prefer qualitative data
         • seek to understand social actor's meanings
         • reject the view that sociology is a science