Research Methods

Research Methods

1. positivism

   • sociology should be treated like science, only understood through experiments and studies,
   • society is measurable and objective
   • social forces dictate how we behave
   • the use of quantitative data

2. interpretism

   • society is subjective and filled with meaning
   • open ended valid data is key

3. quantitave data collection methods

   • questionnaires, structured interviews, structured non participant observation, official statistics
     • used by positivists
     • why- stays detached and objective (reduces contamination)

4. key concepts

   • reliability
     • can be obtained repeatedly
   • validity
     • externally- as close to reality as possible internally- has control
     • structured methods are rejected as they do not reveal how social actors think/feel
   • representiveness
     • use of a sample, in an attempt to create a representation or micro-cosm of society in a study
   • genralisable
     • the extent to which their findings can be applied to the larger population

5. data collection

   • quantitative- data that can be measured
   • qualitative- interpretation and description of underlying meanings and patterns

6. methods

   • deductive- begins with a theory and hypothesis, leads to data gathering and genralizations to support the theroy
   • inductive- the researcher collects into, creates and genralization which is used to create a theory

7. key terms

   • sampling frame- a list of names of those in the survey population
   • sampling method- techniques used to select indaviduals to study