Methods Examples

Methods Examples

1. EXPERIMENTS

   • Lab- MILGRAM 1973, people took part in electric shocking actors an it reveals what people are willing to do when they are told to do something
   • Field- ROSENTHAL AND JACOBSON 1968, self fulfilling prophecy and impact of teacher labelling, controlled the variables, spurters
   • Comparative- DURKHEIM 1897, compared suicide rates of different European countries NO ETHICAL ISSUES

2. DOCUMENTS

   • THOMAS AND ZNANIECKI 1919, study on Polish immigrants to the USA, used wide range of private documents

3. QUESTIONNAIRES

   • HITE 1991, women's sexual health, low response rate and findings could not be generalised
   • BOWLES AND GINTIS 1976, large amount of questionnaires to New York High School to look at the character traits that were rewarded by schools and employers. They could generalise findings and proved the correspondence principle

4. INTERVIEWS

   • Structured- YOUNG AND WILMOTT 1962, factual data about family life in London, large sample and high response rate
   • Unstructured- DOBASH AND DOBASH 1980, 109 interviews with victims of domestic violence/abuse. Conducted informally in refuges. Valid data but took a long time
   • Unstructured- OAKLEY 1973, 66 women 'from here to maternity, able to gain trust and rapport but could have become too attached and lacked validity

5. PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION

   • Overt- PUNCH 1979, study of Amsterdam police, they only revealed certain aspects to him
   • Covert- PATRICK 1973, study of Glasgow gangs, issue of getting in and getting out, problem of violence
   • Covert- HUMPHRIES 1970, gay sexual behaviour in public toilets in the USA
   • Covert- MCINTYRE 1999, Chelsea football hooligans, arrest and criminal convictions of 5 lead Chelsea head hunters. Massive repercussions
   • Covert- GRIFFIN 1961, 'Black like me' outlining prejudice and racism in the 1960's deep south