describing a research process

Aims

hypotheses

pilot study

sampling procedures

data collection

analysis

evaluation

what you're looking to achieve

a prediction

a pre test to find strengths and weaknesses

in order to generalise (apply to the population) you need a representative sample (smaller version of the population)

probability sampling (everyone has an equal chance of being selected)

non probability sampling (an unequal chance)

random sampling (e.g names out of a hat)

systematic sampling (e.g pick every 5th person in a sampling frame)

stratified sampling (putting the sample into groups then taking a sample from that group)

snow ball sampling: (contact key people and ask for more names to interview)

quota sampling: (base the sample on the characteristics of the whole population e.g 57% of population are over 40 then 57% needs to be over 40 in the sample)

the process of gathering data

primary data

interviews, questionaires and observation

secondary data

official statistics, diaries, biographies, photographs, mass media, studies by other sociologists

quantitative

data in numerical form e.g statistics

qualitative

data written in words e.g unstructured interviews

looking at the main findings and patterns of the research

how it relates to other research, finding links between things, summarise the findings and presenting results into graphs

evaluated by other sociologists to see strengths and weaknesses

conference papers and journal articles and final research report