Sociolgical Research

Sociolgical Research

1. Primary Sources

   • Creating research during the process of a study

2. Secondary Sources

   • Using data that pre-exists

3. Experiment types

   • labratory
     • Field experiments

4. Sample Types

   • Random samples
     • Systemetic samples
       • Stratifies samples
         • Quota Samples
           • Snowball and Volunteer Samples

5. Quantitative data

   • Numerical format
     • Questionnaires
       • Structured interviews
         • Data that can be transposed into numbers
   • Positivism
     • Empirical measurable data
   • Macro
   • Townsend (1979) Using social surveys using questionnaires and structured interviews
   • Crime survey for England and Wales using structured interviews through spoken questionnairs

6. Qualitative data

   • Participant observation
     • Unstructured interviews
       • Written sources
         • Diaries, auto biographies etc
     • Covert and Overt
   • Open ended questions
   • Interpretivism
     • Understanding meanings perception, direct social action
   • Micro
   • Boyle (1977) studied the behavior of a juvenile gang from the viewpoint of it's memembers
   • Goffman (1968) tried to understand the experiences of patients in an American mental instituton
   • Devine (2003) overt participant observation joined in removing authoritative stance, carried out interviews to establish school life from a child perspective.
   • Willis (1977) participant observation informal one to one interviews and diariy entries to identify hy working class children get working class jobs
   • Ethnographic

7. Validity

   • Acuracy of a description of method.

8. Reliability

   • Allows studies to be replicated

9. Triangulation

   • Investigator
   • Data
   • Methodological

10. Representativeness

    • Does the data accurately represent what it claims to represent

11. Generalisability

    • Information from a small group can be related to a large group sharing the same characteristics.