Research Issues and Factors

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Factors

Gender - it must be carefully considered who interviews certain people e.g. interviews on female sexual health are more likely to be done by females than they are males.

Age - Age difference between interviewer and interviewee can effect outcome e.g. a sexual health class to be interviewed by a younger person in comparison with someone older as that class might relate to that younger person better while an older interviewer might be viewed as being too parent-like to allow for that class to fully open-up.

Theoretical background

Positivist - view individuals as being influenced by social factors and structures beyond their control. Aim to look at Sociology as a science and objectively. Quantitative Data.

Anti-Positivist/Interpretivist - Empathy to understand human behaviour. They use methods that let them discover the meanings and reasons behind human behaviour. Sociology isn’t scientific. Instead they use methods to produce qualitative data such as participant observation and unstructured interviews.

Max Weber - Verstehen (importance of empathy)

Ethics

Consent - participants must have agreed to take part in the experiment.

Confidentiality - details of participants actions must be kept confidential.

Avoidance of harm - participants should not be harmed physically or psychologically in the research process

Avoidance of Deception - Researchers must be honest about the implications of their study.

The British Sociological Association identified these ethics and asks sociologists to abide by them. Researchers should use informed consent and covert participant observation (when people don’t know that they are being assessed but only as a last resort).

Further Issues

Time - Covert participant observation requires the researcher to spend time becoming part of the group. However, a social survey doesn't require the same amount of time and commitment, with the work load easily shared amongst a team.

Money - It is needed to pay the researcher for transportation to interviews, pay for resources and if you wanted to conduct a large scale social survey then this would prove very expensive.

Further Issues (cont)

Skills and characteristics of the researcher - One researcher may be more suited to social situations, whilst another may be more suitable for detailed analysis at a desk.

Access and Opportunity - if a researcher doesn't have access to a certain social group, they will have to rely on secondary evidence.

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