Theory and methods

Quantitative research methods

• Practical, Ethical and Theoretical issues (P.E.T)
• P
• Time & money
• Requirements of funding bodies
• The personal skills and characteristics
• E
• Informed consent
• Confidentiality
• Harmful effects
• T
• Reliability
• Validity
• Representativeness
• Interpretivists prefer research methods that are qualitative. Positivists prefer research methods that produce quantitative data.

Lab experiments

• Key features:
• Control - artificial environment, controlled. two groups, controlled group and experimental group
• Practical issues:
• Open systems - Keat and Urry(1982) lab only suitable for closed systems e.g. chemistry physics. However, society is open and is to complex and therefore, difficult to identify and control all variables.
• Individuals are complex - Not possible to match two humans as no two humans are EXACTLY alike. Whereas, two chemicals are.
• Hawthorne effect - less validity
• Small samples - low representativness
• Ethical issues:
• Informed consent
• Harm to subjects
• Theoretical issues:
• representativeness
• Internal validity

Field experiments