3. SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH METHODS
The purpose of sociology is to answer questions about social life and
the social world.
In order to do this, sociologists develop theories, which is a general
explanation of how or why social life follows the pattern it does.
Sociologists try to ensure that their theories are based on sound
evidence.
Sociologists have a variety of different methods that they use to gather
information about society.
4. RESEARCH IN EDUCATION
We can identify the following 5 characteristics of education as an area for research:
1. Pupils
In education, many of the people sociologists study are children and young people. There
are 2 major differences between studying young people and adults, power and status,
ability, and vulnerability.
2. Teachers
Power and relationships in school are not equal. Teachers have more power and status
because of their age, experience and responsibility within school. Teacher may be over
worked any may be less cooperative, causing restrictions on the amount of data gathered.
3. Parents
Parents influence what goes on in education by the way they bring up their children and
through school contact. Some parents may be more willing to participate in research than
others , but this is sometimes dependant upon their class and ethnicity.
4. Classrooms
Classroom is unusual in being a closed, highly controlled social setting. In classroom
interactions teacher and pupils are very experience at distinguishing their real thoughts
and feeling from each other; they may conceal these from the researcher too.
5. Schools
Education establishments are formal organisations with rules and hierarchies.
Researchers may come to be seen part of this. For example, students may see them as
teachers, while teachers may see them as inspectors. In schools where there is conflict
between students and teachers, researchers may been seen as the enemy., making it
harder to gather truthful information on the subject matter.
5. PRIMARY & SECONDARY DATA
Primary Data
Advantages Disadvantages
Sociologists may be able to gather This can be costly and time consuming
precisely the information they need to text
their hypothesis
Possible to capture data changes in time Ethical issues, researcher has to keep
and is flexible to the advantage of the confidentiality of interviewee but if
researcher something is discovered to be of
outstanding significance to the persons
health and safety then it is up to the
interviewer whether to inform someone of
a higher authority
6. PRIMARY & SECONDARY DATA
Primary
Information collected first hand by sociologists themselves for their own
research purposes. Methods such as – participant observation, social
surveys and experiments
Secondary
Information not collected not collected by sociologists themselves for
their own research purposes, but by other people for non-sociological
purposes. Sociologists tend to use this data as it is cheap, readily
available and covers large numbers. Sources such as – Official
statistics, the media and personal documents
7. PRIMARY & SECONDARY DATA
Secondary Data
Advantages Disadvantages
Can be a quick and cheap method of Those who produce it may not be interested
gathering research as it has already been in the same questions as sociologists
collected making the research being used as biased
Rapidly available and covers large numbers Secondary sources may not provide the
exact information that sociologists need
8. PRIMARY & SECONDARY DATA
Links to research and investigating education
Methods such as participant observation, surveys and
questionnaires, exam results and other school statistics can be
used to provide an insight and gather information on
achievement levels, attendance reports and the opinions of
those within the school
9. QUANTATIVE & QUALITATIVE DATA
Quantative
Information in numerical form
Official statistics and results of social surveys are important sources of Quantative
data
Advantages Disadvantages
Allow for a broader study, involving a Results are limited as they provide
greater number of subjects, and numerical descriptions rather than
increasing the generalisation of the detailed narrative and generally provide
results less elaborate accounts of human
can allow for greater accuracy of results. perception
Personal bias can be avoided by In addition preset answers will not
researchers keeping a 'distance' from necessarily reflect how people really feel
participating subjects and employing about a subject and in some cases might
subjects unknown to them . just be the closest match.
10. QUANTATIVE & QUALITATIVE DATA
Qualitative
Information expressed in words about peoples thoughts, feelings, motivations, attitudes
and values. Obtained from qualitative methods and sources such as participant
observation, unstructured interviews and diaries and letters
Provides depth and detail : looks deeper than Dependent on skills of the researcher:
analysing ranks and counts by recording particularly in the case of conducting
attitudes, feelings and behaviours interviews, focus groups and observation.
Attempts to avoid pre-judgements: if used Usually fewer people studied: collection of
alongside quantitative data collection, it can qualitative data is generally more time
explain why a particular response was given consuming that quantitative data collection
and therefore unless time, staff and budget
allows it is generally necessary to include a
smaller sample size.
11. QUANTATIVE & QUALITATIVE DATA
Links to research and investigating education
Quantative
where responses are similar, for example, we might find that
the majority of students all go to the university library twice a
week
if there are differences between the things we have studied, for
example, 1st year students might go once a week to the
library, 2nd year students twice a week and 3 rd year students
three times a week
if there is a relationship between the things we have studied.
So, is there a relationship between the number of times a
student goes to the library and their year of study?
12. EXPERIMENTS
An experiment is a scientific procedure undertaken to make a
discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact
Lab -A test under controlled conditions that is made to
demonstrate a known truth, to examine the validity of a
hypothesis, or to determine the efficacy of something
previously untried.
Field - A field experiment applies the scientific method to
experimentally examine an intervention in the real world
Comparitive - Experiments conducted to determine statistically
whether one procedure is better than another
13. FACTORS INFLUENCING CHOICE OF METHODS
Practical issues:
Different methods present different practice problems.
Time and money
Requirements of funding bodies
Personal skills and characteristics
Subject matter
Research opportunity.
14. FACTORS INFLUENCING CHOICE OF METHODS
Ethical issues
Refers to moral issues of right and wrong. Methods that
sociologists use to study people may raise a range of ethical
issues.
Informed consent
Confidentiality and privacy
Effects on research participants
Venerable groups
Covert research
15. FACTORS INFLUENCING CHOICE OF METHODS
Theoretical Issues:
Refers to questions about what we think society is about and
weather we can retain an accurate picture of it.
Validity
Reliability
Representativeness
Mythological Perspective
16. QUANTATIVE & QUALITATIVE DATA
Links to research and investigating education.
Qualitative
What it feels like to receive good GCSE results from interviews
and personal records. Interviews with students on their feelings
on other pupils, the school and teachers
Moore and Davenport (1990) study focuses on how selection
proceeds lead to ethnic segregation. They used primary
school reports to screen out pupils with language for learning
difficulties.
17. EXPERIMENTS
Advantages Disadvantages
It allows for precise control of Chance of human error
variables
Samples might not be representative
Human results can be difficult to
measure
18. EXPERIMENTS
Links to research and investigating education.
Field experiments take place in natural surrounding such as
school and the work place.
An example of this in education is OFSTED. They observe
teachers and pupils in the classroom to monitor the progress
the pupils are making.
19. SOCIAL SURVEYS
Survey to find out about the nature of a community. May cover
aspects like age, gender, wealth, health and so on.
Advantages Disadvantages
Mail questionnaires are relatively cheap But at the same time the proportion of
and can be used to contact people who return questionnaires sent
respondents who are scattered over a through post is usually rather small.
wide area
20. SOCIAL SURVEYS
Open and closed ended questionnaires:-
Closed- A closed question can be answered with either a single word or
a short phrase.
Open - An open question is likely to receive a long answer. They ask
the respondent to think and reflect.
They will give you opinions and feelings.
Interviews:-
An interview is a conversation between two people (the interviewer and the
interviewee) where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain
information from the interviewee.
21. SOCIAL SURVEYS
Links to research and investigating education
An example of a social survey in education is, Chubb and Moe’s
survey carried out on parental attitudes top schooling. Chubb
and Moe chose this method to make generalisations about
parents views on the way school will be run and how much
choice they should have.
22. OBSERVATIONS
The action or process of observing something or someone carefully or in order
to gain information.
- Participant: Participant observation is a structured type of research strategy.
Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of
individuals (such as a religious, occupational, or sub cultural group, or a
particular community) and their practices through an intensive involvement
with people in their natural environment, usually over an extended period of
time
-Covert: Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group
of individuals (such as a religious, occupational, or sub cultural group, or a
particular community) and their practices through an intensive involvement
with people in their natural environment, usually over an extended period of
time
-Overt: involves the researcher being open with the group they are going to
study. In other words, before joining a group the researcher
is likely to inform the group's members (either personally or through the
agency of a sponsor) about such things as the purpose of the research, it's
scope, how long the research will last and so forth.
23. OBSERVATIONS
Advantages Disadvantages
Data gathered can be highly reliable. People feel uncomfortable being
watched, they may perform differently
when being observed.
The analyst is able to see what is Some activities may take place at odd
being done times, it might be inconvenience for
the system analyst.
Observation is less expensive Sometimes people act temporarily and
compared to other technique. perform their job correctly when they
are being observed, they might
actually violates the standard of
manner.
24. OBSERVATIONS
Links to research and Educational Methods.
Dale Spencer (1983) found that teachers spend more time
interacting with boys than with girls. However when Jane and
Peter French (1993) analysed classroom interaction, they
found that the amount of attention teachers played to boys and
girls for academic reasons was similar.
An example of covert observation is, Mac an Ghaill (1992) who
studied black and Asian A level students while under cover to
get their true opinions on negative ethnicity labelling in schools
and colleges.
25. CASE STUDIES
A process or record of research in which detailed consideration is
given to the development of a particular person, group, or
situation over a period of time. an investigator studies an
individual or small group of individuals with an unusual
condition or situation.
26. CASE STUDIES
Advantages Disadvantages
Good sources of ideas about behaviour Hard to draw cause-effect conclusions
Good method to challenge theoretical Hard to generalise from a single case
assumptions
Possible biases in data collection and
interpretation
Time consuming as it is mostly qualitative
research
27. CASE STUDIES
Links to research and Educational Methods
An example of a case study in education is Elizabeth Burn (2001)
study carried out on a study of Jenny, an inner city primary
school teacher from a working class background.
