RESEARCH METHODS

QUESTIONNAIRRES
Schofield (Lying Forgetting and Trying to Impress) – In the case of researching sexual behaviour he found that the validity of questionnaire depends on the willingness and ability to provide full and accurate answers. There is a strict problem with it if the participant lies, forgets or does not understand. This occurred when a question was asked “Are you a virgin?” and the answer was “No, not yet”. This clearly shows the participant does not even understand the subject asked. (Practical Issue)
Shipman (Imposing the Researcher’s Meanings) – Explains that answers which are only optional are meanings the researcher can put into categories to understand a particular subject. However, the participant doesn’t categorise information the same as a researcher so pruning and the bending of data is thus inevitable. This thus affects the theoretical aspect of validity or reliability of the study.
Walklate (Practical Issues) – The sociologist emphasized the practical effectives of time consumption whilst using it to conduct a victimisation survey. Her and her colleagues needed 6 months of intensive work to carry out 596 interviews, however in just a few weeks they released and received questionnaires from over 300 community groups.
Junger-Tas (Representativity) – In study of youth crime found out that how much contact respondents has had with the criminal justice system would effect their response. This means that response rates can be affected due to the lack of trust from authorities as that is what questionnaires represent towards them. This shows that questionnaires are dependent on the response towards authority as there is no element of a gained trust. 80% Response Rate during a probation service report.
Shere Hite (Violence in Relationships) – In a study of love passion and violence in relationships Hite sent out a 100000 questionnaires but got a low response rate of 4.5%. This clearly shows the practical disadvantage of using the method especially when they are aimed to tackle subjects such as crime in which case domestic violence.
Connor and Dewson (Practical Advantages) – In a study of factors effecting working class from going to university, the method benefited them for being quick and cheap as 4000 were posted to educational institutions and returned back quickly. No need to train or recruit interviewees.


STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS
Young and Willmott (Families in East London) – In the case of researching families in East London, they found it was a fairly quick and cheap method to complete. They interviewed 933 people in a structured manner and only 54 respondents refused. This shows the face to face nature of the method helps to gather data from a large and representative sample also having a high response rate. (Practical Adv) (Estimate 94% Response Rate)
Ann Oakley (Malestream Research) – Argued that the approach is a “positivist masculine” one. It places high value on objectivity, detachment and hierarchy regarding science as more important than furthering the interests of the people it researches. (Ethical and Practical Disadv)
BRITISH CRIME SURVEY – Argued that it’s useful for obtaining reliable data as questions are standardised making responses standardised. Piloting in advance and giving interviewers training prior contribute to reliability and theoretically gaining a representative sample. This is why the British Crime Survey uses it as a strong method of portraying data.


UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEWS
Glaser and Strauss (Grounded Theory) – They reject beginning research with a fixed hypothesis done through a set of pre-determined questions. Rather, they favour an approach to research that enables the researcher to have an open mind rather than a fixed one. This means we will more likely unravel the truth of the research and their meanings. Unstructured interviews are beneficial because they are flexible and questions can change and be reinterpreted depending on the person interviewed.
Becker (Lack of Validity) – If the interviewer aims to establish a rapport, it could also danger the distortion of information. This is because we cannot completely understand what the subject’s meanings are.
In his studies Howard Becker used aggression, feigned disbelief and played dumb in order to get teachers to reveal how they classified students in stereotypical ways. Becker uses this method not to rely on a rapport and please the subject so that way they wouldn’t return feedback that pleased the interviewer or researcher.


PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION
Downes and Rock (External Validity) – Explain that participant observation may provide a valid insight to a particular group being studied but these are internally valid not externally valid which means it is generalisable to the wider population. To be externally valid, there would have to be an element of representiveness. This is difficult as samples are often chosen by chance or opportunity. (Practical and Theoretical Disadv)
Cicourel (Practical Issues) – Showed participant observation can be used in situations where questioning would be ineffective. This is shown in his study of how the police categorise juveniles by making unconscious assumptions about whether they are criminal types. The only way to get at these assumptions about whether they are criminal types is to observe the police directly because they could be unaware of their assumptions. (Adv- Useful for getting trust) (Adv- It’s a useful method for studying deviant groups who may reject questions from authority.)
Punch (Going Native) – In studying the police service, Maurice Punch found himself over identifying with the police as he was observing so much at times he even acted as a policeman himself getting involved in chasing the criminals, holding suspects and shouting at people who abused police colleagues. This going native behaviour as it were can cause researcher bias and affect the data’s validity. Rather, the researcher becomes too subjective to study clouding their judgement and own thoughts affecting the data interpreted.
Humphrey’s (Covert Observation) – He explains it as there is only one way to watch behaviour that is stigmatized and that is by pretending to be in the same boat as those engaging in it. In his studies of gay man’s sexual encounters in public toilets, finding and maintaining a role permits the researcher to observe covertly and control agents; however there is risk of being found out. Humphrey’s would take the role of watch queen or lookout.
Hobbs (Covert Observation) – He was able to go drinking with a detective and his police friend who discussed their work in more relaxed circumstances. He did this by befriending him because the detective’s son played for the football team he coached. He would have to continue the role of friend to obtain more data observed from their discussions about the officers. This shows a practical disadvantage example of lack of opportunity.
Patrick (Covert Observation) – Study of Glasgow gangs, he found there is always an ethical risk of someone’s cover being blown by even a trivial mistake. Patrick was almost found out by the gang he joined when he bought his suit with cash instead of credit. This also occurred when he fastened the middle button of his jacket rather than the top one. This could have led to serious physical harm if he was discovered. (Adv- A way in knowing a gang member)
(Disadv- Ethical threat of Physical Harm)


OFFICIAL STATISTICS
Durkheim (Social Facts) - In his though experiment on studies of suicide rates he discovered that Catholics are less likely to commit suicide than Protestants due to the rates of social integration amongst members of the religion. He uses this to support the use of statistics as social facts so people could easily make generalisations that Catholics don’t commit suicide as much as Protestants.
Atkinson (Social Construction of Meaning) – Social reality is a construct by its members. He argues that statistics are social constructs or labels coroners give to deaths of people. We can never know the true rate of suicide as we would have to know the meaning the dead gave to their deaths which is impossible. All we can do is study how people make sense of the world.
Tombs (Practical Issues) – Explains that crime is largely miss-studied because of statistics. Official statistics reveal too much about only a specific crime such as violence and murder rather than pointing out corporate crime for instance when employers break health and safety regulations leading to injury or death. His studies indicate the bias towards notable offences or more serious crimes.


DOCUMENTS
Scott (Validity) – Explained that documents can only yield validity if the data is authentic. This means that if it claims what it seems to be as data could be forgery. The data can only be thus valid if it was written by the author that published it.
Robb (Practical, Historical Adv) – Found documents have the practical advantage of developing a historical perspective. He used reports of parliamentary committees and special admissions. This helped him develop a historical understanding of crime related issues from the eras studied.
Philippe Aries (Practical Historical Adv) – Found them to be practically useful whilst studying the Historical Notion of Childhood and it’s recent invention as a social construction.


CONTENT ANALYSIS
Gill(Formal Content Analysis) – In his studies, he described how easy the method can be used to measure particular aspects of media messages for example how many women are portrayed being paid in employment on women’s magazine stories. This can easily occur by dividing the study into categories in order to measure and quantify selected content by a chosen researcher. (Practical Adv)


LAB EXPERIMENTS
Keat and Urry (Practical Issues) – Found that Lab Experiments are only suitable for studying closed systems where the researcher can control and measure all the relevant variables and make precise predictions as in physics and chemistry. However, society is an open system where countless factors are at hand in any given situation. (Practical Disadv)
Milgram (Ethical Issues) – Experiment that performed electric shocks to a fake leaner in order to test obedience to authority when an authority is present giving the commands. The main disadvantage is that it ethically can cause distress and psychological harm to the subjects being researched.
Zimbardo (Ethical Issues) – Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment similarly had a strong sense of obedience to authority. It was an experiment where 21 college students would assume the role of prisoner and guard. It showed clear ethical problems in research because some of the guards were misusing their power acting aggressive towards the prisoners.


FIELD EXPERIMENTS
Rosenthal and Jacobsen- In their study of children’s achievement, they manipulated teacher explanations about pupils by giving them misleading information about the pupil’s ability to succeed when they performed IQ tests. It resorted to a self fulfilling prophecy of the success and lesser success of the pupils due to the image of feeling superior and the influence of teachers believing they are naturally smarter. (Disadv is clear example of deception to obtain data)


COMPARATIVE METHOD
Emile Durkheim- In Emile Durkheim’s thought experiment; he relied on analysing statistics in seeking to discover cause and effect. Found advantages of methods artificiality, good for studying past events and avoids ethical problems such as harming or deceiving. His thought experiment revealed Catholics are less likely to commit suicide than Protestants.


CASE STUDIES
Elizabeth Burn- Did a study on a person called Jenny. She was an inner city primary school teacher from a working class background. (Case Studies can’t be generalisations because they only study one individual.)


LONGITUDINAL STUDIES
CHILDREN OF THE 90’s- This was a cohort study of children born in the UK in the 1990’s.
National Child Development Study- This was a cohort study of all the children born in the 1958 in the UK.


TRIANGULATION STUDY
Howard Newby- Newby studied Suffolk Farm Workers using a variety of different methods such as participant observation and a survey. He found that the two methods complement each other. Good for getting best of both worlds, quantitative and qualitative.
(Divine and Heath- They define triangulation as a method of studying or researching from more than one method.)