Research

What is primary data?

Data collected by the social researcher e.g. experiments, surveys/questionnaires, interviews, observations

What is secondary data?

Information compiled by others e.g. state-produced statistics (census), personal documents, media content

What is quantitative data?

Numerical data, usually in the form of a statistic or the amount of data obtained

What is qualitative data?

Non-numerical data, usually in word/image form or the quality/depth of data obtained

What is reliability?

How trustworthy the data being gathered is, if it is reliable the method could be repeated and similar results would occur

What is representativeness?

Ensuring that there is a wide proportion of the target group being used out of the overall population of the group so that the data can be generalised

What is generalisability?

Being able to concur that what is true of the smaller group is also true of the overall larger group

What is validity?

Whether the findings of the research give a true picture of what has been study so it should reflect the reality of the group being studied

What is objectivity?

When all forms of personal or ideological bias have been removed from the research process

What practical factors influence topic choice?

Access to individuals being studied, interests/values/political beliefs, funding

What are practical factors affecting research methods?

Cost, sample size, time constraints, subject matter, cooperation, type of data required

What are ethical factors affecting research methods?

Informed consent, honesty, confidentiality, putting individuals at risk

What is informed consent?

Having people be aware what their are being involved in

What are research methods?

Ways of going about conducting research into a specific topic/question

What are social problems?

Something that is harmful to society and needs to be fixed e.g. oppression to certain groups

What are sociological problems?

A social issue/question that needs explains but isn’t necessarily harmful e.g. why less people are getting married

What is a positivist?

They assume there is objective structure to reality and rigorous research will yield truth about reality

What is an interpretivist?

They don’t believe there is objective truth, to understand society we need to look at subjective experiences

What is micro?

Refers to interpretivists, on a smaller/specific scale

What is macro?

Refers to positivist, on a large/broad scale