Here are my evaluations of the three research projects: 1. A student wants to research attitudes to immigration. They conduct informal interviews with friends and family, asking them their views. This research is neither valid nor reliable. It uses a non-random, biased sample of friends and family. The findings cannot be generalised to the wider population and the methods are not systematic or replicable. 2. A student hands out a questionnaire in their school asking pupils about their favourite TV shows. 100 questionnaires are completed. This research is reliable but not valid. Using a questionnaire provides quantitative, standardized data that could be replicated. However, the sample is limited to one school so the findings cannot be generalized to all young people.

1. SCLY4
CRIME & DEVIANCE WITH
RESEARCH METHODS
WORKBOOK
Examination Date Monday 20th June Examination Length 2 hours
2011 (AM)
Course Textbook: Chapter 5, Topics 1-10.
The SCLY4 examination is a similar format to SCLY2 (Education) in the respect
that it will ask you specifically about Research Methods in the context of Crime
and Deviance. Therefore, for example, if you are asked about the use of
statistics, you should talk specifically about how official statistics are used to
record and measure crime in society.
What you need to know for the examination
• Quantitative and qualitative methods of research; their strengths and
limitations; research design.
• Sources of data, including questionnaires, interviews, observation
(participant and non-participant), experiments, documents, and official
statistics; the strengths and limitations of these sources.
• The distinction between primary and secondary data, and between
quantitative and qualitative data.
• The relationship between positivism, interpretivism and sociological
methods; the nature of ‘social facts’.
• The theoretical, practical and ethical considerations influencing choice of
topic, choice of method(s) and the conduct of research.

2. Checklist
Participant Observation: James Patrick, A Glasgow Gang Observed & Laud
Humphries, The Tea Room Trade (pg. 291 of course textbook)
Suicide: Durkheim, Douglas, Maxwell Atkinson.
Interviews: Zoe James (2007) (p. 305 of course textbook)
The British Crime Survey (pg. 275 and 360 of course textbook)
National/Official/Home Office Statistics (pg. 361 of course textbook)
Self Report Studies/Questionnaires (THE OCJS, pg. 282 of course textbook)
Positivism vs. Interpretivism
Experiments
Quantitative & Qualitative data (Bryman, 2004, pg. 288 of course textbook)
Documents and Secondary Sources (Suicide Notes (Jacobs, 1967) p. 402 of
course textbook and The Media, Historical Documents ( Tombs and Whyte,
2003), p. 349 of course textbook)
Triangulation & Methodology: Wilson & Jones (2008) (pg. 293 of course
textbook)

3. SOCIAL SURVEY LARGE SCALE PIECE OF QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
AIMING TO MAKE GENERAL STATEMENTS ABOUT A
PARTICULAR POPULATION.
LONGDITUDINAL SURVEY A SURVEY THAT IS CARRIED OUT OVER A
CONSIDERABLE PERIOD OF YEARS, USING THE
SAME PEOPLE AS THE SAMPLE.
QUESTIONAIRE ASKING QUESTIONS AND NOTING DOWN THE
ANSWERS.
SELF COMPLETION/POSTAL QUESTIONNAIRE WHICH REACH A LARGE NUMBER
QUESTIONNAIRE OF PEOPLE, ADMINISTERED USUALLY BY POST OR
OVER THE INTERNET.
SELF REPORT STUDY RESPONDANTS COMPLETE THEMSELVES. A CROSS
SECTION OF THE POPULATION IS ASK WHAT KIND
OF OFFENCES THEY HAVE COMMITTED.

4. Self Report Studies & Questionnaires
Task 1
Briefly explain how the following terms relate to the use of Questionnaires for
social research.
VALIDITY
RELIABILITY
REPLICABILITY
GENERALIZABILITY
ETHICS
Use page 303 of the course textbook to help you here.
***
Task 2
Complete the table below showing Strengths and Weaknesses of Self Report Studies.
Use page 362 of the course textbook to help you.
Strengths Weaknesses

5. Task 3
THE OCJS, pg. 282 of course textbook
Use the space below to outline what this is and how it can be used to demonstrate
the strengths and weaknesses of using a questionnaire to research crime and
criminal behaviour.
Task 4
Make notes on two examples of Participant Observation (p. 289-291 of course
textbook)
James Patrick, A Glasgow Gang Observed
Laud Humphries, The Tea-Room Trade

7. Task 5 (use pg. 275 and 360 of course textbook to help you)
Use the space below to briefly explain the key features of The British Crime Survey
in response to the focal questions.
What is the rationale behind completing the BCS?
What sociological research methods are used as part of it?
How often is it carried out?
What is the sampling technique used?

8. Task 6: Reliability & Validity
Examine the studies in the table below and decide whether they are reliable or valid. You should use
the final column to explain why each study is either reliable or valid.
WHY
RELIABLE OR VALID

9. STUDY
A GLASGOW GANG OBSERVED JAMES PATRICK
THE TEA ROOM TRADE LAUD HUMPHRIES
BRITISH CRIME SURVEY

10. Task 7: QUANTITATIVE & QUALITIVATIVE METHODS (P. 288 of course textbook)
Use the research of Bryman (2004) to complete the table below, showing the
differences between using a quantitative & qualitative methods.
QUANTITATIVE QUALITATIVE
RELIABLE VS VALID
STRUCTURE
THEORIES...
INVOLVEMENT OF
RESEARCHER
POINT OF VIEW
NUMBERS VS
WORDS

11. TASK 8: ETHICS and BIAS
Read the following scenarios and explain how the data produced might be affected
by, or criticised due to, researcher bias and ethical considerations.
Hannah is a sociology student researching the deviant act of ‘drink driving’. She is using a
structured interview, with both open and closed questions to try and ascertain why people
choose to take control of a vehicle whilst over the legal alcohol limit. Hannah used a
contact at her local police station to obtain a list of people within the borough charged
with drink driving offences. She contacted them by letter asking them to attend an
interview regarding their treatment by the Police force. She feels this is not misleading as
the first question she asks, will require respondents to rate their experience from 1 (good)
to 5 (unsatisfactory). Hannah’s younger brother was killed in a car accident where the
other driver was 3 x over the limit. Therefore, all the other questions focus on the
participant’s circumstances, punishment and any feelings of guilt or regret they might
feel. Hannah will meet the participants on a 1-2-1 basis; she will ask her questions and
note down the responses.
***
1. Is Hannah a Positivist or Interpretivist? Why?
2. How is Hannah’s research biased?
3. What are the ethical considerations Hannah would be criticised for?
4. What is the likely conclusion to Hannah’s research and how would this be
criticised by sociologists?
5. How could Hannah make her research more ethical?
6. How could Hannah limit the level of bias in her findings?

12. Carlton is a social worker. The main part of his job is to make home visits to children on the ‘at
risk’ register and assess if they are making any positive progress. He took the job to enable him
to carry out his PHD research which questions if children who are mistreated when young will
grow up to be deviant adults. Although he is qualified and capable to carry out the role of social
worker, Carlton’s employees do not know of his parallel research agenda. Over the course of one
year Carlton carried out covert participant observation, making a diary of his ‘findings’ regarding
4 different children, all of whom were experiencing some form of mistreatment. In the interest
of validating his findings, Carlton did not report some of the mistreatment immediately, to allow
him to gather more in depth information. Carlton left his job as a social worker after the 4
children he was researching were all either adopted or fostered. He took with him contact
details and addresses as he intended to re-examine the children at regular milestones in order to
chart their level of deviance. He also intended to tell the respondents about his research and
their involvement in at once they turned 18.
***
1. Why is Carlton’s research unethical?
2. From a methodological perspective, what are the ‘good’ aspects of this social research?
3. Why would interpretivist theorists see some value in Carlton’s research?
4. When he re-examines the children, what sort of methodology should he use to try and
limit the methodological flaws of his first stage of research?
5. How do you think the respondents, especially those who experienced unnecessarily
prolonged abuse whilst Carlton was their social worker, will respond to him once they
know of his agenda? How will this impact on the overall findings of the research?

13. TASK 9: OBJECTIVE or SUBJECTIVE?
Below are a list of fictional sociologists, each with a brief biography.
This activity requires you to think critically about a person’s possible limitations as
a researcher, based on a select amount of information about their identity.
Read the information and complete the table, deciding who would be the most
objective and who would be the most subjective researcher for each focal activity
and why.
GRAHAME AHMED
Is a straight single man in his mid- Grew up in India and moved to the UK to
forties. He is the chairman of an online complete his PHD in sociology. He is a 27
ancestry website. year old student who shares a house with
3 other doctoral candidates, 1 male and
2 female.
HARRY CLARISSA
Married his wife 2 months ago and is a Is a homosexual woman and has been in
‘happy’ newlywed. He volunteers as a a long term relationship for 10 years.
special constable at weekends. His She is an active feminist and is involved
family are a wealthy, white, middle class in frequent campaigns for women’s
family. He was privately educated and equality.
has always lived in a ‘leafy British
suburb’.
FEARNE ELLIOT
Is amicably divorced and has 2 children Is a Black Afro Caribbean male. He grew
under the age of 10. She sometimes uses up on a council estate in Brixton. He
‘match.com’ to look for a new lives there still and acts as a youth
prospective partner. worker in a diverse community.
DEXTER BETSY
Ran away from home as he could not Was evicted from her home and spent
cope with his parents divorce when he several months ‘living rough’, having lost
was 13. He spent his adolescence in her money to a cannabis addiction she
foster care and boarding schools. cultivated whilst an undergraduate
student. She has since turned her life
around and is now a freelance journalist
who focuses on exposing social injustice.

14. MOST OBJECTIVE RESEARCH FOCUS: MOST SUBJECTIVE
RESEARCHER CRIMINAL OR DEVIANT RESEARCHER
ACTIVITY
DOMESTIC
VIOLENCE WITHIN
MARRIED
RELATIONSHIPS
POLICE ‘STOP AND
SEARCH’ RATES FOR
DRUG POSSESSION
STREET CRIME &
CRIMINAL GANGS
PAEDOPHILES AND
INTERNET
‘GROOMING’

15. TASK 10: Social surveys
Asking the right question
Open and closed questions
Open questions
Open questions are those that allow the respondent to express himself
or herself freely, perhaps by stating an opinion or explaining feelings to
the researcher. Such questions are often used in interviews or at the
end of surveys where a question such as ‘Do you have anything you
would like to add?’ is followed by a blank box for writing in.
The benefits of open questions are that, for example, they gather rich
information, and they provide a much better chance that the data will
be valid, as the participant is not constrained by multiple-choice
answers. The disadvantages include the possibility that the participant
will wander off the subject or indulge in a favourite rant. The
researcher may have difficulty keeping to time, ending up with a lot of
information that is not useful to the study. A challenge of qualitative
data of this nature is analysing it in such a way that it can be reported
usefully and concisely.
Closed questions
Closed questions have the potential for limited responses. They may be
followed by categories of answers such as ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ or ‘Don’t know’,
or by a scale on which the participant must choose the answer that
best fits.
The main benefit of using a closed question is that it produces
quantitative data that can be easily managed. Disadvantages include
limiting the responses of participants so that important qualitative data
is lost. The cost benefit of using closed questions has to be balanced
against the limited depth of the data gathered.
Researchers will often use a mixture of the two types of questions in a
questionnaire or structured interview.

16. Task 10A
Here is a selection of questions. Please state whether each one is open or
closed.
Question Open or
closed?
On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is strongly disagree and 10 is
strongly agree, please give your response to this statement:
Dog owners should be fined if their dog barks all day.
Do you think that pensions should be increased?
What would you say is the biggest advantage to Britain from the
influx of workers from Eastern Europe?
Should the National Health Service (NHS) charge for treatment of
smoking-related illnesses?
Do you think that women are now treated equally with men?
Please comment on the claim that the internet is dangerous.
School pupils receive more pocket money than ever before. What
do you think they spend it on?
When you go to a university, will your parents support you
financially?
What are the problems for students in supporting themselves
financially in Higher Education?
Task 10B
Here are some simple research ideas. Write one open and one closed
question that would be relevant to each idea.
1 Gender roles and housework in the modern family.
2 A study to investigate the claim that family life has deteriorated over the last 50
years.
3 Changes in children’s leisure activities in one generation.
4 The impact of the internet on reading activity.

17. Task 11: Sampling Methods
Fill in the gaps
When designing a study, a sociologist usually needs to use a sample from the whole
population that she or he is interested in. The important thing, when using a
sample, is that it should be appropriately representative of the population.
Below are some descriptions of sampling methods. For each sentence, fill in the
correct name in the gap from this list:
Convenience Stratified Random
sampling random sampling
sampling
Quota sampling Snowball
sampling
Use the space below to note down a definition of each type of sampling named
above.

18. • ______________________________ is a way of seeking out a certain number of people
who fulfil a requirement for the study (e.g. 100 women with primary school-aged
children). To gather the sample the researcher will need to actively recruit people in the
required category.
• ______________________________ begins with a small sample and then the researcher
asks each participant to recommend others who might take part. This does not provide a
statistically representative sample but may be useful when recruiting a sample that is
difficult to identify without specialist knowledge.
• ______________________________ is a way of picking participants from the whole
population by using some kind of randomising technique, such as picking names out of a
hat.
• ______________________________, as the name suggests, uses an easily accessible
sample of people. Although the sample is not representative of the whole population, it
may be a useful method for a pilot study or for student research.
• ______________________________ makes certain that the main characteristics of the
population are included in the sample in the right proportions.

19. Task 12: Choosing A Sampling Method
Below are descriptions of certain research projects. For each project, choose a suitable
sampling method from this list:
Snowball sampling
Stratified random sampling
Convenience sampling
Quota sampling
Random sampling
Note that there may be a number of possible answers to each question. The most
important thing is that you can justify your answers.
1 A study to investigate choice of leisure activities in boys and girls of different age groups.
Sampling method: ___________________________
2 A survey of final-year school students on attitudes to higher education.
Sampling method: ___________________________
3 A study of shopping habits of women in the 20–30 age group.
Sampling method: ___________________________
4 A pilot study of a questionnaire on parental attitudes to discipline of children.
Sampling method: ___________________________
5 Interviews with people who have overcome an addiction, on their perceptions of what helped.
Sampling method: ___________________________

20. Task 13: How can sociological research be
evaluated?
Validity and reliability
Read the following three descriptions of research projects designed by
students. It is your task to evaluate the research in terms of reliability
and validity.
Each example falls into one of the following categories:
• valid but not reliable
• neither valid nor reliable
• both valid and reliable.
Your task is to identify which description fits which category and to
support your decision with a brief, but reasoned, argument. Remember
that in your exam you will be expected to support any statements that
you make.
Hint: Before attempting this exercise, check out the definitions of the
terms reliable and valid. You can do this by checking your answers to
the worksheet Know your terms, or by looking it up in the textbook.
Research project 1
For a school sociology project, four friends decide to interview other
students in the 16–18 age range about leisure activities. Each one
chooses five friends and arranges to meet them outside school time to
discuss what they do at weekends. They all agree to take careful notes.
One of the researchers has an interesting interview with her first
participant in which it becomes clear that one of the main limiting
factors to govern the activities of young people is disposable income.
The participant explains that two of her friends have weekend jobs and
therefore have more to spend, but her parents will not allow her to
work in case it interferes with her studies. This discovery helps the
researcher to formulate her questions for the other four participants.
Another researcher finds it difficult to get her friends to take her
questions seriously, and worries that her findings are not as good as her
friends’.
The final two researchers get together before they meet with their
participants and agree on a set of questions. The results from this
research are varied and the group feels that they have a rich amount of
material for the final report.

21. Research project 2
A sociology student decides to investigate attitudes towards single-
parent families by using an opportunity sample of friends and family.
He carefully prepares a set of questions which he pilots by asking four
class members to answer them and then he makes alterations based on
their feedback. He makes sure he includes both open and closed
questions and that each question addresses different issues related to
family life.
He makes certain that his participants understand that they are
comparing single-parent families with families that have two resident
parents, when they give their replies.
Research project 3
A sociology student decides to base her research project on the sharing
of domestic work in heterosexual couples under the age of 30. She
prepares for her project by reading previous research on domestic work
and the role of women in families.
She prepares a set of closed answer questions in which she asks
participants to state who does different tasks in the home. The tasks
include a range of domestic duties including gardening, washing the
car, cleaning the toilet, ironing, shopping, cooking and washing up.
Participants are asked to state whether the tasks are done by the man
or the woman or whether they are shared relatively evenly.
The survey is piloted before use and is edited for clarity. The student
uses a snowball sampling technique, asking each couple to recommend
another couple in the same age group to take part.
She is aware that her research has not taken social class into account,
so she states this in her report and recommends that further research
might compare couples from different social classes or income
brackets.

22. Task 13: Values
• are shared ideas about how the world should be
• tend to be socially or culturally constructed and are changed by experiences or
contact with others
• differ between individuals or groups
• influence our interpretation of social phenomena.
Values can create bias
• A strong opinion about something means that we believe certain things about it.
• Example: If I believe that left-wing politics are morally correct and that
consumerism is unjust, then I may believe that a person with right-wing political
views is an unjust person.
• If we expect a certain result, it is what we are likely to find.
• Example: I might ignore all the evidence that the participant with right-wing
political views is basically a decent person who wants everyone to prosper.
Is it possible to be objective?
A true story: A lecturer gave each of his students a lemon. He asked them to get to know
their lemon very well, looking out for all the things that made that lemon unique. He then
took all the lemons back and put them in a big bowl. At the end of the class he asked all
the students to find their own lemon. Without fail each one could find their own because
they knew a lot about it. Finally, he told them that they could take a lemon home with
them but they had to swap their lemon with the person next to them. Every single one of
them objected. They had become attached to their lemons!
Objectivity
• Objectivity may not be possible when the subjects are other human beings.
• Objectivity may not be possible even when
the subjects are inanimate objects.
• The researcher must state his or her personal interests right at the start to analyse
any potential bias.
Imagine you are asked to do some research:
• Would you rather study ‘youth culture in clubs’ or ‘knitting circles’?
• Would you rather be paid £20,000 or £8,000?

23. • Would you rather use a method that involved lots of interesting conversations or one
that involved analysing piles of statistics?
• Would you rather state that your findings were inconclusive or that you have made a
brilliant discovery?
• Personal interest cannot be denied or ignored!
• Personal bias is diminished by:
• presenting a full account
• making the research replicable
• declaring places where personal opinions may have influenced results
• being accountable to other researchers
• recognising bias as a normal part of being human, rather than denying its existence.

24. Task 14: Values And Bias
Read the following passage and then answer the questions below it. You can
check your answers against some example answers when you have finished.
Bias and objectivity
‘Values’ are commonly held and commonly shared ideas about what is good or
bad, desirable or undesirable. They are developed through the process of
socialisation and help us to make important moral and ethical decisions as we
negotiate the social world. People’s values differ according to their social and
cultural background and they may change over time. As a general rule people
mix with those who share broadly similar values to themselves, which, in turn,
reinforces those values.
Some sociologists emphasise the need for objectivity in research, but many
recognise that the very fact that all human beings have values means that
true objectivity is not possible when studying others. If this is the case, then
the researcher must be self-aware enough to recognise his or her own values
and their potential influence on a research project, and to recognise the
possible effect of participants’ values and the interaction between the two.
Here is a description of a study:
A feminist researcher is interviewing a group of women about their
experiences in the workplace. She briefly explains to the group that she is a
feminist and assumes that they all understand what that means. Most of the
women in the group have some idea of the meaning of feminism but these
ideas vary and are not all positive. As the interview continues, the
researcher asks the group a question about men in the workplace. One of
the women assumes that the researcher is being critical of men. She snorts
loudly and accuses the researcher of being a man-hater. The researcher
becomes defensive and denies the accusation but she is unsettled and
becomes tight-lipped and anxious. Other people in the group begin to get
uncomfortable and decide that the researcher is not approachable and they
contribute less and less to the discussion. Finally one of the women
announces that she thinks the whole thing is a waste of time and the group
disperses, leaving the researcher alone.
Questions
What do you think was the researcher’s first mistake?
Why do you think the woman thought the researcher was being critical of
men?
What do you think was the researcher’s second mistake?
How might the researcher have prepared herself better?

25. Ethical issues
Read the following description of a planned research study and identify the
ethical problems by putting a ring around each one.
Planned research study
A group of sociology students decides to investigate truanting from school by
interviewing fellow pupils. They are interested in the reasons for missing
school, the methods used by pupils to avoid getting caught, what the pupils
do instead of coming to school, and their general attitudes to school work.
Their first problem is to identify possible truants. They decide to do this by
asking pupils to note down the names of anyone in their classes who they
think might fit the category. Once the researchers have gathered a list, they
then look out for their subjects at break times and after school, and approach
them to ask questions. The researchers realise that their subjects might not
be willing participants, so they decide to offer a bar of chocolate in exchange
for the information. If this doesn’t prove enough of an appeal, they consider
pointing out that they could easily cause trouble for them if they don’t
comply.
Each researcher has a sheet of paper with the following questions on it. The
paper has a space at the top to put the participant’s name and class on it.
• Do you ever stay off school when you are not unwell?
• Do your parents know about it?
• What would they say if they found out?
• Do you smoke, drink or use drugs while staying off school?
• Do you gamble while off school?
• Have you ever shoplifted?
• Are you aware that you are breaking the law?
• Do you like school?
• Do you think that staying off school will have a bad effect on your results?
• What do you hope to do when you leave school?
Once the data is gathered, the researchers put it all together into a folder
and write an introduction and a conclusion. They hand it in as part of their
course work.

26. Task 15: Sociological methods
Know your data
Primary and secondary data
In the list below there are examples of primary and secondary data. There is also an odd
one out.
Use lines to organise the list into the two categories and then put a ring around the odd
one out. Once you have found the odd one out explain why it didn’t fit into either
category.
• Market research information from
interviews in the street.
• Information from church records on how
many people choose to marry in church.
Primary data
• Asking a person to explain how it felt to
be an asylum seeker.
• A telephone survey of parents of
teenagers to find out how much pocket
money they get.
Secondary data
• Census information to be used in a
longitudinal study.
• Gathering information from ship’s logs.
• Doing a media search to discover
whether methods of reporting have
changed over time.
• Asking people whether they think that
media reporting has changed over time.
• Doing a case study that involves
interviewing parents of children with
special needs and gathering information
from school records.
• Police records of crime reporting.
• Gathering information from local people
by doing a survey on their political
views.
• Doing an analysis of children’s TV
programmes.
• Gathering information about women’s
salaries by doing short interviews.
The odd one out is:

27. Task 16: Quantitative and qualitative data
Fill in the gaps in these sentences using the list of words at the
bottom of the page.
_______________________ data can be measured and _______________. It is often
analysed using _________________________ tools. Sociologists who prefer a
_______________________ approach will usually choose this kind of data gathering. One
common type of research method that produces this kind of data is a __________________.
________________________ data is descriptive of people’s responses to different
_________________. It is interested in the ______________________ people give to
experiences and recognises that each person is an _______________________. Sociologists
who prefer a _______________________ approach will usually choose this kind of data
gathering. One common type of research method that produces this kind of data is
__________________.
It is important to remember that most sociologists use methods that produce both these
kinds of data. When multiple methods are used it is called ___________________________.
Choose from this list of words:
qualitative positivist an
had that
A fewer
igloo interview
quantitative than
census meaning
interpretivist one
ever triangulation
survey Inuits
in in
individual statistical
1920 forty-six
revealed counted
seen phenomena

29. Task 17: How can sociological research be
evaluated?
Evaluating research
Evaluation is an important skill for the sociology student to develop. Answers that
demonstrate the ability to evaluate research and sociological arguments will
receive additional marks in exams – so this is a good time to practise these skills!
Your task
Below are three examples of research projects. For each one, find an example of a
strength, a weakness, and an ethical problem.
Study 1
Researcher A has decided to investigate the impact of a youth club (that has been
open for a year) on a small town. She is interested in the benefits to young people
and whether or not the club has reduced the number of small crimes committed in
the evenings. To conduct this research, she intends to interview members and non-
members of the club, along with youth leaders and local residents. She will ask
respondents to say what is good about the club and whether they think the level of
crime has been reduced. She will also ask participants if they know of any
troublemakers whose behaviour has improved since belonging to the club. Finally,
she will ask the local police for crime figures in the six months before the club
opened and in the last six months in order to compare them.
Study 2
Researcher B intends to do a survey on the drinking habits of young people and
their awareness of the health risks associated with binge drinking. He has designed
a confidential questionnaire that asks participants to answer a series of questions
on their own drinking habits. The questionnaire then asks them a set of questions
laid out in a quiz format about recommended safe drinking levels and the risks of
drinking too much. Once he has gathered all the data, he will compare knowledge
and drinking levels to see if there is a positive correlation between knowledge of
risk and safe drinking. He intends to target young people in the 15–25 age group.
Study 3
Researcher C wants to observe primary children’s play to see whether children
choose games that are gender specific, or whether boys and girls are equally
comfortable playing games that were traditionally thought to be for one or the
other gender, e.g. football vs. imagination games. To do this, he intends to obtain
permission from the head teacher to observe children’s play in pre-school nursery
and early years’ settings. Because play is not part of the curriculum in later
primary years, he will stand outside playgrounds and watch children playing as
unobtrusively as possible. He decides that asking permission for this part of the
study is not necessary, as he will not be on school grounds. Before he begins, he
sets out an observation log that looks like this:
1

30. Boys’ games Girls’ games
Boys
Girls
2

31. Task 18: Positivism & Interpretivism
Look at each of the questions below and tick the answer that most suits your own
personal belief or experience.
How was the world created?
a. God created the world in six days.
b. There was a ‘Big Bang’.
“Sociology isn’t a ‘real’ subject”, Do you agree?
a. Sociology isn’t a real subject, its all speculation about people. It’s
a made up subject for people who aren’t clever enough to study
Physics or Chemistry!
b. the study of people is essential to the continuation of human life.
We study matter to improve and inform the lives of human beings,
therefore they are important enough to have their own academic
discipline.
To decide if an area I have never visit before is a ‘nice’ and ‘safe’ place to live I
would…
a. Spend some time in the area, talk to local people, try some of
the local restaurants and pubs, go back at different times of day
and night.
b. Look up the crime rate by geographical area on the internet and
make a decision based on whatever it told me.
If I wanted to find out more information about a mysterious new religious order, I
would…
a. Go undercover, pretend to be a member and join, documenting
my findings in secret!
b. Write a questionnaire with true or false answers, asking them
about their group. I would send one to all of the members with an
SAE.
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32. I think Laboratory Experiments are…
a. Great! You can isolate variables and check your results for
accuracy or trends.
b. Useless. You need to observe and measure in a natural,
undisturbed setting to see true reactions.
Once you have completed the quiz, use two colours to shade the boxes and identify which
questions you think suggest either Positivism or Interpretivism.
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33. Extension
Test your knowledge
Each of the following questions should be answered in one or more full sentences.
1 What is the difference between a sociological problem and a social problem?
2 What is social policy?
3 Give two examples of primary data.
4 Give two examples of secondary data.
5 Use an example to demonstrate what it means to operationalise a concept.
6 Give two examples of social phenomena.
7 Why might a positivist sociologist argue that qualitative data is not scientific enough?
8 Explain the meaning of ‘valid data’.
9 Explain the meaning of ‘reliable research method’.
10 What does ‘value-free’ mean?
11 Name one ethical problem with participant observation.
12 What is a multiple-choice question in a survey?
13 Is a multiple-choice question open or closed?
14 Define the term ‘ethnographic’.
15 Make up your own example of a field experiment.
16 Does a positive correlation prove a cause and effect? If not, what does it prove?
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