2. Qualitative: involves opinions and values
(words) Favoured by intrepretivists
Quantitative: numerical data. Favoured by
positivists.
Primary data: collecting new data that hasnt
been collected before and for the
researchers purpose i.e. Surveys
Secondary data: collected old data that has
been available before and has been collected
by someone else. i.e. Official statistics.
3. PET- Practical (funding, access to
groups, time, cost) Ethical (informed
consent, confidentiality, psychological harm)
Theoretical ( if data is reliable: can it be
replicated, valid: is it true accurate picture of
research group)
Research methods:
experiment, questionnaire, interview, observation,
official statistics, documents
Positivism (advocated by durkhiem) look for
correlations, objective facts
Interpretive: interpret meaning of words, use
qualitative data to do this.
4. Selecting respondents to carry out research:
Unit: individual of a population/ frame: list of all
people in a population
Random: everyone has an equal chance of being
selected. Large sample needed. Most representative
Stratified: population divided based on variables such
as sex. Need sampling frame. Small sample
Snowballing: members put researcher in touch with
possible respondents. Not representative. Good for
groups that are hard to identify.
Opportunity: people put themselves forward and those
who are easily accessible. Cant generalize.
Easy, cheapest and quick
5. Face2face: high response rate, opertionalize concepts. Interviwer
bias, time consuming.
Telephone: cheap, easy. Response rates
Postal: cheap, easy. Response rates, generalize.
Internet: cheap, quick. Response rate, limited to those with
internet access.
Fixedq: respondents restricted to limited answers i.e. Yes/no.
Quantitative data, reliable. Hard to opertionalize concepts, cant
get qualitative data.
Openq: respondents allowed to provide their own response.
Detailed data, opertionalize concepts. Time
consuming, interviewer bias.
OVERALL: Large amounts of data collected quickly, easy to
compare results.
People may act differently [hawthrone effect] data may be
inaccurate, researches mat nor understand respondents reasoning.
6. Structured: pre-set of questions. Easy to replicate and
compare, less chance of interview bias. Lack of
detail, hard to find out more
semi- structured: some fixed questions. Researchers
influence the route of interview. Reliability.
Unstructured: few or no fixed questions. Researcher
directs the interview, hard to replicate, time
consuming, may go off track.
Individual: less time consuming. cant observe
interaction
Group: closer to real life, may sway opinion
OVERALL: validity may be affected. Larger sample can
be used. Interprevists favour it.
7. Participant> overt (researcher can ask
questions, difficult to become full
participant, research group may not want to
be observed>covert (respondents are not
aware of researcher) act more
naturally, difficult to access some
groups, unethical.
Overall: can be done with little
preparation, in depth
studies, unethical, samples may be too small
to generalize, time consuming.
8. Study of same people over long period of
time.
Long term commitment, sample size can
affect validity
Look over process for long time, valid
Triangulation: using different research
methods to fill in data.
9. i.e.Documents, diaries, official statistics
Allow insight into peoples lives
Cheaper, quicker
Allow to study the past.
May not be reliable
May not be for the researcher purpose.
Qualitative: historical data, content analysis
(comparing media studies).
May not be representative, may be
untruthful, may be unreliablable.
10. Case study-study in depth of something
Collecitivits: grouping interests together
Credibility: how believeable data is
Factual survey: a survey collective detailed data
Field experiments: conducted in natural setting
Formal content analysis: analyis of media in numerical
data
Hypothese: a statement to be tested in research
Objectivity: making truthful statements about the world
Operationalizing: breaking down a concept so it can be
measured.
Official statistics: numberical data produced by the
government
Private documents :i.e. Diaries
Response rate: people who return the questionnaire