Research Methods

- It’s not as time consuming as say doing an interview (practical)

- It’s useful as you can distribute it to a large sample, then it’s more likely to be generalisable to the researchers target population (theoretical)

- Usually anonymous so confidential (Ethical)

- Not Usually qualitative therefore don’t give a true insight into an individuals beliefs, not subjective so no feelings and beliefs, not very representative as those who reply may not be typical of the target population. (Theoretical)

-Very low response rate so can’t be generalised easily, may lie so social desirability may be at play (practical)

- No informed consent from the person is given unless they return it as the sample is normally gained from third person sampling frame (Ethical)

- It is easy to gain a wide range of data because lots of people are able to see it (Theoretical)

- Questionnaires are one of the most affordable ways to gather quantitative data (practical)

- Usually anonymous so confidential (Ethical)

- The survey is not suitable for open ended questions because there is no trained interviewer to explore the answers of participants (practical)

-The researchers chooses the questions and because of that the participants may not be able to express themselves in the way they want to distorting the participants meanings and undermines the validity of the data (Theoretical)

- It’s easier and quicker for the participants to answer (practical)

- Participants are more likely to answer sensitive topics (Ethical)

- Replication is easy therefore it is higher in reliability (Theoretical)

-Participant with no opinion or no knowledge can answer anyway lowering its generalisability (Theoretical)

- It is confusing if many response choices are offered (practical)

- Can give simplistic responses to complex issues (practical)

- Permits an unlimited rant of answers (practical)

- Reveals how the participant thinks about the question (practical)

- Responses can be used to expand on and classify closed responses (practical)

- Participants might not want to go into detail because it’s a sensitive topic (Ethical)

- Takes more time and effort to respond to the questions (practical)

- it’s hard to compare answers (practical)

- Reliable structure’s interview’s can be repeated exactly the same as it was the first time. This is due to the questions being written down. (Theoretical)

- Can collect more data- due to it being structured it is less time consuming this means that the interviewer can interview more people making it more representative (practical)

- Can easily get informed consent decide you can ask them face to face (Ethical)

- Inflexibility- interviewer’s cannot change their questions as it would cause researcher bias (practical)

- Validity- it is often that interviewee’s will misunderstand questions making it invalid. (Theoretical)

- Social desirability bias’s- pride may charge their answers to appear better than someone else (Ethical)

- Rapport and sensitivity- informality allows interviewer’s to gain rapport so more likely to open up. So it’s more representative. (Theoretical)

- Flexibility- no fixed questions so can explore what’s interesting/relevant at the time. Interviewer can find new ideas and hypothesis (practical)

- Can easily get informed consent because you can ask them face-to-face (Ethical)

- Unstructured interviews take a long time to conduct- limits number that can be carried out = small sample size, so can be less representative (practical)

- Not reliable as not standardised- each one unique as may ask different questions to different participants if something interesting occurs so it’s almost impossible to replicate. (Theoretical)

- Sometimes it’s hard to not answer questions even if they are sensitive also issues with confidentiality or harm of sensitive topics. (Ethical)

-Less time consuming then individual interviews (practical)

- High in validity-detailed answers can be given

• if people give honest answers, which they are more likely to if they feel relaxed if surrounded by friends. (Theoretical)

-Can easily get informed consent because you can ask the participant face-to-face.

- Low in reliability because it’s difficult to repeat exactly (Theoretical)

-Data hard to analyse or quantify from a group discussion (practical)

-Participants may not want to answer questions on sensitive subjects because it could be private to them (Ethical)

- Gaining access is much easier because the researcher does not have to seek permission (practical)

-Demand characteristics are less likely because the participants are not aware research is taking place. Therefore the research is high in validity (Theoretical)

-It’s difficult for the researchers to take notes during the investigation, but by waiting till after you could forget some of the information (practical)

-Covert research does not allow for participants to give informed consent, because it involves deception (Ethical)

- It easy to record notes (practical)

-High in validity because participants are in their natural environment (Theoretical)

- Compared to covert it’s less stressful therefore there’s less harm to the researchers (Ethical)

- Can take a long time to complete (practical)

- The gross studies are usually small therefore it may not be representative of the target population (Theoretical)

- Positivists: Reject the use of participant observation as an unscientific method. In their view it lacks objectivity and reliability and does not yield representative data that can be generalised to the wider population. Prefer structured observation methods. (Theoretical)

-Allows researchers to see what goes on with their own eyes- Can make judgement and observe body language used (practical)

- Researcher can be more open minded as they’re an outsider looking in-less likely to feel sympathy and therefore produce bias data. Therefore it’s higher in validity (Theoretical)

- If people have given informed consent therefore there are no ethical issues there (Ethical)

- Can be very time consuming and costly (practical)

- Can lead to Hawthorne effect- people act differently as they are being observed. Leading to the researchers being low in validity (Theoretical)

-It does not disturb the normal behaviour of the group being researched so therefore it’s high in validity (Theoretical)

- Gain access especially to closed groups, is much easier because the researcher does not have to seek permission (practical)

-Less ethical as participants are aware they are taking part and cannot give informed consent. (Ethical)

- Less likely to be reactivity: risk that presence of researcher influences data (higher validity).(Theoretical)

-Can be time consuming and costly (practical)

-Free source off of huge amounts of data (practical)

- Statistics allow comparison between groups e.g. ethnic groups, class, gender (practical)

- Usually covers large numbers therefore is more representative of the target population (Theoretical)

-Usually secondary data so do not need informed consent ( Ethical)