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1) Sociologists try to make their research valid and reliable.

2) Take a sample, sample represents the population. If sample is representative sociologists can generalise.

3) Sociologists aim to be objective & avoid bias.

1) Primary sources of data - first hand research. Things like interviews, questionnaires and observations.

2) Secondary data - past research. Things like official statistics, diaries, letters, reports.

1) Quantitative data is numbers and statistics. Easy to put into a graph or chart.

2) Qualitative data gives a detailed picture of what people do, think and feel. Subjective, involved opinions meanings and interpretations.

Positivists use reliable methods that give Quantitative data. Looks at institutions in society. Macrosociology.

1)Sociology should be scientific and analyse social facts. Social facts are things that affect behaviour and can be easily measured. External things like laws, not internal things like people's opinions.

2) Use statistics to measure the relationships between different factors. They're interested in cause and affect relationships e.g. the factors that cause underachievement in schools.

3) Use sources like questionnaires & official statistics. Objective & Reliable.

Interpretivists use valid methods that give Qualitative data. Looks at an individual - Microsociology.

1)Interpretivists believe that you can only really understand human behaviour using empathy. They think it is important to uncover and understand the meaning individuals give to their actions and of others.

2) Use methods to discover meanings, motives and reasons behind human behaviour and social interaction.

3) Use methods like participant observation and unstructured interviews to build up a rapport ( a feeling of mutual trust and understanding with individuals, to produce a valid and detailed picture.

4) WEBER - empathy and observation, get inside a person's head. Verstehen.

Explanation of behaviour.
Positivism - It's determined by social forces beyond people's control.
Interpretivism -  Humans make sense of social situations during human interaction.
Aims of Sociology.
Positivism - Sociology should Discover what causes what.
Interpretivism - It should describe and explain how people make sense of situations - using empathy.
Research Methods.
Positivism - Questionnaires and structured interviews give Quantitative data and they're reliable and objective.
Interpretivism - Observations and unstructured interviews give Qualitative data and more valid insight into society.

Consent - All participants agreed to take part.
Confidentiality - Details of participants and actions confidential and private.
Avoidance of harm - Not be physically or psychologically harmed.
Avoidance of deception - researchers should be open and honest about the study and it's implications.

British Sociological Association gives ethical guidelines for research.
Apart from Covert PO, only be used when there's absolutely no other way.

Time - Covert PO takes a long time, researcher has to get into the group.
Money - Affects the length and method. Pay the researcher for transportation for interviews, resources. 1991 census cost £125 million. 
Characteristics and skills of the researcher - Difficult for female researcher to be involved in a PO of monks in monastery.
Access and opportunity - If researchers don't  have access to certain groups they have to turn to secondary sources.

A Hypothesis is a statement that makes a prediction. A hypothesis acts as a starting point for research. The research will aim to either show that the hypothesis is true or show that it's false. It states a relationship between two factors.

It's tricky to measure things like "democracy", "development culture."
You end up measuring these concepts by measuring something else that's linked to it - sociologists call this an indication. This is called oprationalising a concept, making it operational, workable, by finding a way to measure it. Researchers need to be able to justify how they operationalised their concepts in their final report - subjective process.

Triangulation is when sociologists try to combine different methods or data to get the best out of all of them.
1) More valid, detailed picture.
2) Check different sets of data against each other (comparable)
3) Combines strengths and weaknesses.
4) Expensive and time-consuming, not possible to use triangulation - only one viable method to get the data.

An interview is a conversation between a researcher and an interviewee where the researcher asks a set of questions. Pick a sample, organise the interview, select/train your interviewers, ask the questions & record the answers.
- Can be Bias.
- Friendly, relaxed atmosphere.

1) Structured Interviews ask the same standardised questions each time. The questions are closed, with set multiple-choice answers.
2) Quantitative data, very reliable(able to replicate)
3) Used in large-scale social surveys.

- The Interviewer can explain and clarify the questions.

- Structured interviews can ask the same questions as a questionnaire, but they get a much higher response rate. People tend to agree to be interviewed.

- They're more expensive than questionnaires - pay for interviewer.

- Interviewer has to follow the list of questions so they can't ask for more detail if the respondent says something particularly interesting.

- Interviewer Bias

1) Unstructured Interviews are informal, no rigid structure.
2) Use open-ended questions, give Qualitative data. Quite valid.
3) The interviewer needs to have the skill so they can probe to find out more detail about the interviewee's beliefs and opinions.

They're good for researching sensitive issues where the interviewer has to gain the respondent's trust - for example sexuality, domestic violence and crime.
Find out meaning, motives and reasons.

1) They're used with smaller samples, which means they're not very representative.
2) There are a lot of interviewer effects in an unstructured interview. The interviewee may say what they think the researcher wants to hear.
3) It takes a long time to write up an unstructured interview - have to write down whole conversation not just codes for multiple choice answers.

Random sampling is where names are selected at random from a list of names called a sampling frame.

Divides the population into groups and make a random selection with he right proportions. (if 60% of the population is male, 60% of the sample must be male)

Find an initial contact and get them to give you more name for your research.

Pick people who fit into a certain category(say, 15 people between the ages of 30 and 40)

A pilot study is a small-scale piece of research used as a practice run. Test the accuracy of questions, check to see if there are any technical problems. More valid & reliable.
Test how long the research will take, train interviews, research funding.
Can be Time-consuming and expensive, create a lot of work.

Social surveys collect information about a large population, using standarised questionnaires or structured interviews.
Used by Positivists, primary source of quantitative data.
Reliable, used by government agencies & research companies.
Data collected an be analysed to discover overall patterns & trends.

Longitundinal studies are done at regular intervals over a long period of time. They're often large-scale quantitative surveys, and they tend to be used by Positivists. Seven Up (QUALITATIVE).

1) Analyse changes and make comparisons over time.
2) Study how the attitudes of the sample change with time.

It's hard to recruit a committed sample who will stay with the study.
It's hard to keep in contact with the sample, which may make the study less valid.
Long-term funding needed, need to keep the research team together.
Rely on interviews, questionnaires which might not be valid or reliable.

Questionnaires mainly use closed questions and standardised multiple-choice answers. However some use open-ended questions.
Mainly give quantitative, positivists. Standardised questions make them reliable.

Use clear, simple questions which are easy to understand.
Give clear instruction, easy for respondent.
Clear layout
Range of options on multiple choice.
Measure what you want to measure.

Ask embarrassing, threatening questions
Be too long.
Lead the respondent to answer a question in a particular way.

Quick and cheap, reach lots of respondents.
Reliable questions are standardised.
Easy to analyse with computer programs
No Interviewer to affect people's answers.
Spot patterns make comparisons

Respondents may not tell the truth
Questions may be misleading or mean different things to different people. They may not measure what you actually want to measure.
Open-ended questions make it hard to quantify the data into numbers.
No one can explain the questions.

Ethnography is the scientific description of a specific culture by someone with first-hand experience of observing that culture. It was first used by anthropologists to study traditional societies.
It is based on small-scale fieldwork that tends to produce qualitative data. It's valid because you can study behaviour in natural settings.

You can observe a community and see what they get up to.
Case studies are in depth studies of particular events - demonstrations.
Time budgeting is where you ask people to keep a detailed diary of their activities during a specified time.
Researchers may also analyse diaries letters, secondary data.

Relies on the researcher's interpretations of what people do and say.
It's difficult to make generalisations from small-scale research.

Participant Observation is when the researcher actively involves themselves in the group.
Covert Observation is where the researcher doesn't tell the group they're being observed.
Overt Observation is when the group is aware of the research and they know who the research is.

Non-Participant Observation is when the researcher observes the group but isn't actively part of the group.

- Gets the researcher right to where the action is so they can check out the dynamics of a group from close up.
- Allows the researcher to analyse the workings of deviant groups.
- First-hand insight in real-life settings
- If covert, people can't mislead the researcher, act naturally.

- May get too involved, 'go native' hard to stand back and objectively observe the group.
- Overt research may influence the behaviour of the group.
- Covert research, the researcher might be put in danger with illegal acts if in a deviant group.
- Not able to replicate the research, lacks reliability. Not able to accurately record them
- Getting in, staying in and getting out of the group - Ethical and Practical problems.
- Not representative because of small groups.
- Hard work, time-consuming & expensive.

In non-participant observation, the researcher isn't drawn into the group so they can be more objective about the group's behaviour.
If you want to observe deviant groups, you have to be very inconspicuous.

Observing from the outside stops you from getting to where the action is.
Overt research may influence the behaviour of the group.

Experiments are used by natural scientists
The researchers starts with a hypothesis and they use the experiment to test it out.
All the variables are kept constant, apart from the one interest in - the independent variable.
Scientists change the independent variable and observe the effects on the dependent variable.
Results are turned into numbers - scientist looks for patterns and cause-and effects.

Lab Experiments are done in a controlled environment. The researcher changes the independent variable. The researcher observes the effect on the dependent variable. The researcher usually uses a control group, which is left alone to see what happens if you don't do anything to the independent variable.
Field Experiments are a response to the criticisms of lab experiments. They take place outside of the lab in real social settings and those involved are unaware. Interpretivists use this method.
Natural Experiments are not set up artificially. An exmaple would be twin studies, but these are quite rate.

Strengths - Control over experiments
- Quantitative data.
- Replicate the research.
Weaknesses.
- Hard to reproduce real social situations in a lab - artificial.
- Difficult to isolate single variables - social behaviour is influenced by so many factors.
- Moral & Ethical issues
- Intimidated or act differently in the lab (Hawthorne Effect)

Strengths - Natural social settings, real life.
- Show hidden meanings in everyday social interaction.
Weaknesses - Can't control the variables
- Know they're being studied behaviour change (Hawthorne Effect)
- Ethical problem, subjects aren't aware they're taking part.

Official statistics are a source of secondary data. They're produced by local government, central government and government agencies.
Hard Statistics are objective - Births, Marriages.
Soft Statistics are more subjective. Crime, Poverty & Unemployment.

The census is a survey of every household every 10 years. Every household has to fill in the form by law.

Sociologists look for similarities and differences between secondary documents. They can compare different times, cultures and different groups within society.

Durkheim used this comparative method in 1897 study of suicide. He looked at the rates of suicide in different European societies. He found that the suicide rate was consistent over time, but varied between societies and varied for different groups within society