Primary Methods

1
Primary Methods

• Observation
• Observation can be
• Overt or Covert
• Participant and Non-participants

Usually associated with qualitative approaches
2
Primary Methods

• Consider the clubland scene

Observe by 1. Telling the club what you are
doing 2. Work covertly and observe - eg bar
staff 3. Go covertly as a clubber
3
Primary Methods

• Social Anthropologists are big on Participant
  Observation.
• Studying small scale face to face societies via
  this method gives them a great insight into the
  'natural' way of life

Problems of subjectivity Going native - too
sympathetic to the group Presence of researcher
affecting group
4
Primary Methods
Unobtrusive observation is less likely to affect
group But can be accused of spying - ethical
problems But do see group in natural
setting Large numbers cant be observed Reliabilit
y of data often questionned by positivists
5
Secondary Data

• Secondary data is simply that which already exists

Official Statistics A lot of stats are available
from the Office For National Stats Large Numbers
- quantitave Have to be treated with care - eg
crime stats dont tell us about unreported crime
6
Secondary Data

• Historical Sources
• These are useful for looking at how things change
  over a period of time. Foucault used medical
  records in his analysis of the treatment of
  mentally ill patients, Laslett used Parish
  records to discover changing family structures.
  The problem with using historical data is one of
  interpretation.
• Some records are not available, some have been
  destroyed, some are under government protection.
• The problem with using historical data is one of
  interpretation.

7
Secondary Data

• When using Historical sources you will need to
  ask some key questions

1. Is it genuine? 2. Who wrote it? 3. When was it
written? 4. Where was it written? 5. Why was it
written? 6. How close is the author to the real
events? 7. Does it agree with or contradict other
documents from around the same time
8
Secondary Data

• Personal sources diaries, autobiographies and
  letters
• Documents that researchers ask people to prepare

Diaries and Autobiographies a sociologist asks
people to prepare eg Who does which household
tasks?
9
Secondary Data

• Existing diaries and autobiographies

• Foucault used diaries , letters and sketches to
  study a guy who killed his family

10
Secondary Data

• Letters

• Burgess used letters in a study of a Comp school
  in 1983
• To fill in details of past events
• To complement his observations
• To shed extra light on social relationships in
  the school

11
Secondary Data
12
Secondary Data

• Mass Media Reports, Novels And Other Cultural
  Artefacts
• All give valuable insights but all need to be
  treated with care regarding interpretation

13
Interpreting Data

• Causes and correlations
• behind certain phenomena, e.g. does unemployment
  Sociologists are often looking for the causes
  cause crime? The problem is, there are often many
  'causes' these are referred to as variables.

14
Interpreting Data

• Multicausal explanations

-lots of different reasons for something happening
15
Interpreting Data

• Independent variables

• Those variables which are not caused by other
  factors
• An independent variable in one case may be
  dependent on another

16
Interpreting Data

• Dependent variables

That which is affected by other things eg crime
rate affected by unemployment crime is
dependent unemployment is independent in this
instant
17
Interpreting Data

• There are 2 important things to note about causal
  relationships

1. Peoples awareness of what is happening may be
a causal factor Covert observation may get around
this problem
18
Interpreting Data
2. There is often a correlation between
variables ie, a regular relationship This does
not necessarily lead to a causal
explanation Sociologists often talk about weak or
strong correlations
19
The reliability of qualitative data

• Quantitative studies arguably give stronger
  correlations due to the nature of the data
  produced.
• With qualitative research such tight correlations
  cannot be established.
• Why?

Quantitative approaches are seen as reliable
because of the large numbers involved Qualitative
approaches are often seen as more valid but not
reliable because of the small numbers involved
20
Triangulation/Methodological Pluralism

• Using different methods in the same research
• Can check one set of data against another
• Can combine qualitative and quantitative
  approaches

21
The Ethics Of Research

• Research is not neutral, it is affected by
• what is being studied
• who is being studied
• who is doing the studying
• what happens to the findings.

22
The Ethics Of Research

• Some topic areas are inappropriate
• Funds may come from a source which could cause
  bias in the research
• Results may be unpopular
• - Becker says that good sociology should annoy
  people

23
The Debate About Feminist Research

• Feminists have referred to 'malestream sociology'
  
• ie. males carrying out much of the research in
  the early days and looking at things with a male
  bias.
• Some feminists argue for a distinct approach
  developed by women

24
The Debate About Feminist Research

• Abbot Wallace1996

• Research methods are not just tools of the trade
• Feminists criticise malestream bias in
  quantitative research
• Feminists tend to favour qualitative methods for
  feminist research
• This approach implies more equality between
  researcher and researched