Comparison Of Three Methods Of Sociological Inquiry

An Analysis and Comparison of Three Methods of Sociological Inquiry:
Experiments, Surveys, and Field Research 18 May 2013

Introduction
All sociological inquiries begin with a question, whether they result in a small survey distributed to a couple of dozen people, or in a major experiment involving hundreds of subjects. In either case, the research will entail a careful process that involves designing a research plan before embarking on the actual research effort. For the results of the inquiry to have any real value in its field and add to our understanding of the world, the researcher must follow established practices such as accepted methods for selecting participants and for collecting and analyzing data. The tools of sociological
In a classical experiment, the experimental and control groups must be as similar as possible to better gauge the effect of the treatment. Three main methods are used to achieve that purpose: probability sampling, randomization and matching. Probability sampling is based on the logic that, as long as the two samples are large enough, they will resemble the population under study and therefore resemble each other. Randomization is a mechanical method of assigning preselected subjects to experimental and control groups as a way of avoiding selection bias and augmenting the chances of producing two similar groups. In cases where the number of subjects for the study is particularly small, the researcher may have recourse to matching. The process of matching involves looking for pairs of individuals who share characteristics relevant to the study and assigning one to the experimental group and one to the control group. Because individuals present a long list of characteristics, and because it is often difficult to determine the most relevant to the study, this method is only used in particular
Contrary to researchers who collect quantitative data by means of surveys and experiments, field researchers gather qualitative data by directly observing an individual or a group and taking detailed notes. And while results from surveys and experiments are intended for statistical analysis, fieldwork is not concerned with statistical methods, even if it may at times include some quantitative data to enrich more subjective observations. As a research design generally set within the grounded theory framework, field research does not begin with a theory but may aim at theory construction through observation and the “analysis of the patterns, themes, and common categories” found in the data (Babbie & Benaquisto, 2010, p. 325). Its use is appropriate when we want to learn about something that involves interaction between people in an everyday or natural setting and researchers wish to avoid the artificiality of experiments and surveys. In the case of ethnographic research, a type of fieldwork, the focus is on “patterns of behavior, beliefs, and language” shared by individuals of a particular “culture-sharing group” (Creswell, 2007, p. 68). Ethnography studies communities, cultures and subcultures of any size and is appropriate to use when we want to understand a particular group of people and have insights into their social structures and the