Many sociologists argue that theoretical issues are the most important factors to affect choice of method. Theoretical issues revolve around our thoughts as to what we consider society to be like, and whether or not an accurate and truthful picture can be obtained from this. There are four different concerns, regarding the issues that are theoretical, which influence sociologist’s choice of research methods.
Validity is a method that produces data that gives a true or genuine picture of what something is really like; this helps the researcher easily find out the truth. The use of qualitative methods such as Participant Observation give a more truthful account, due to the method being able to provide us with a deeper insight through first-hand experience as argued by sociologists.
Reliability is another issue that influences sociologist’s choice in research methods. Reliability refers to whether or not your experiment/method will be able to produce results that are an exact copy to the first ones and the ones after that. This results in the method being able to be repeated, which creates a less bias, and instead produces more accurate, research again and again. An example of such methods would be questionnaires as opposed to unstructured interviews. These quantitative methods (questionnaires) can be used as they produce more reliable results than the qualitative methods (unstructured interviews).
Another theoretical issue is representativeness which refers to how much of the characteristics you are looking for is represented by the people being studied. For example, if a sociologist is researching delinquency, their research would not be carried out in places that are fully developed or have a lot of wealthy people living there. This is because that specific research would not be representative of that target group as the results would not then be generalizable to the target population as a whole.
(In Too Deep) (Justin timberlake – in time)
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Research is a primary component of sociology. Valid and relevant sociological research is dependent upon a commitment to applying the scientific method in a systematic and organized way in order to ensure maximum objectivity and consistency in research. Complete the following matrix based on a social problem of your choice. The matrix will serve as a guide for creating a preliminary plan for the basic steps of the scientific method.…
- 1086 Words
- 5 Pages
Powerful Essays -
* What are the key methods sociologists use to study society? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each method? (focus on surveys, documents, and participant observation)…
- 1324 Words
- 6 Pages
Good Essays -
There are two types of experiment methods which are laboratory and field. Laboratory experiments are normally set up by the researcher itself. Field experiments are an experiment carried out in a ‘natural’ setting; that is, unlike in the case of laboratory experiments, the setting is not created by the researcher. Sociologists tend to use field experiments rather than laboratory experiments as people will behave more naturally in field experiments rather than laboratory experiments, it is also easier to generalise results, greater validity in the results of the experiment and also fewer demand characteristics if the participants are unaware. But sociologists tend to generally avoid using experiments for research this may be because there many practical, ethical and theoretical issues that apply to these research methods.…
- 525 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
“Let every man be his own methodologist, let every man be his own theorist” –C. Wright Mills. The sociological imagination is a way of comprehending circumstances in society that lead to a questioned outcome. Outcomes are usually shaped by: motives, the time period, location, and human influence. Social situations have a large impact on how people think and act. A sociological perspective is in a way a symbiotic relationship between human individuals and society. In order to obtain this perspective; one must extract themselves from the particular situation and have an abstract point of view of the identified circumstance. One must see the situation in a wider and more diverse perspective.…
- 111 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
Scientifically studying human society’s development, origins and organizations/institutions is defined as Sociology. (Wikipedia, 2013). The methods of analysis and investigation can be broadly divided into quantitative and qualitative designs. Qualitative design places the emphasis on direct observation, communication with participants and or analysis of texts to understand the social development while quantitative design frequently relies on statistical analysis of numerous cases. (Wikipedia, 2013).…
- 943 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
What is the empirical approach? What is diversity? 4. What do sociologists study? 5.…
- 297 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
To have control over variables and the environment they are researching, sociologists often use laboratory experiments in research. Lab experiments are used to test a hypothesis in a controlled environment, by altering an independent variable to see the dependant variable being tested changes. Positivists favour this method of research as it is a more scientific approach to research, which aims to identify correlations and patterns in behaviour whilst gathering quantitative data. Carrying out such experiments can cause practical issues for sociologists. One of the main practical issues is that the effect of society on people’s behaviour is very complex, and it is very difficult for researcher’s using lab experiments to identify and control all the variables that may have an influence on behaviour. It would be impossible for a sociologist to research all the influencing factors in a lab experiment, as this is far too complex to carry out in one controlled environment. Furthermore, lab experiments usually involve the study of a small sample as it would not be possible to study a large group of individuals in a controlled laboratory, unless you had a lot of time and this could become costly. This makes it difficult to research large scale social issues that affect behaviour and may also reduce the representativeness of research carried out. For example, Stanley Milgram carried out research on obedience to an authorative figure. He wanted to investigate whether Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures as this was a common explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II. To do so he studied 40 Americans all of whom were male. This is a small scale sample which only represents males and is ethnocentric to American males; therefore it would be difficult to generalise findings to the wider population and other countries.…
- 476 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Many sociologists argue that theoretical issues are the most important factors to affect choice of method. Theoretical issues refer to what we think society is like and if we can obtain an accurate and truthful picture of it. There are four different concerns regarding theoretical issues which influence sociologist’s choice of research methods. Validity is a method that gives a true or genuine picture of what something is really like, which helps the researcher easily find out the truth. Sociologists argue that the use of qualitative methods such as Participant Observation gives a more valid, truthful account as it provides us with a deeper insight through firsthand experience. The next issue that influences sociologist’s choice is reliability which comes from Latin, replica meaning an exact copy of something. This results in the method being able to be repeated and creates a less bias and more accurate research again and again. Quantitative methods such as written questionnaires can be used as they are more reliable results than qualitative methods such as unstructured interviews.…
- 833 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
There are many problems that some sociologist find when using postal questionnaires. Postal questionnaires are sent to homes and business in certain areas, postal questionnaire mainly use closed questions as positives use this method due to the fact, that they are able to interpret the data in to numerical form such as graphs. Positives use quantitative data because they believed that society is molded by social factors and therefore can be measured using the same method as the natural science.…
- 490 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
This method allows for a broader scope of study with greater efficiency (Pearson, 2013). Subjects may remain anonymous, which in turn can produce more truthful responses to questions (Jones, 2013). Due to the fact that the sociologist may not be present during some of the surveys, this method helps to eliminate bias in the interpretation of the results (Jones, 2013). This method of research is seen as highly reliable in that the data collected can be easily coded and analyzed (Pearson, 2013). Survey methods are a valuable adjunct to other research methods. They play an important role in confirming more qualitative research. The survey method can help to identify areas that need further research and reveal broad patterns that exist that could otherwise be overlooked by researchers relying solely on qualitative methods (Pearson,…
- 1501 Words
- 7 Pages
Better Essays -
As a sociologist,…
- 2261 Words
- 10 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Examine the ways in which practical, ethical and theoretical factors may influence sociologist’s choice of research methods.…
- 894 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
1. Which of the following is the BEST example of something that sociologists might study?…
- 659 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Understand and describe the concepts and major theoretical perspectives used by sociologists to view contemporary social problems.…
- 2290 Words
- 10 Pages
Good Essays -
This essay will be examining the relationship between social theory and empirical research, in doing so we will be using the article written by D’Ovidio, R., Mitman, T. Et al. (2009). To do so we must firstly explain what is meant by sociological theory.…
- 1886 Words
- 8 Pages
Good Essays