Sociological Research Methods

11 Key excerpts on "Sociological Research Methods"

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  Introduction to Sociology 3e

  • Tonja R. Conerly, San Jacinto College, Kathleen Holmes, Northern Essex Community College, Asha Lal Tamang, North Hennepin Community College(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Openstax

    (Publisher)

  The following sections describe these approaches to knowledge. The Scientific Method Sociologists make use of tried and true methods of research, such as experiments, surveys, and field research. But humans and their social interactions are so diverse that these interactions can seem impossible to chart or explain. It might seem that science is about discoveries and chemical reactions or about proving ideas right or wrong rather than about exploring the nuances of human behavior. However, this is exactly why scientific models work for studying human behavior. A scientific process of research establishes parameters that help make sure results are objective and accurate. Scientific methods provide limitations and boundaries that focus a study and organize its results. The scientific method involves developing and testing theories about the social world based on empirical evidence. It is defined by its commitment to systematic observation of the empirical world and strives to be objective, critical, skeptical, and logical. It involves a series of six prescribed steps that have been established over centuries of scientific scholarship. 36 2 • Sociological Research Access for free at openstax.org. FIGURE 2.2 The Scientific Method. 6 steps of the scientific method are an essential tool in research. Sociological research does not reduce knowledge to right or wrong facts. Results of studies tend to provide people with insights they did not have before—explanations of human behaviors and social practices and access to knowledge of other cultures, rituals and beliefs, or trends and attitudes. In general, sociologists tackle questions about the role of social characteristics in outcomes or results.

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  Research Methods

  • Steve Chapman, Patrick McNeill, Patrick Mcneill(Authors)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  1 Research methods in sociology

  ‘What is sociology about?’ is probably the question that sociologists are asked more often than any other. A reasonable reply might be that sociologists are interested in those aspects of human behaviour which are the result of the social context in which we live. They do not concentrate on features which are the result of our physical or biological makeup. Sociology stresses the patterns and the regularities of social life which are, most of the time, orderly and largely predictable.

  The next question is then, typically, ‘But what do you actually do?’ and it is to this question that this book is addressed. While there is, as you may know, considerable variation and disagreement among sociologists, they are united in the conviction that argument that is based on sound evidence is superior to argument based on false evidence, limited evidence, or no evidence. Evidence has to be collected from the social world around us, and this requires empirical research to be done. ‘Empirical’, in this context, simply means ‘based on evidence from the real world’ in contrast to ‘theoretical’, which refers to ideas that are abstract or purely analytical. Theories must be tested against the real world, ‘Theory, in fact, is the building which is made from the hard-won bricks of research studies’ (Mann 1985). This still leaves open the question of what counts as sound evidence, and this in turn leads to a central theme of this book: ‘How can we collect sound evidence about the social world that can be used to increase our understanding of that world?’

  Over the years, sociologists have used a wide variety of methods of data collection and analysis. They have studied an even wider variety of aspects of social life, from such matters as how people avoid bumping into each other in the street to topics as wide-ranging as the causes of the rise of capitalism. In fact, a brief history of sociology since the end of the last century is an effective way of introducing the variety of research styles and some of the topics studied.

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  Law and Society

  An Introduction

  • John Harrison Watts, Cliff Roberson(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The researcher chooses methods that allow for an in-depth inquiry in the hopes of understanding the breadth of the problem under study. Random assignment: Each element of the population has an equal probability of being assigned to a control and experimental group. Sampling: A procedure used in research by which a select subunit of a population is studied in order to analyze the entire population. Measurement: The assignment of labels (usually numbers) to observa-tions and the analysis of the data consists in manipulating or operating on these numbers. Internal validity: Accuracy within the study itself. (Are we measur-ing what we think we are measuring?) External validity: Accuracy in the ability to generalize or infer find-ings from a study to a larger population. Reliability: The consistency and stability of the measurement. (If the study were duplicated, would the instrument yield the same answer to the same question upon second testing?) 67 Social Research Methods are interested merely with classifying relations among measures, describing things in terms of a set of characteristics, or discovering those characteristics. The Experimental Method The scientific study of the sociology of law is especially useful in three basic types of situations. 1. When exploring the existing state of affairs to gain some insight into the forces and factors that determine social reality 2. When the objective is to describe a relationship between the law and society or vice versa 3. To explain, through Sociological Research Methods, whether legal precepts have attained their intended effects, and whether or not they have also brought about any unexpected and undesirable effects Data secured by these methods are likely to be more reliable the more quan-titative they are (provided that the methods themselves are valid) and the more opportunities there are to apply the experimental method.

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  SOC

  • Nijole Benokraitis(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  This can be done in many ways. She or he might show how the results provide new information, enrich our understanding of behavior or attitudes that researchers have examined previously, or refine existing theories or research approaches. In drawing conclusions about the study, sociologists typically discuss its implications. For instance, does a study of juvenile arrests suggest that new policies should be implemented, that existing ones should be changed, or that current police practices may be affecting the ar- rest rates? That is, the researcher answers the question “So what?” by showing the importance and usefulness of the study. 2-5 SOME MAJOR DATA COLLECTION METHODS Sociologists typically use one or more of the following major data collection methods: surveys, field research, content analysis, experiments, and secondary analysis of existing data. Because each method has strengths and weaknesses, researchers must decide which will provide the most accurate information, given time and budget constraints. 2-5a Surveys Many sociologists use surveys that include question- naires, face-to-face or telephone interviews, or a combi- nation of these techniques. Two important elements in survey research are sampling and constructing a series of questions for respondents, the people who answer the questions. SELECTING A SAMPLE Random sample surveys are preferred because the re- sults can be generalized to a larger population. Re- searchers can obtain representative samples through random digit dialing, which involves selecting area codes and exchanges (the next three numbers) followed by four random digits. In the procedure called computer- assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), the interviewer uses a computer to select random telephone numbers, reads the questions to the respondent from a computer screen, and then enters the answers in precoded spaces, saving time and expense by not having to reenter the data after the interview.

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  Theory and Method

  • Mel Churton, Anne Brown(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  For example, the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey is known for its emphasis on research methodology and research training. It pub-licizes regular international workshops on theory and method (recent topics Choosing a Research Method 327 include qualitative analysis by computer, and the simulation of societies and social processes). The department pioneered the secondary analysis of large and complex data sets for sociological research, and recent methodological research has included work on the analysis of qualitative data, the develop-ment of methods based on social simulation and the study of ethnographic interviews. As is typical in most contemporary research establishments, research is undertaken from both macro and micro perspectives. The department’s research focuses on three interrelated strands: Social differentiation – Social divisions based on age and gender – for example, projects on women and employment, occupational pensions, health in later life and the sociology of reproduction and childhood; social divisions based on occupation and social class – for example, projects on the professions, the military and the police, and on race and ethnicity; social divisions resulting from the operation of key social institutions – for example, the criminal justice system. Social change – Research here comprises a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches to key developments in social, political reli-gious and cultural life. Recent projects have included studies of shifting European social, religious and cultural values, environmental understand-ings and transformations in European political systems. Current projects focus on the development of environmental life-cycle analyses and assess-ments, nationalism, changing technologies of work and the culture of jazz and blues musics.

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  Context and Method in Qualitative Research

  • Gale Miller, Robert Dingwall, Gale Miller, Robert Dingwall(Authors)
  • 1997(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Introduction: Context and Method in Qualitative Research Gale Miller This book is concerned with the interrelations between context and method in qualitative research. The contributors are experienced qualitative researchers who both reflect upon and extend their research experiences. While they address practical methodological issues, the authors do not offer ‘recipes’which detail the step-by-step processes of doing qualitative research. Rather, they stress the problems and possibilities associated with qualitative research, as well as the ‘choices’ available to qualitative researchers in or- ganizing and completing their research projects. The approaches to qualitative research considered here range from such traditional ethnographic techniques as participant observation and inter- viewing to newer orientations, such as conversation, dramaturgical and network analyses, and the new data-management options provided by recently developed computer-software packages for qualitative researchers. These, and other, approaches might be described as standpoints taken by qualitative researchers in engaging the socially organized settings that they describe and analyse. They are interpretive positions for observing social life, and for constructing relationships between researchers and the people they study. Different qualitative methods provide researchers with different pos- sibilities for ‘knowing’ the social settings that they describe and analyse. A major theme running through the book involves how research tech- niques and strategies are inextricably linked in qualitative research. Here, technique refers to the various procedures used by qualitative researchers in collecting and interpreting data about social settings. Strategy refers to the assumptions and concerns that qualitative researchers bring to each and every one of their projects.

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  Urban Road Pricing: Public and Political Acceptability

  • Martin J. Whittles(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 3The Sociological Method

  Introduction

  In Chapter 2 the idea of urban road pricing was introduced from theoretical and practical perspectives and past urban road pricing schemes and proposals were described. In Chapter 3 this piecemeal knowledge about the acceptability of urban road pricing is used to decide on a method that can meet the research objective. Firstly, different approaches to methodology in social science are described. This divides methods into two broad divisions: positivism, which is best for testing theories, and naturalism, which is best for discovering theoretical explanations. Next, the relevance of this is applied to the problem of the acceptability of urban road pricing; because there is no plausible theory to be tested, the best method should come from the naturalist school. Then an appropriate method to guide the derivation of a theory about acceptability which can contribute to a practical design of an urban road pricing scheme is found. The method is called grounded theorising and among its advantages are that it provides a framework to develop theories grounded in real situations and that it places emphasis on allowing the theory to be tested in future research. To conclude, the method of grounded theorising is described in broad terms. This gives an overview of the type of data that needs to be collected and the type of analysis that is done. More specific methodological details, such as sampling, questionnaire design and the process of analysis, are given in Chapters 4 and 5 .

  Methodology in Social Science

  Options for Classifying Methodology

  Methodology can be classified by the techniques that it involves or by the reasons that it is used. In the first case, methodology is usually split between quantitative and qualitative research methods, where quantitative methods use statistical techniques and qualitative methods use interpretative techniques. In the second case, methodology is often classified as being influenced by positivism or naturalism (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995). These terms are described in detail below, but in short they refer to the type of philosophy that a researcher might assume in order to study the world.

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  The Palgrave Handbook of Sociology in Britain

  • J. Holmwood, J. Scott, J. Holmwood, J. Scott(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  topics . The emergence of Social Policy as a discipline, and disciplinary specialisation and fragmentation (Scott, 2005a, 2005b) offered alternative homes for topics less prioritised in later sociology. However, intellectual fashions in topic choice, conceptual perspective and institutional settings determine collective professional output so that expertise in some methods is constrained; in earlier periods, qualitative methods (Payne et al., 1981, pp. 87–141) and more recently to quantitative sociology.

  Paradoxically, when initial tolerance of alternative stances combines with specialisation we find a lack of rigorous, discipline-wide methodological reflection and a new round of mistaken vilification of alternative methods. As others have observed, criticisms of methods often focus on examples of bad practice, as if this impugned the method itself (Marsh, 1987; Goldthorpe, 2000). The fundamental shared elements of research become ignored. Loss of some skills, coincident with development in others, risks the ‘hyper-specialisation’ identified in the 2006 BSA Presidential Address (Payne, 2007). How many sociologists have the philosophical background or numeracy to carry out multi-method or mixed methods research (Brewer and Hunter, 2006; Plano Clark and Creswell, 2007), exploit the opportunities of new data sources (Savage and Burrows, 2009) or adjudicate the rival claims of variable/regression approaches versus Qualitative Comparative Analysis/fuzzy set analysis/case study methods (Byrne, 2012)?

  Researchers believe in their research experience, deploying evidence from the social world to substantiate the sociological knowledge they create, and promoting their work through publication (that is, persuading others to share their interpretations). Whether patterned regularities invisible to ordinary citizens – like national rates of crime or unemployment – or actors’ meanings constructed through interactions, we share a ‘logic of inference’, to use Goldthorpe’s (2000) term. Equally, testing regularities (and all

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  Individual and Society

  Sociological Social Psychology

  • Lizabeth A. Crawford, Katherine B. Novak(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In contrast, GPS studies focus on the effects of inequality at the societal level on group behavior. The social processes of interest to symbolic interactionists (SI) are most accessible through the use of qualitative methods—participant observation and in-depth interviews. The methods of data collection discussed in this chapter, the face of social psychology within which they are used, and their strengths and weaknesses are summarized in Table 2.2. TABLE 2.2 Methods of Data Collection Used by Social Psychologists Key Points to Know ● There are two general research orientations within social psychology: qualitative and quantitative. These types of research serve very different purposes. ● Quantitative research focuses on outcomes, rather than processes, and is used to determine whether independent and dependent variables are causally related. These deductive studies, involving surveys or experiments, are designed to test theories. ● Qualitative research is descriptive and focuses on social processes. These studies, based on either participant observation or in-depth interviews as a stand-alone method, involve inductive logic. After researchers collect their data, they develop theories to explain their observations. ● It is important for the researcher to have a representative sample if generalizability to a larger population is a goal of the study. Sampling is an especially important issue in survey research. Representative samples are drawn in some random fashion so that they include individuals with characteristics similar to the characteristics of the people in the population the researcher wants to know about. ● Empirical studies are evaluated based on three criteria: validity, generalizability, and reliability. Validity refers to the accuracy of a study's findings. Generalizability is a sampling issue and requires that the individuals who participate in the study adequately represent the population of interest

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  SAGE Qualitative Research Methods

  • Paul Atkinson, Sara Delamont, Paul Atkinson, Sara Delamont(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  18–35. T 54 Qualitative Research Methods unstructured interviews and qualitative observation, it is charged that, since no one knows what the responses are to, it is impossible to interpret them. With no basis for testing hypotheses, it is impossible to do other than merely speculate about causal relationships. Quantitative research is usually informed by this positivist stance and in opposition to the “naturalism” of qualitative research. Here rigid controls of the “artificial” experimental setting are rejected in favor of inspecting “natural” settings, and such investigation is done in a different attitude, one of “appreci-ation” rather than neutrality and social distance. Such an approach is more open to eclecticism. “A first requirement of social research . . . is fidelity to the phenomena under study, not to any particular set of methodological principles, however strongly supported by philosophical arguments” (Hammersley and Atkinson 1983, p. 7). Social phenomena are seen as unlike natural phenomena, it being argued that the social world cannot be under-stood in terms of causal relationships or “by the subsumption of social events under universal laws . . . because human actions are based upon, or infused by, social meanings: intentions, motives, attitudes and beliefs.” The particular characterization of positivist logic that the naturalists have criticized is the “stimulus-response” model of causal explanation; because people interpret stimuli, their actions are continually emergent, and simply using standardized methods cannot guarantee the “commensurability” of the data. Rather, interpretations of the same questions in an interview, for example, will vary among respondents and different occasions of asking. Naturalism’s solution is to study social settings in such a way as to gain access to the meanings that guide behavior, using the capacities we already possess as persons in society.

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  Triangulation in Social Research: Mixing qualitative and quantitative approaches

  • Margaret F. Bello(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Society Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Although some naïve students may consider qualitative research to be an easy option, it is anything but (Bryman and Bell, 2007; Coolican, 2014; Creswell, 2013; Davis, Golicic, and Boerstler, 2011; DiStaso and Bortree, 2012; Finlay and Agresti, 1986). Careful design of the study and the discipline to understand the role of the researcher are key elements without which the information that is gleaned may no longer be useful in terms of understanding the phenomena that is being studied (Bjerregaard, 2011; Saranto and Kinnunen, 2009; Vertue, 2011). It is very important that qualitative researchers understand the methodological limitations of the work that they are undertaking and do not seek to make wider inferences about the phenomena which may be based on a limited or biased understanding of the experiences that are being discussed (Krueger et al., 2007; Saranto and Kinnunen, 2009; Saunders, Thornhill, and Lewis, 2009; Vertue, 2011). The fact that the researcher is an instrument can create problems for those that are inexperienced (Saunders, et al., 2009). Participant observant can lead to serious ethical dilemmas which carry the risk of harm to both the researcher and the community that they are meant to be researching (Sedmak and Longhurst, 2010). Perhaps the most arduous of these qualitative research experiences is that which is undertaken by anthropologists in their fieldwork where they will spend a considerable amount of time with communities which may not be familiar with the background and perspectives of the researcher (Sedmak and Longhurst, 2010). The challenges that qualitative research faces are therefore more to do with the quality of the work that is done by the researcher rather than the inherent limitations of the research modality itself. 1.5. INTRODUCTION TO MIXED RESEARCH METH-ODS Mixed-method research adopts the best of qualitative and quantitative approaches in order to develop a holistic and comprehensive understanding

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