Methods in Context

specification point

Students must be able to apply sociological research methods to the study of education.

METHOD: Self-completion written questionnaire – set questions asked to participants, open, closed and likert scale (rating) = assumption of open questions (reasons for truancy, attendance data questions etc).

ISSUE: Truancy

P – time consuming, access, cost, training, data evaluation

E – sensitive topic, consent, DBS, right to withdraw, anonymity (the school will give me access to data to reach the truants – whole school?), harm, mental health

T – large sample but unreliable, low validity, Hawthorne effect, representativeness – where is my school? LOCATION – can that be generalised to all students across the country? Complete the questionnaire themselves – giving the students the questionnaire to complete IN THEIR TIME WITHOUT RESEARCHER SUPERVISION!!!

How good is this method at research this issue?!

BAD. Triangulation – combination of methods – think recommendations “Self-completion written questionnaires as the only method would not collect the right data but paired with unstructured interviews and secondary data, they would be impactful”

Context – define and explain self-completion written questionnaires (explaining the method) – set of pre-set questions to be filled out independently by the participant

Content – access, time, sensitive topics, and validity

Line of Argument – whether this method will actually give us the data needed!! Does this method do its job? Self-completion written questionnaires to explore unauthorised absences as the only method used will be ineffective.

Point – Practical issues

Unauthorised absences in school can impact achievement and create a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure – “pupils may be absent without authorisation for many reasons…” If students are not attending schoolthen access to them is a practical issue – low attendance, low engagement so harder to get to. When they are in school will they engage with the research? This is why self-completion questions could be useful because the students will fill them out independently, but chances are there will be a low response rate. Time consuming – how long until we can access our sample and time constraints – timetabling issues means access to students – when the students are in school the focus will be getting caught up so self-completion questionnaires are much better because the students can complete them in their own time therefore not taking time out of their education. Postal or online be more practical. Because of the nature of the research being on absences practically this method is NOT effective for data collection but with another method such as interviews or secondary data analysis it could be impactful.

Other considerations - Cost, funding (who is paying for my research?) researcher bias depending on who is funding and the solutions they want, travel, location, questions in the questionnaire (validity and reliability)

Point – Ethical Issues

Topic – unauthorised absences – sensitive topic potentially involving vulnerable groups item ref “…from caring responsibilities at home or dislike of schools…” – safeguarding training depending on what the shows. DBS check in place (time consuming and expensive – renewal if the research is over a long period of time – it HAS to be an enhanced DBS), consent – item ref “these can be distributed easily to large numbers of pupils, parents or teachers” – who is our sample?! Young person – vulnerabilities, parents not want to be involved.

Point – Theoretical Issues

Define the term briefly

RELIABILITY – closed questions it can be repeated (but that does depend on sample – if Year 11 involved in research, year later the data would change) – open questions are not reliable.
GENERALISABILITY – CAGE (class, age, gender and ethnicity) – depending who your sample is and the type of school will impact whether you can say this is common of all schools, limited generalisability but LARGE sample = more generalisable.
REPRESENTATIVENESS – depends on the sample size and CAGE (equally boys and girls, does it include all the classes?)
VALIDTY – self-complete element impacts the validity of the data because no oversight (so this could good, no hawthorne effect) BUT right answerism can still occur. Social desirability especially with such a sensitive topic
POSITIVIST/INTERPRETIVIST -Positivists like data that can be made into concrete statistics (social facts – Durkheim) so if the Qs are closed then this is good. Interpretivists would be critical of this – closed questions it’s limited verstehen and validity. Becker (int) – researching for the underdog (sample you are using will most likely be the unheard students in a school).
SAMPLE – item states so many groups (teachers, students and parents) all of which will give an entirely different story/overview

Paragraph Example

Applying material from Item D8 and your knowledge of research methods, evaluate the strengths and limitations of using field experiments to investigate differences in gender achievement and subject choice (20)

Method – field experiments

Subject – gender achievement and subject choice

Purposefully placing a group of boys in a female dominated subject and vice versa – long term? Would the students be disadvantaged?

Have the teachers act as if a subject if very gendered to gauge reactions

Milgram – Zimbardo – constant observation

INTRO

Field experiments are more often used in sociology as they provide a more natural setting whereas lab experiments tend to be more artificial. Applying field experiments to education may be unrealistic due to issues within the method such as training, consent, and reliability. Therefore, using field experiments to explore gender achievement and subject choice may not generate the data required to understand the topic.

PARAGRAPH ONE - PRACTICAL

There are several practical issues that can be seen with field experiments, the most important being location. With a field experiment being conducted in a school, some of the considerations will be, access and time. To access a school a researcher must gain an enhanced DBS, which can cost on average £45 and take several weeks. Without the DBS the researcher cannot be left alone with the students therefore supervision will be necessary, which brings about a different issue (Hawthorne effect – behaviour being altered when aware of observation). Another key practical element of conducting an experiment in a school would be researcher training. For field experiments researchers will need the appropriate training to ensure they know how to conduct the experiment as well analyse the results effectively. For example, Rosenthal and Jacobson when researching the self-fulfilling prophecy would have had to take all these issues into consideration, however, given how successful and impactful the experiment was, could be a strong argument for the strengths of using field experiments in education. Therefore, with appropriate training, and careful planning, field experiments researching subject choice would be a good method.