Yr12 Research Project

AS SOCIOLOGY SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH METHODS

This unit is a bridging section between Yr12 and Yr13. Now you have acquired

knowledge and understanding of Sociology as a Social Science and recognise

Methodologies as ways of finding and testing information, it is important you apply

these skills to your own research project.

You will be expected to consider various different aspects of research methods and

carry out both primary and secondary research before ultimately making qualitative

judgements on this design using theoretical understanding introduced at AS level.

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Yr12 Research Project

S O C I O L O G I C A L R E S E A RC H M E T H O D S

So far you have studied Culture, Family, and Education in Year 12. In Year 13, the topics studied are

Crime and Deviance, and Social Inequalities. For SY4, in the compulsory Methods section, you are

presented with a research project idea, which you then have to design a hypothetical investigation.

Due to the lack of time prior to the end of term, the practicalities and logistics of doing such actual

research is limited. Therefore, you are going to attempt an idea on a mini scale and work in pairs.

Perceptions of youth crime

In 2004, Hough and Roberts conducted research on the attitude of the public to youth offending and

the punishment of young people. They decided to use a structured interview approach and compiled

30 questions. Government-trained interviewers conducted interviews with 1692 people aged over 16.

Each interview took approximately 15 minutes to complete.

Hough and Roberts found that people have negative perceptions of youth and the youth justice

system. They believe that offending rates are higher than they appear and also that offenders are

unlikely to be punished.

Source: Oxford Blackwell

As an A Level Sociology student you have been asked to design a research project to collect qualitative

data on experiences of crime amongst a sample of young people in your area.

• Outline each stage of your research design explaining the reasons for your choices at each stage.

• Identify some of the problems that may occur and their impact on the quality of the data collected.

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� Type of data/ approach: Qualitative

� Content information: Experiences of crime

� Sample: Young people

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Task 1

a) Construct two lists of methods that are qualitative:

Primary Secondary

b) What primary and secondary methods could be used for quantitative data?

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c) What possible ideas or areas may be considered for ‘experiences of crime’?

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d) Who would the sample be? The question suggests ‘young people in your area’, so where would

you get your sample frame from and then what sampling techniques could be used and why?

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My aims are;

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GOSSEPT

Task 2

GENERALISABILITY

When designing a research project of any kind you need to ask yourself a number of questions. These

should be framed in the technical language of sociology.

a) What are your aims? (What are you going to do? What information are you going to collect?

What do you want to find out about?) Realistically, this is rephrasing the question, interpreting it

into your own words.

� Generalisability

� Operationalise

� Secondary sources

� Sample (Representativeness)

� Ethics

� Primary, Pilot, Practicalities,

Problems

� Theory (Approach, Validity,

Reliability, Triangulation)

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OPERATIONALISE

b) How will you operationalise your key concepts? Basically how do you interpret what you have

to do, from the information given to you in order to be able to measure it?

For example:

It is important to operationalise the key terms in the research brief before I begin my design

because some words may be ambiguous and so cause confusion. I need to make sure that I can

term such terms into something measurable. So the term young boys, I would operationalise to

mean anyone between the ages of 11 – 16. This is the compulsory schooling age and so should

enable me to identify a sample population. I will operationalise ‘attitudes to education’ to mean

what the boys think about education and what choices they are making. I will operationalise

‘my area’ to mean the area covered by my local doctor’s surgery which for ethical reasons will

be known as Cherrytown surgery. I will use this as my sample frame because it should include all

boys in the age range that I have chosen regardless of the school that they attend.

As you can read, ‘operationalise’ is a matter of interpreting the details you have been presented with in

a practical sense. You have already ‘operationalised’ the project in clarifying what is meant by

‘experiences of crime’ and ‘sample of young people’. Write below, though, a summary paragraph of how

you would operationalise the key concepts of this project.

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SECONDARY SOURCES

As with all investigative work, you need to do some background research into the area you’re

investigating. This is part of secondary data.

c) Conduct some research into experiences of crime and young people. Try to find out patterns

and trends of crime (and deviance), victim and perpetrator, and what is said, and reported

about it.

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SAMPLE

d) Where will you get your sample frame from? How will you select your ultimate sample? Why

use this method? What problems may you encounter in selecting type and size? How

REPRESENTATIVE IS IT?

ETHICAL ISSUES

e) What ethical problems might you experience with your topic?

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METHOD(S)

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REASON(S) WHY

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PRIMARY METHODS

For primary research, consider the positivist or interpretative approach. Is your piece of research

qualitative or quantitative? Or should it be both? Why?

f) You now need to decide what methods you should use to collect your data; whether you use

more than one method (methodological pluralism); and whether or not to use both qualitative

and quantitative (triangulation).

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Presumably you have chosen questionnaires and interviews – at least hopefully!!! Now think about

what you are going to include in these; what questions are you going to ask? And how will they be

phrased? Use the space below to jot down some ideas, before constructing your final design.

Some things to consider:

How will you collect, display and check your results? Will you use diagrams, graphs, tally charts, etc.?

How could you avoid biasing your results and ensure that you have maintained objectivity?

What PRACTICAL issues you do need to think about, in terms of time and cost?

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PROBLEMS and PILOT

g) What practical problems could arise as you attempt the research? Why? Why is it important to

do a pilot study?

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This research uses a predominantly quantitative / qualitative / approach because;

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THEORY (Positivism/ Interpretivism; Qualitative/ Quantitative; Validity; Reliability)

As always, you need to be able to support your ideas with theory and key concepts. In the exam

response, you can include references to these anywhere in your answer, but I have included a specific

reference to THEORY, so you don’t forget it’s necessary!

h) How VALID is your investigation?

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i) How RELIABLE is it?

Task 3

Collecting the data can be time consuming, so you need to devise your method and carry it out quickly,

whether this is observations, questionnaires, content analysis, etc. Then you need to analyse the

information – make sense of the results.

� Briefly explain what have you found out? Include graphs, transcripts or summaries of interviews.

� What do your results suggest or prove?

LET’S DO SOME RESEARCH!!!!

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Task 4

When evaluating, you are not just restating the analysis, you are discussing the advantages and

disadvantages of the entire study.

� Look back at your aims, which ones have you answered and which ones have you failed to

answer?

� How might your project be improved? What have you learnt from your investigation?