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Questions and Answers
What is the main characteristic of a case study?
Which research method is commonly associated with case studies?
What is one advantage of using case studies in research?
How do small-scale case studies sometimes contribute to research?
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Which method other than participant observation is commonly used in case studies?
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Why are case studies considered cost-effective in certain scenarios?
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Which type of survey is explicitly designed to produce a 'snapshot' of behavior at any given time?
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What is the primary reason it is difficult to generalize from case studies?
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Why are censuses mainly carried out by governments?
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What is the purpose of ethnography as a research method?
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Why are cross-sectional surveys considered descriptive?
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'The aim is to analyze both correlations and causations between different phenomena.' Which type of survey does this statement best describe?
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'By comparing standardised groups, it is possible to explain differences' - Which type of survey methodology does this statement align with?
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'Make generalizations about behavior' is a primary goal of which type of survey?
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'A way of researching which tries to achieve a detailed, in-depth understanding of a group of people or of a social situation.' - Which research method does this define?
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'It might be possible to draw comparisons between similar groups.' This statement refers to which type of study?
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What type of research involves tracking changes among a representative sample over time?
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Which method is strongly associated with participant observation in sociology?
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What is a major limitation of longitudinal surveys?
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What type of research involves researchers living among the people they study?
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Why can high levels of sample attrition be problematic in longitudinal surveys?
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Which type of study can reveal trends that would otherwise remain hidden?
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How are longitudinal surveys usually conducted over time?
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Which method allows researchers to make correlations and causal relationships?
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What do researchers criticize longitudinal studies for?
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Study Notes
Approaches to Sociological Research
Case Studies
- Study the characteristics of a particular group or 'case', such as Westwood's (1984) 12-month participant observation study of female workers in a 'Stitchco' factory.
- Not a research method, but a technique that uses different methods to generate data, usually based on qualitative methods.
- Strengths: provides great depth and detail of information, high validity, cost-effective, and helps uncover meanings people give to everyday behavior.
- Limitations: practical limitations, time-consuming, and difficult to generalize due to focus on small groups.
Social Surveys
- Types: cross-sectional surveys and longitudinal studies.
- Cross-sectional surveys:
- Designed to produce a 'snapshot' of behavior at a given time.
- Qualitative forms: descriptive, aiming to illustrate a particular type of behavior.
- Quantitative forms: analytic, aiming to analyze correlations and causations between phenomena.
- Examples: Durkheim's study of suicide, Census for England and Wales.
- Strengths: high in reliability, provide valuable information for research and policy-making.
- Limitations: doubts about validity, may not count hard-to-reach populations.
Ethnography
- Aims to achieve a detailed, in-depth understanding of a group of people or social situation.
- Originated in anthropology, now used in sociology.
- Methods: participant observation (overt or covert), unstructured interviews, qualitative documents, and collection of quantitative data.
- Examples: Zimbabwe's Migrants and South Africa's Border Farms by Maxim Bolt.
- Strengths: provides detailed, in-depth understanding of social situations.
- Limitations: practical difficulties, such as researcher bias and maintaining researcher-subject relationships.
Longitudinal Studies
- Track changes among a representative sample over time, from a few months to many years.
- Methods: questionnaires, non-participant observation, and other methods.
- Strengths: identify and track personal and social changes, reveal trends, and suggest correlations and causal relationships.
- Limitations: sample attrition, reduce representativeness of the sample over time, lack depth and validity.
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Description
Learn about the use of case studies in sociological research, including different research methods such as social surveys, ethnography, and longitudinal studies. Explore examples like Westwood's 12-month participant observation study of female workers in a 'Stitchco' factory.
