Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Preparing to
conduct a survey
- Surveys
- Interviews
- Written
questionnaires
- Open ended
questions do not
limit the answer
- Allow for validity
- Closed ended
questions limit
the answer
- Allow for reliability
- Choose a topic
- Formulate an aim - what
you want to study and what
you hope to find as a result
- Formulate a hypothesis
- a predication of what
you will find
- Gives direction
to the study
- Operationalising
concepts
- Clearly defining key
terms and concepts
- E.g. social class can be
defined by income, land
owned, occupation etc so
one specific definition would
have to be used
- Before research occurs,
sociological ideas must be
defined in such a way that
they can be measured
- The process of converting a
concept into something that can be
measured is called operationalisation
- The Pilot study
- Trial version of
questionnaire
- Irons out any
problems
- Y&W did over
100 trial
interviews
- Sampling
- Aims to produce
generalisation so
those in the
sample are
representative of
the wider
population
- A smaller
sub-group drawn
from the wider
group that we are
interested in
- The sampling
frame
- A list of members
of the population
we are interested in
- Select sample
from sampling
frame
- Sampling
techiques
- Random sampling:
numbers allocated
and picked at random
- Quasi-random
sampling: every
nth name on list
selected
- Stratified sampling:
dividing population
into strata and
picking from them
- Quota sampling: researchers go
out looking for a number (the
quota) of each person they need
- Not all are representative
due to practical and
theoretical problems
- Practical problems
- Social
characteristics
(gender, class
etc) of whole
population
cannot be
known
- Impossible to
find/create sampling
frame for some
research i.e. not all
criminals convicted
- Snowballl sampling used:
involves poeple contacting
others who may get involved
- People may refuse
- Interpretivists
believe a
representative
sample is not as
important as they
focus on validity
- Positivists aims
are to collect
reliable data