2.  Qualitative: involves opinions and values
(words) Favoured by intrepretivists
 Quantitative: numerical data. Favoured by
positivists.
 Primary data: collecting new data that hasnt
been collected before and for the
researchers purpose i.e. Surveys
 Secondary data: collected old data that has
been available before and has been collected
by someone else. i.e. Official statistics.

3.  PET- Practical (funding, access to
groups, time, cost) Ethical (informed
consent, confidentiality, psychological harm)
Theoretical ( if data is reliable: can it be
replicated, valid: is it true accurate picture of
research group)
 Research methods:
experiment, questionnaire, interview, observation,
official statistics, documents
 Positivism (advocated by durkhiem) look for
correlations, objective facts
 Interpretive: interpret meaning of words, use
qualitative data to do this.

4.  Selecting respondents to carry out research:
 Unit: individual of a population/ frame: list of all
people in a population
 Random: everyone has an equal chance of being
selected. Large sample needed. Most representative
 Stratified: population divided based on variables such
as sex. Need sampling frame. Small sample
 Snowballing: members put researcher in touch with
possible respondents. Not representative. Good for
groups that are hard to identify.
 Opportunity: people put themselves forward and those
who are easily accessible. Cant generalize. Easy,
cheapest and quick

5.  Face2face: high response rate, opertionalize concepts. Interviwer
bias, time consuming.
 Telephone: cheap, easy. Response rates
 Postal: cheap, easy. Response rates, generalize.
 Internet: cheap, quick. Response rate, limited to those with
internet access.
 Fixedq: respondents restricted to limited answers i.e. Yes/no.
Quantitative data, reliable. Hard to opertionalize concepts, cant
get qualitative data.
 Openq: respondents allowed to provide their own response.
Detailed data, opertionalize concepts. Time consuming,
interviewer bias.
 OVERALL: Large amounts of data collected quickly, easy to
compare results.
 People may act differently [hawthrone effect] data may be
inaccurate, researches mat nor understand respondents reasoning.

6.  Structured: pre-set of questions. Easy to replicate and
compare, less chance of interview bias. Lack of detail,
hard to find out more
 semi- structured: some fixed questions. Researchers
influence the route of interview. Reliability.
 Unstructured: few or no fixed questions. Researcher
directs the interview, hard to replicate, time
consuming, may go off track.
 Individual: less time consuming. cant observe
interaction
 Group: closer to real life, may sway opinion
 OVERALL: validity may be affected. Larger sample can
be used. Interprevists favour it.

7.  Participant> overt (researcher can ask
questions, difficult to become full
participant, research group may not want to
be observed>covert (respondents are not
aware of researcher) act more
naturally, difficult to access some
groups, unethical.
 Overall: can be done with little
preparation, in depth
studies, unethical, samples may be too small
to generalize, time consuming.

8.  Study of same people over long period of
time.
 Long term commitment, sample size can
affect validity
 Look over process for long time, valid
 Triangulation: using different research
methods to fill in data.

9.  i.e.Documents, diaries, official statistics
 Allow insight into peoples lives
 Cheaper, quicker
 Allow to study the past.
 May not be reliable
 May not be for the researcher purpose.
 Qualitative: historical data, content analysis
(comparing media studies).
 May not be representative, may be
untruthful, may be unreliablable.

10.  Case study-study in depth of something
 Collecitivits: grouping interests together
 Credibility: how believeable data is
 Factual survey: a survey collective detailed data
 Field experiments: conducted in natural setting
 Formal content analysis: analyis of media in numerical
data
 Hypothese: a statement to be tested in research
 Objectivity: making truthful statements about the world
 Operationalizing: breaking down a concept so it can be
measured.
 Official statistics: numberical data produced by the
government
 Private documents :i.e. Diaries
 Response rate: people who return the questionnaire