Sociology 101 Ch.2 Research Methods, Advantages, Disadvantages

Experiments Advantages and Disadvantages

ADVANTAGES 1. Experiments give sociologists a way to manipulate and control the social environment they seek to understand. Experiments can be designed so that there is a minimal amount of outside interference. Researchers can also select participants who have exactly the characteristics they want to explore, such as the babies and adults in the gender- role socialization experiment. 2. Experimental methods are especially appropriate for researchers who are developing theories about the way the social world operates. A researcher can construct a model of the social situation she is interested in and watch as it unfolds before her, without any of the unpredictable intrusions of the real world. For instance, if she wants to study what makes bystanders want to intervene, this might be easier to measure in a laboratory setting than among strangers on a busy public street. 3. Much like physics experiments, highly controlled sociological experiments can theoretically be repeated— they have replicability— so that findings can be tested more than once. An experiment such as the pink- and- blue baby study could easily be performed again and again to gauge historical and cultural changes in gender socialization. --------------------------------------- DISADVANTAGES 1. Experiments are applicable only to certain types of research that can be constructed and measured in a controlled setting. Laboratories are by design artificial environments. We take a leap in claiming that the same results found in the lab will also occur in the real world. 2. Achieving distance from the messy realities of the social world is also the major weakness with sociological experiments. Although experiments can be useful for the development of theory and for explaining the impact of isolated variables, they are generally not very effective for describing more complex processes and interactions. By definition, experiments seek to eliminate elements that will have an unforeseen effect, and that's just not the way the real world works.

Interview Advantage and Disadvantages

ADVANTAGES 1. Interviews allow respondents to speak in their own words; they can reveal their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, internal states that would not necessarily be accessible by any other means. In so many other instances, it is the researcher who tells the story. A book like The Second Shift, which features direct quotations from interview transcripts, provides the reader with an authentic and intimate portrait of the lives of married couples. Hochschild was able to get at the different subjective experiences of the women and men in her study and to see how each of them perceived the reality of his or her situation. 2. Interviews may help the researcher dispel certain preconceptions and discover issues that might have otherwise been overlooked. For example, before Hochschild began her project, many other studies had already been conducted on families with two working parents, but few seemed to examine in depth the real- life dilemma of the two- career family that Hochschild herself was experiencing. --------------------------------------- 1. Interview respondents are not always forthcoming or truthful. They may be selective about what they say in order to present themselves in the most favorable light. Sometimes they are difficult to talk to, and at other times they may try too hard to be helpful. Although an adept interviewer will be able to encourage meaningful responses, she can never take at face value what any respondent might say. To counteract this problem, Hochschild observed a few of the families she had interviewed. She saw that what these couples said about themselves in interviews was sometimes at odds with how they acted at home. 2. Another problem is representativeness: whether the conclusions of interview research can be applied to larger groups. Because face- to- face interviewing is time consuming, interviews are rarely used with large numbers of people. Can findings from a small sample be generalized to a larger population? In regard to Hochschild's research, can we say that interviews with fifty couples, although carefully selected by the researcher, give a true picture of the lives of all two- career families? Hochschild answered this question by comparing selected information about her couples with data from a huge national survey.

Existing Sources Advantages and Disadvantages

ADVANTAGES 1. Researchers are able to work with information they could not possibly obtain on their own. The U.S. Census Bureau, for example, collects information about the entire national population (family size, education, income, occupational status, and residential patterns), something an individual researcher has neither the time nor funds to do. In addition, the analysis of existing data can be a convenient way for sociologists to pool their resources; one researcher can take data collected by another and use it for his own project, increasing what can be learned from the same set of data. 2. Using sources such as newspapers, political speeches, and cultural artifacts, sociologists are able to learn about many social worlds, in different time periods, that they would never be able to enter themselves; for example, preserved letters and diaries from the early 1800s have allowed researchers to analyze the experiences of wives and mothers on the American frontier (Peavy and Smith 1998). 3. Researchers can use the same data to replicate projects that have been conducted before, which is a good way to test findings for reliability or to see changes across time. ------------------------------- DISADVANTAGES 1. Researchers drawing on existing sources often seek to answer questions that the original authors did not have in mind. If you were interested in the sex lives of those frontier women in the early 1800s, for example, you would be unlikely to find any clear references in their letters or diaries. 2. Similarly, content analysis, although it can describe the messages inherent in the media, does not illuminate how such messages are interpreted. So we can say that women's roles on television have lower status than men's, but additional research would be required to identify the effects of these images on viewers.

Surveys Advantages and Disadvantages

ADVANTAGES 1. Survey research is one of the best methods for gathering original data on a population that is too large to study by other means, such as by direct observation or interviewing. Surveys can be widely distributed, reaching a large number of people. Researchers can then generalize their findings to an even larger population. 2. Survey research is also relatively quick and economical and can provide a vast amount of data. Online surveys now promise a way to gain access to even greater numbers of people at even lower cost. 3. In general, survey research is comparatively strong on reliability. This means that we can be sure that the same kind of data are collected each time the same question is asked. 4. In survey research, there is less concern about interviewer or observer bias entering into the research process. Respondents may feel more comfortable giving candid answers to sensitive questions because they answer the questions in private and are usually assured of the anonymity of their responses. ----------------------------------- DISADVANTAGES 1. Survey research generally lacks qualitative data that might better capture the social reality the researcher wishes to examine. Because most survey questions don't allow the respondent to qualify his answer, they don't allow for a full range of expression and may not accurately reflect the true meaning of the respondent's thoughts. For example, asking a respondent to choose one reason from a list of reasons for divorce might not provide a full explanation for the failure of that person's marriage. The reasons may have been both financial and emotional, but the survey may not provide the respondent with the ability to convey this. Adding write- in questions is one way to minimize this disadvantage. 2. In general, since not all respondents are honest in self- reports, survey research is comparatively weak on validity. For example, a respondent may be ashamed about his divorce and may not want to reveal the true reasons behind it to a stranger on a questionnaire. 3. Often, there are problems with the sampling process, especially when respondents self- select to participate, that make generalizability more difficult. Gathering data online only exacerbates this problem. For instance, if a survey seeking to know the incidence of domestic violence in the population is administered only to the members of a domestic violence support group, then the incidence of domestic violence will be 100 percent— misrepresenting the true rate of incidence in the larger population. 4. It's possible that survey research will be used to make a claim or support a point of view rather than for pure scientific discovery; for example, a manufacturer of SUVs may report that 90 percent of all American families surveyed wish they had a larger car. We will consider this limitation later, in the section on nonacademic uses of research methods.

Ethnographic/Participant Observation Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages and Disadvantages ADVANTAGES 1. Ethnographic research excels at telling richly detailed stories that contribute to our understanding of social life. It offers a means of studying groups whose stories might not otherwise have been told (Katz 1997). These include deviant groups such as fight clubs (Jackson- Jacobs 2004) as well as exceptional groups such as elite college athletes (Adler and Adler 1991). 2. Ethnographic research can challenge our taken- for- granted notions about groups we thought we knew. For instance, from Edin and Kefalas's work on single mothers, we learn that these women aren't the irresponsible, unstable individuals we may have thought they were. They desire and seek out the best for their children, just like mothers in other groups and communities. 3. The detailed nature of ethnographic research can help reshape the stereotypes we hold about others and on which social policy is often based. A study like Edin and Kefalas's can have policy consequences because it sheds light on the motivations and needs of single urban mothers, as well as giving us a clear picture of the resources available to them. 4. Much of the pioneering methodological innovation of the last half- century has come from ethnography, especially on the issue of reflexivity and researcher roles in the field. --------------------------------------- DISADVANTAGES 1. Ethnographic research suffers from a lack of replicability, the ability of another researcher to repeat or replicate the study. Repeating a study in order to test the validity of its results is an important element of the scientific method, but because of the unique combinations of people, timing, setting, and researcher role, no one can ever undertake the same study twice. 2. A major critique has to do with an ethnography's degree of representativeness— whether a particular study can apply to anything larger. What is the value of studying relatively small groups of people if one cannot then say that these groups represent parts of the society at large? Though Edin and Kefalas's work focused on East Camden, their conclusions are supposed to apply to single mothers in any number of other cities as well. 3. Participant observers must also be wary of personal bias. There is always a possibility that prejudice or favor can slip into the research process. Not all researchers are transparent about their own agendas. We need to keep in mind how a researcher's own values and opinions might affect his research and analysis.

Ethnographic/Participant Observation

ETHNOGRAPHY a naturalistic method based on studying people in their own environment in order to understand the meanings they attribute to their activities; also, the written work that results from the study PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION a methodology associated with ethnography whereby the researcher both observes and becomes a member in a social setting

Existing Sources

EXISTING SOURCES materials that have been produced for some other reason but that can be used as data for social research

Experiments

EXPERIMENTS formal tests of specific variables and effects, performed in a setting where all aspects of the situation can be controlled EXPERIMENTAL GROUP the members of a test group who receive the experimental treatment CONTROL GROUP the members of a test group who are allowed to continue without intervention so that they can be compared with the experimental group INDEPENDENT VARIABLE the factor that is predicted to cause change DEPENDENT VARIABLE the factor that is changed (or not) by the independent variable

Interview

INTERVIEWS person-to-person conversations for the purpose of gathering information by means of questions posed to respondents

Surveys

Surveys: Questionnaires and interviews that ask people directly about their experiences, attitudes, or opinions. Examines large-scale social patterns and employs statistics and other mathematical means of analysis.