D) Positivists believe that sociology can be a science just like physics and chemistry. They use an experimental method to find out about social laws. One of their types of research methods involves the classic scientific research method – the laboratory experiment. The laboratory experiment is based on a hypothesis. Typically, this involves setting up a ‘control group’ and an ‘experiment group’, treating these groups in different ways and then comparing the results. One reason why experiments in a laboratory setting are rarely used in sociological research because the laboratory is a artificial situation, what happens there may have little reference to the ‘real world’. There are three main questions to be asked about any piece of sociological research: is the method of data collection reliable? Is the data valid? Are the people or the social setting representative? For data to be regarded as valid, it must be a true picture of what is being studied so the laboratory experiment has a validity problem.
Another problem with laboratory experiments are that if the subjects (participants) in an experiment know that it is being done they may not act as they usually do because they are in a controlled environment and are nervous about expressing their ‘true self’ to the researcher. This again, raises another problem with the validity of the data because it may not be evidence of it claims to be evidence of.
E) Science is the study of nature and natural phenomena and the knowledge obtained by them. In other words, science discovers natural laws about the universe e.g. Newton’s law of gravity. Scientific research is discovering new facts about the universe. The main method for scientific research is the laboratory experiment. This is an experiment with a controlled environment and scientific instruments which mean it can be repeated. Positivists believe that sociology can be a science just like physics and chemistry. They use an experiment method to find out about social laws. It argues that sociology should study only what they can objectively see, measure and count and use methods that produce quantitative/numerical data e.g. questionnaires, aiming to arrive at social laws that can explain the causes of events in the social world – and even to make predictions, as natural science has done. The positivist view was taken by some early sociologists, mainly in the nineteenth century when sociology was striving to be regarded as the equal of the natural sciences.
A researcher who wants to obtain primary quantitative data about how people live their lives, or their attitudes or beliefs, will usually carry out a survey on a representative sample of the population being studied. The questions may be in the form of a questionnaire, possibly delivered through the post, or a structured interview, where the researcher asks the questions face to face and notes and response. The questions asked will be closed and straight forward and the answers then changed into numerical data. The data collection should be reliable but may not be entirely valid.
Laboratory experiments, though they produce primary quantitative data, are seldom used in sociological research because of the problems of validity, ethics and scale.
For topics where a survey is not possible or appropriate, the technique of content analysis may be used. For example, a researcher studying the lives of people in the past might analyse in quantitative terms the content of old letters and diaries; similarly, a study of the content of the mass media might analyse how much time or space is spent on each topic in the news media.
A very large amount of secondary quantitative secondary data is available to sociologists from the official statistics that are published by the governments and its agencies. Some of these (for example, the number of marriages that take place in a year) can be treated as reliable matters of fact. Others, such as crime or health statistics, are the outcome of social processes that can be studied in their own right.
F) Participant observation is the main research method used in ethnographic sociology. ‘Ethnography’ simply means ‘writing about a way of life’. Participant observation is a form of qualitative data used by Interactionists. In participant observation study, the researcher, like Stott and Reicher in item B, joins the group or social situation that is being studied. The aim is to understand what is happening in the point of view of those involved, in this case the football supporters, to ‘get inside their heads’ and understand the meaning that they give to their situation. The research is ‘naturalistic’: it’s done in a natural setting and is not based on artificial situation created by an interview or questionnaire. The research may take months, or even years.
How far the researcher participates varies from one research projects to another, and at different stages of the same piece of research. The researcher may be a: complete participant, concealing the fact that they are doing research or participant as observer, actively being involved with the group but known to be researching or observer as participant, present in the group but taking little active part.
During participant observation the researcher is either ‘covert’ or ‘overt’. If a sociologist conceals the fact that they are doing research, they are doing ‘covert’ research. If they tell the group who they are and why they are there, the research is ‘overt’. Covert research goes against the principle of informed consent and so may be considered unethical. A researcher might argue that the research would be impossible if the group members knew that they were being studied (for example, if they are involved in criminal activity), but this may simply mean that some sorts of sociological research should not be undertaken. In item B Clifford Stott is researching crowds of football supporters during the 1990 world cup. His research through the duration of the tournament and visiting the campsites and bars was ‘covert’, however when questioning people he was more open about his role of a researcher and his research became ‘overt’.
Participant observation is particularly appropriate for studying deviant groups such as street gangs who would be unlikely to respond to a questionnaire (not truthfully anyway). There are also several studies of occupational groups (e.g. police, factory workers), many of whose activities are visible to the general public.
Occasionally, the researcher is already a member of the group being studied. Very often, the researcher has to find a way of joining the group they want to study. This is usually done by befriending an individual who then introduces the researcher to the group. This typically becomes the researcher’s informant.
In the early stages, the researcher will tend to keep quiet, listening to and observing what is being said and done and gaining the trust of the group until their presence is taken for granted. From the start the researcher will notes and keep a field diary, as inconspicuously as possible. In item B Stott was recording field notes while he was observing which helped with his research as the football fans were acting how they normally would. After a while the researcher can start asking questions, particularly to the key informant. How far this is possible will depend largely on whether the group members know that the research is being done i.e. whether the research is covert or overt. Towards the end of the research, there may be an opportunity to conduct unstructured interviews. The researcher must strike a balance between getting involved with the group and remaining an observer. If the researcher gets too involved (‘goes native’), they will lose the detached perspective (objectivity) that a researcher must have.
When writing the report the research report should describe the group’s behaviour, suggest reasons for this behaviour, and, crucially, show how the evidence supports these suggestions. In item B the researchers gathered there notes and used them to detail the chronology of events as they happened; to describe the behaviour of those involved and use their evidence (recorded conversations, chants and shouts) to test their hypothesis.
There are many strengths to participant observation such as participants behave normally, it takes the viewpoints of the participants and can ‘dig deep’ in to social interaction to find out what people think and the reasons they act as they do.
