These give us an example of how much has to be considered practically. With so many practical issues to think about many sociologists argue that they must be the most important factor, much more important than ethical or moral factors. However due to the sheer amount of practical issues that concern any experiment, lots of sociologists maintain that practical issues affect an investigation much more than ethical or theoretical issues. If a researcher considers practical issues more important then they will probably favour a more practical research method rather than a theoretical one. These are examples of more practical research methods - interviews, observation, surveys, questionnaire. With reference to item A, “there were a variety of techniques used in the questionnaire”, but there was also a pilot study-a pret-testing of a questionnaire. Any method that obtains primary data which is collected by the researcher themselves is generally more practical than methods that may obtain secondary data such as looking at statistics. Either qualitative or quantitative methods have practical issues surrounding them.
As well as many practical problems that researchers consider, ethical issues must also be thoughtfully considered. Ethics are our moral principles that society holds; people's beliefs about what is right or wrong. With reference to item B, R.Moore performed a participant covert observation on the town of Sparkbrook. The researcher will decide whether to inform and receive consent from those being studied. This role was also adapted by Laud Humphrey’s on his research called the “Tearoom trade”. We can see many ethical issues arising when adapting a covert role the researcher is denying the participant of informed consent.Some examples of ethical issues are:Informed consent - a researcher should get the subject's permission to be studied before researching them. Protection from harm - the subject's of any study should not be endangered or put in situation that could cause them harm, physically or psychologically. Privacy - when investigating someone the researcher must take the person's right to privacy into consideration and should not intrude on their private life. Deception - a subject in a sociological experiment should not be lied to or deceived in order to get them to participate. They should be told the truth about any experiment or what will result from that experiment. Confidentiality - when a person is involved in an experiment, they should have be sure that any personal information shared with the researcher will not be told to anyone else. A sociological researcher must take all these things into account when deciding on what research method to use.
So we see how ethical issues are very important in any considerations for research methods. Without thinking about ethical issues, research would be considered wrong and may not be take seriously. If a sociologist felt that ethical issues were more important they may be restricted in their choice of methods. They may be able to use questionnaires, surveys, or interviews as long as the subjects knew exactly what was happening all the time. In any ethically correct observation the researcher would have to try to be objective and avoid “versethen”. If they got involved personally, they might find their investigation becoming ethically unbalanced or too opinionated. It would not be possible to morally 'put yourself in other's shoes' without deceiving someone. Therefore an ethically guided sociologist should use either secondary research methods or primary methods that don't break any moral guidelines.
Sociologists could also think that theoretical considerations are more important than practical factors in choosing a research method.The sociological approach will determine the type of data needed that will inturn decide the research method used. When talking about theory and the link to methods there are two basic groups: positivists and interpretivists. Positivists believe that sociology is similar to a science and can be studied as such. They attempt to make up formulas and laws about society. They are generally more objective and tend to use quantitative data through research methods such as questionnaires. On the other hand Interpretivists who believe society cannot be studied using scientific methods. They can never be truly objective as they consider themselves a part of society and therefore their own study. This group tends to use qualitative methods and valid data.
A researcher must decide what kind of stance they want to take before choosing the research method. If they consider themselves positivists they may want to use quantitative, scientific methods supporting a macro, structural, more consensus view of the world. These are methods like closed questionnaires, closed interviews and surveys. However if they consider themselves to be more of an interpretivist they will probably use more qualitative, unscientific methods supporting their micro, conflicted view of society. They will use methods such as open interview, observation and detailed case studies. So this just shows how a researcher must think about theoretical considerations before deciding on a possible method for their research. But in certain opinions, issues of theory will not affect an experiment as much as a problem practically would, which means that practical issues are much more important as they affect whether research actually goes ahead whereas theoretical considerations wouldn't stop research from continuing.
In conclusion, a researcher should take practical factors, ethical issues, and theoretical issues into consideration before choosing which method to use in conducting their research. These issues must be considered to ensure that a research method is the right one used for both the investigation and the researcher. If they weren't taken into consideration, then any research done could end up being worthless and redundant. All of these factors are therefore important but in my humble opinion, practical issues are most important as they will actually stop research from happening whereas ethical and theoretical problems will not; an investigation can be morally wrong and theoretically unbalanced but without things like money and time it would not even be an investigation.
