Key Research Concept
Validity
Valid data is data which is a true picture of what is being studied
To achieve validity, sociologists should always ask whether the data collected is really evidence of what it claims to be
Validity is difficult to achieve, particularly on sensitive or personal issues because people may not be entirely truthful in what they tell a researcher, or they may not be aware
Validity is further undermined by the fact some people unconsciously change their behaviour when they know they are being observed
Interpretivists who want to understand motives and meaning about people’s actions
Undermine:
- Result of research can sometimes be the product of poor research design rather than a reflection of social situation
- Research subjects may lie or mislead researchers or say what they think would like to hear
- Change their behaviour as they are anxious
- Researcher may interpret wrong
Reliability
If a method of collecting data is reliable this means that if someone replicated the study will get similar results
Research could be repeated, and same results would be obtained and therefore verified
Sociological research methods are regarded are more reliable than others
Positivists carry out scientific research and generate data that can be quantified and compared so they can find correlations and cause and effect relationships
Undermined by some types of research methods – unstructured interviews and participant observation
Depends on personal relationship established between researcher and research subjects
Impossible for these to replicate these unique relationships
Representativeness
Assessing the effectiveness of a sociological method, they will need to ask about representativeness of the sample used in the research
The larger the sample, the more representativeness of the sample
Consequently, a method such as the survey questionnaire which is normally aimed at larger groups of people is seen as potentially more representative than observation because it is time consuming
Attempt to collect data that is representative, reliable and valid
However, extremely difficult
Collecting quantitative data tend to focus on representative and reliability, while collecting qualitative data aim more for validity
Large groups are impractical and too expensive
Mirror characteristics of larger population
Generalisability
Important that the sample is representative that is a typical cross-section as the researcher will probably want to generalise from data collected
They will want to say that certain behaviour or attitudes found in the sample are typical of the wider population as they are true to a smaller group is also true to a larger group
Critics argue that if people share the same social characteristics there is no guarantee that they will interpret the same social situation in a similar way