Sociology Primary Research Methods

Which of these is a closed-ended questionnaire?

• The respondent gives any answer they want

• The respondent selects an answer from a given selection

• The respondent goes through a closed door to select their answer

Which of these are advantages of closed-ended questionnaires?

• Confusing questions can be clarified

• Can get very detailed responses

• Easy to ask lots of people

• Data is easily quantifiable

Case studies have...

• validity

• representativeness

• generalisability

Longitudinal studies are good because...

• they take a really long time

• they study lots of different people

• they monitor changes over time

• they cover the length of the country

Which of these is a disadvantage of unstructured interviews?

• Can't check understanding or interpretation of question

• They lack reliability

• They're inflexible

• They are good for sensitive topics

Why are unstructured interviews better than structured interviews?

• They are quicker

• They are less valid

• The interviewer can check the respondent's understanding

• They are more ethical

Which of these experiments is more valid?

• Laboratory experiments

• Field experiments

• Comparative research

Which of these is a strength of field experiments?

• They're highly reliable

• They have high ecological validity

• They have low ecological validity

• They're repeatable

Which of these did Weber call the "Verstehen" approach?

• Participant observations

• Non-participant observations

• Structured interviews

• Unstructured interviews

In which of these does the group know they researcher is studying them?

• Overt observation

• Covert observation