hello and welcome back to my channel uh today we're doing research issues which is the last subtopic from chapter 2 methods of research so I have previously done a video on types of data methods and research design and approaches to sociological research and I suggest if you haven't watched those first you post this video watch those first and then come back to this one um so the topics we're going to look at today is um our theoretical considerations practical considerations and ethical considerations futuring topic methods and carrying out the research in General and then how research findings may be biased and we're going to remind ourselves what validity reliability and objectivity means so on the choice of topic the theoretical considerations that might affect like why a researcher chooses a topic is um like their goal like what the goal is in the research so if they want to test a hypothesis the topic will more likely be narrower in scope and if it's to explain behavior it will be a wider topic um is also influenced by what is worthy of being studied which in turn is like the ter by like what researchers have already studied and what's like popular um in like like what a lot of people and researchers are interested in studying right now in the current like uh present moment um what universities and governments are also interested some universities might be like specialized in some areas of research um and if researchers belong to those universities then they might infl be influenced by um that um and then practical uh some topics are more likely to gain funding than others um and this is particularly like with governments which are like one of the biggest bodies of funding um they're more likely for example to give re uh funding to researchers that are investigating social issues because that will allow them to make better policies and they're probably less likely to give funding if an issue being researched H is likely to lead to criticism of their policies um but again and this is kind of overlaps a bit with the previous one but like universities who specialize in some topic like in some areas might also be more likely to give funding if the r Archer cres those topics um then there's like the pr the Practical consideration of like what the researcher is interested in um and also what is not already investigated or researched but also um something that already has a basis of research like it cannot be um like researchers are not likely to choose a topic that has no previous research on because then they don't have any secondary sources but they're also not likely to choose a topic that's very researched because then there's not much more to research on um and then the other practical is uh like consideration would be if there's participants which want and can't cooperate for example like if they want to research an area in history um and obiously participants are all dead because it's like really long in the past there has to be sources they can use to investigate that or else like they can't choose that topic or if they want to investigate like for example let's say like uh a gang in the present moment if they can't if they like that gang uh doesn't allow them to like to be researched um then the researcher might have to find another um uh T of topic um or another method in a way like they could also do covered participant observation um but generally yes um like that there has to be participants which are like available and who want to cooporate and then lastly ethical issues like uh the main like one that would like affect choice of topic would be is it ethical to study criminal Behavior like um ethical issues would like around topic would mainly be around topics that Center like with gangs and criminal behavior and like how ethical it is to investigate it rather than report it and how ethical is it for the researcher to get involved um and we've already discussed that in other videos but that would be the main one um so moving on to to Method so the theoretical considerations would be basically um like some summed up would be that interactionalist would prefer qualitative methods and positivists would prefer quantitative method uh and that's because interactionists um are interested in descriptive accounts uh which qualitative data provides and positiv will prefer like establishing casuality so this causes this so they're more likely to choose quantitative methods as well like interactionalist prefer validity which qualitative methods give and positivist prefer um reliability which quantitative methods provide um and then practical issues would be uh the researcher skills so if they're like uh scaled in one method rather than another um or in quantitative data versus qualitative methods they're more like likely to choose um like whatever they feel more comfortable or have more experience in um time as well like some methods are more timec consuming than others like as we've seen like interviews will be more timec consuming than uh questioners for example uh topic like some topics just lend themselves better to some methods for example like uh if researchers want to study like a very sensitive topic like say mental health issues or post past traumas they're more likely to gain more Rapport and just it's it's more sensitive to to do that with like unstructured interviews where like uh the researcher can build trust with the researcher make them feel more comfortable rather than uh questionnaire that's sent out uh funding again like some methods are more expensive um for example um perhaps like if triangulation well that's not particular method but that's more an approach but like um maybe like um okay let's see an expensive method well I I can't think one on the top of my head now but some methods would be more expensive than others um and then lastly the sides of group being studied as well like um if it's a smaller group um then they might do interviews but if it's like a larger group they might send um they might do group interview actually or they might send questionnaires because it's very difficult to speak to so many people like it would just take forever um and then ethical issues some researchers May believe some methods are un ethical and then not choose them um particularly this would be with like harbard participant observation um or laboratory experiments um even field experiments um because like the researcher like in those cases they don't tend to have like consent um or informed consent of the respondents and the respondents might be like might face harm like mentally harm especially in laboratory experiments and field experiments um and distress and Etc so moving on to ethical issues um the legal considerations that researchers would have to take is firstly we've already me briefly mentioned this but like is it ethical to observe criminal behavior um the researcher must have informed consent uh respondents must be aware of possible consequences of participating and incoporating um that means like um that respondents must be aware of like if they take part in this in this like research um in this uh like experiment or in this observation that they might change their behavior that it might affect like cause some distress it might like cause them like secondary um kind of effects and they must be made aware of all of those possible risks um and agree to participate and then lastly like if researcher promises anonymity then it must be kept um safety like no physical or mental harm can happen to participants this would affect like uh both choice of topic and choice of method like all of these in general because like um if like a topic is likely to like there's no way you can research it without causing mental uh physical harm to participants and researchers are not going to choose that topic and then if a CH method is likely to do that as well like they're not likely to choose that because it's not ethical and then the same with like the legal considerations like if the researcher cannot have consent for their research because like it which it introduced bias and then they might have to like not go for that topic because it's not ethical and same with research methods like all of these you can apply to both and then lastly like this is more General but like ethical practice um in sociology you must know that like results cannot be manipulated or falsification and they can't be plagarism so like if researchers use um like sources from other sociologists they must reference those and then research topics in general have to be morally Justified like there has to be H A Reason like it has to benefit Society to study them or it has to be like for a good course like in general this is quite hard and I don't think you don't really need to like this you don't have to bring it really into like the sociology exam but it's just like general knowledge like um it is in a textbook um yeah they should be morally Justified so the exam questions you would have for these would basically be uh described two ways in which either practical theoretical or ethical considerations might influence choice of research topic or method and then you do like two paragraphs and you make a point you explain you mention an example which is the most important thing then you analyze that like link it back to the question and then you would have evaluate the view that practical or ethical or theoretical factors are the most important influence on tra of research method which this would be an essay and then you would have to like uh like argue yes and have multiple paragraphs explaining why and bringing examples and like actual real studies and then you would have to go against and like uh criticize what you previously said maybe talk about how other factors are more important so for example the question is like about practical factors being most important then you can me mention like no actually ethical are more important or theoretical are more important and bring Arguments for those but I would also recommend like directly going against practical like mention the flaws in like the Practical ones like direct criticism as well as like not just just supposing to like the two like or three different ones but like also criticizing the one that you previously argued yes and then in the conclusion you sum up and you say your opinion um and usually it should be like um like you should already stated in the introduction which one you actually believe is more important and so throughout the essay you keep going back to that one but I'll do uh I think after like finishing unit two I'll do a video on paper one um like tips and advice and maybe go through some examples of essay questions um answers to more explain what I'm saying because it's can be very confusing if I like don't mention an example um so next we're going to look at bias in topic um so topic uh researchers personal values and what they consider important um and their personal views about danger and difficulty can affect the topic they go for so again personal values like um say they are a religious they might want to then study religion or say that they're vegetarian or vegan um they might want to study that so like basically values like what they care about uh what they believe again what they consider important uh and then the views about danger and difficulty would be for example like if they are if they don't like danger and difficulty they might not go for more dangerous methods like uh participation where you have to like join uh a group and like you risk being part of the group in the end like becoming part of the story or you risk being found out um and depending of the groups you join like this is typically done with gang groups it might just be dangerous in general because they're like typically violent people um so they might not go for that and maybe go for um methods that like you can get conu from the people like interviews um group interviews and and laral studies and things like that um and then those who might fund it might have a say on what is being studied and how and that can also introduce bias because they might have a like approach they want to research what they're researching um they might already like they might just want to prove something that they already believe so in that case bias is there already um because like they kind of already have the result they want to find and then researchers kind of feel pressured to reach that result that they're like being asked to find um then research method uh again personal views about danger and difficulty also affect research method as well as topic um and then again the funding body might have views over reliability and validity so they might might be like oh you can study this but it has to be with quantitative methods only or with qualitative methods only because we believe that these are more valuable um especially with universities this would be the case um and then just using one research method uh like for example if you only use qualitative methods um you kind of don't have the same reliability um so that kind of introduces Biers in a way and if you use um like quantitative ones you don't have much validity um like if you use both it would be better so you can argue is bias in that um and then results uh values also influence data analysis and especially like what is included and excluded from final research this is again back to like the government they might not want to publish findings that would lead to criticisms of their policies like they might just be like oh okay this is really good you found this we're going to take this into consideration but just publish this part of the research that you found out but even universities may do that um and then how Val is influence data analysis like researchers might choose to like interpret some data in some way because they're biased or they might get conclusions out of data that are subjective like it it involves a degree of subjectivity to like be like okay these are the findings this is my conclusion so the subjectivity there if there's like it's very likely that the researcher bias and Mak conclusions out of them um with bias so the exam questions um with like bias and topic would be explain two ways researchers might be biased when choosing a research topic and uh or um uh research method sorry it's not written there um so you would have to like uh give a point like well two points obviously in two different paragraphs and then most importantly the example again it's it's four lines per paragraph so like Point explain the example and Link it back and then explain to ways the values of the cist may lead to bias in research findings and again like you would just have to explain two points and give examples the examples are quite straightforward like you can pretty much like imagine them for yourselves so I would suggest Maybe revision um you could just kind of like brainstorm a couple of like examples um that you think um for each of these actually um just to have like in preparation for exams and maybe attempt to try to like put it into like the four line paragraphs um but again I could do maybe one of these questions in the next video um just to explain more so for this unit the sociologist it's uh it works quite differently to other units like in general units like the family education the uh religion all those you would have sociologists uh from different perspectives like functionalists feminism feminists marxists Etc giving their opinion on like those social institutions um and you would have to know like many many sociologists um because usually you'll be asked like to analyze those topics with like different perspectives like those and then you would have to like obviously reference the sociologist from those School of thoughts but for this unit um like here I have a couple of like what you have to know instead said rather than sociologists from different perspectives is real life examples of research methods so that when you bring in your examples specifically for the essays because for the like paragraph questions uh examples would be more likely like you just like not making up but like you bringing in like for example if a research did this method and this would happen that kind of example but like for essays uh when you're talking about research methods you would have to like you would be expected or at least to get the top marks to bring real life examples of those methods to explain the limitations the advantages uh the reliability validity of the method Etc so what I mean like I'll give the two examples that I have here um for example mgram did this study um in it's called I think it's like I don't exactly know what the study I think it's just mgrm experiment but it was a uh experiment um to like uh find out like uh like unethical Behavior and the effect of being giving power so basically the experiment was like some respondents were convinced they were giving electrical shocks to Learners whenever they gave a wrong answer which they were told to do um but not shocks no shocks were like being given the Learners were just pretending to like be receiving the electrical shocks when they did the wrong answers like the Learners were um actually like part of the research like they worked with the researchers um but many respondents actually uh broke down in the face of the pain they were believed they were causing like the were the like the researcher was investigating like what would happen um if if people are giving this sort of power and they're told to like um it was to study obedience like they're told to do this like would they keep on doing this or would they stop like it was to study that and basically uh this study uh is an example of a laboratory experiment but most importantly it's an example of unethical Behavior so if you're talking about unethical uh issues and you're talking about like for example one of the ethical issues is um causing distress to participant or like secondary effects and uh like stress and like trauma you would be for example mgm's experiment uh like and then you explain what happened and like this is an example of unethical behavior and then van Vates also did um he studied like a gang he did a covered participant observation um and well his gang study was in Chicago it took around eight years and what you would uh mention with this example is like if you're talking about practical issues and you're talking about time you can say for example V vades gang study took around years um to like he carried out like he carried it out throughout eight years so that shows how much time some um research methods can take so ideally you would have to have like a couple of these and I'll actually I might link a video below of uh it's another video from another channel of sociology and um like the uh woman goes through like different examples of like uh research methods so I might link that below and you can just take notes of those uh to bring in essays um because you should ideally know a couple for each like issue um and yeah a couple of each research even like these will always come in handy for like any research method question in the exams and then finally I do have like kind of more theoretical one which is a and huge I think that's how you pronounce the names but I'm not sure this is more yeah this is practically the only theoretical one I found in the chapter and they argue that methods should not be seen as tools that are somewhat appropriate or inappropriate for particular tasks so what this means is that like there's no uh rule out there that says oh this method should be used for this like it is very subjective and it really depends of like who the participants are what the point like what the research is like it's not straightforward so that means that the researchers must really really take like think carefully and it will vary with each topic method uh topic uh each research topic sorry yeah um and it's not very straightforward like it it will like a lot of things have to be taken into consider ation for what method to use and it's not like this method should be used for this there's not like that it's research is really it really depends on the research I hope this makes sense um and yes that's the end of this video I hope you found it useful and please like And subscribe uh let me know down below if you would be interested in an exam technique video for paper one and examples and I know many of you have been asking like if I'm going to be posting regularly and I will be trying to do a video each Saturday but again I don't promise anything um but that's I think that's what I'm going to try to keep um keep to So yeah thank you for watching this video on again I really hope you found it useful