How Do Sociologists Research Social Issues?

Sociology is not just about having opinions about society.

Anyone can have an opinion about why crime happens, whether schools are fair or whether social media is damaging young people. Sociologists have to go further than this.

They need evidence.

That means sociologists have to find ways of studying people, institutions and social behaviour so that they can build explanations based on research rather than guesswork.

This is where research methods come in.

Sociology Starts with Questions

Most sociological research begins with a question about society.

A sociologist might ask:

• Why do some social groups achieve better results at school?
• Why are some people more likely to experience poverty?
• Does social class affect people’s life chances?
• Why are some groups more likely to be stopped and searched by the police?
• How does social media affect friendships and identity?
• Are family roles becoming more equal?

These are research questions.

Once sociologists have decided what they want to investigate, they need to work out how they are going to collect their evidence.

KEY TERM: Research Method
A technique used by sociologists to collect information about society.

Questionnaires: Asking Lots of People

One of the most common research methods is the questionnaire.

A questionnaire contains a set of questions which respondents answer.

Imagine a sociologist wanted to investigate whether homework affects GCSE students’ stress levels.

They could send a questionnaire to 1,000 students asking questions such as:

How many hours of homework do you complete each week?

• 0–2 hours
• 3–5 hours
• 6–8 hours
• More than 8 hours

This type of question produces information that can easily be counted and compared.

Why use questionnaires?

Questionnaires can be:

• relatively quick;
• inexpensive;
• given to large numbers of people;
• useful for producing statistics.

However, they may not tell us very much about why somebody gave a particular answer.

A student might tick a box saying they feel stressed, for example, but the questionnaire might tell us little about what that stress actually feels like.

KEY TERM: Respondent
A person who answers questions in a research study.

Interviews: Finding Out What People Think

If a sociologist wants more detailed answers, they might conduct interviews.

Instead of simply ticking boxes, participants can explain their experiences in their own words.

A sociologist researching school experience might ask:

“Can you describe a time when you felt under pressure at school?”

The participant might then talk about exams, homework, parents, teachers, friendships or expectations about university.

This can give the sociologist much richer information.

The problem is that interviews take time.

Interviewing 20 people in detail may take several days. Interviewing 1,000 people would be much more difficult.

KEY TERM: Interview
A research method in which a researcher asks participants questions directly.

Observation: Watching Social Behaviour

Sometimes what people say they do and what they actually do are not quite the same thing.

This is why sociologists sometimes use observation.

Observation involves watching people and recording their behaviour.

A sociologist interested in education might spend time inside a school observing:

• how teachers interact with different pupils;
• how friendship groups form;
• how pupils behave in lessons;
• how rules are enforced;
• whether boys and girls are treated differently.

This may allow the researcher to see patterns that might not appear in a questionnaire.

However, observation raises another problem.

If people know they are being watched, they may change their behaviour.

Imagine your headteacher suddenly sat at the back of every lesson for a week.

Would everybody behave exactly as they normally do?

Probably not.

Official Statistics: Using Data That Already Exists

Sociologists do not always collect their own information.

They can also use official statistics collected by organisations such as the government, police, schools or the Office for National Statistics.

These statistics might show patterns in:

• crime;
• unemployment;
• educational achievement;
• marriage and divorce;
• poverty;
• health;
• population change.

For example, a sociologist investigating educational inequality could compare exam results for pupils from different social backgrounds.

The advantage is that huge amounts of information may already be available.

The disadvantage is that the information was usually collected for another purpose.

The sociologist therefore has less control over exactly what was measured.

KEY TERM: Secondary Data
Information that has already been collected by somebody else.

Quantitative Data: Sociology by Numbers

Some sociologists like to collect quantitative data.

This means information that can be measured or expressed using numbers.

For example:

62% of the students surveyed reported spending more than three hours per day using social media.

Quantitative data is useful because sociologists can look for patterns.

They might compare:

• boys and girls;
• different age groups;
• different social classes;
• different ethnic groups;
• different areas of the country.

This can help sociologists identify wider social trends.

KEY TERM: Quantitative Data
Numerical information that can be counted, measured and compared.

Qualitative Data: Understanding People’s Experiences

Other sociologists are more interested in qualitative data.

This means detailed information about people’s views, experiences and meanings.

Instead of asking:

“How many hours do you spend on social media?”

a sociologist might ask:

“How does social media affect the way you feel about yourself?”

The first question produces a number.

The second could produce a detailed explanation.

Qualitative research therefore tries to understand what social life actually means to the people experiencing it.

KEY TERM: Qualitative Data
Detailed information about people’s experiences, opinions and meanings.

Who Should Sociologists Research?

Suppose you wanted to investigate the attitudes of every teenager in Britain.

There is an obvious problem.

There are millions of them.

It would be almost impossible to interview everybody.

Instead, sociologists usually choose a sample.

A sample is a smaller group selected from the population being studied.

For example, a researcher might study 500 teenagers from schools in different parts of the UK.

The important question is whether those 500 teenagers are reasonably representative of teenagers more generally.

If the researcher only interviewed students from one private school, for example, the results might not tell us very much about the experiences of all young people.

KEY TERM: Sample
The smaller group of people selected to take part in a research study.

Sociologists Also Have to Think About Ethics

Research involves real people.

That means sociologists cannot simply do whatever they like in the name of research.

They must consider ethical issues.

These include protecting participants from harm and respecting their privacy.

Researchers may need to think about:

Informed consent – do participants understand what they are agreeing to?

Confidentiality – will personal information be kept private?

Anonymity – can participants’ identities be protected?

Harm – could the research upset, embarrass or endanger somebody?

These issues become particularly important when sociologists investigate sensitive topics such as domestic abuse, crime, poverty, racism or mental health.

How Do Sociologists Know Whether Research Is Good?

Collecting information is not enough.

Sociologists also need to evaluate the quality of that information.

Three particularly useful concepts are validity, reliability and representativeness.

Validity

Validity asks:

Does the research give us a true and detailed picture of what is really happening?

An in-depth interview may have high validity because participants can explain their experiences in detail.

Reliability

Reliability asks:

Could another researcher repeat the study and get similar results?

A standardised questionnaire may be highly reliable because everybody answers exactly the same questions.

Representativeness

Representativeness asks:

Does the group studied reflect the wider population?

Research based on thousands of carefully selected participants may be more representative than research based on a handful of volunteers.

GCSE EXAM TIP
Do not simply say that one research method is “good” and another is “bad”. Explain what it is useful for. A method may be strong in one area but weak in another.

So Which Research Method Is Best?

There isn’t one.

That is one of the most important things to understand about sociological research methods.

A questionnaire might produce reliable statistics from thousands of people, but tell us relatively little about how those people actually feel.

An interview might give us a fascinating and detailed understanding of somebody’s life but only involve a small number of participants.

Observation might show us what people really do, but gaining access to some groups could be extremely difficult.

Sociologists therefore choose methods depending on:

• what they want to investigate;
• who they want to study;
• how much time they have;
• how much money they have;
• whether they can gain access;
• the type of evidence they need.

Research methods are therefore really about making choices.

And, as you will discover in GCSE Sociology, every choice creates advantages and disadvantages.

Classroom Activity: Which Method Would You Choose?

Imagine you are a sociologist.

For each investigation below, decide which research method you would use:

Questionnaire, interview, observation or official statistics.

Investigation 1

You want to find out how many GCSE students regularly use AI to help with homework.

Which method would you use? Why?

Investigation 2

You want to understand how pupils from low-income families feel about the cost of school trips.

Which method would you use? Why?

Investigation 3

You want to investigate whether teachers treat disruptive boys and disruptive girls differently in lessons.

Which method would you use? Why?

Investigation 4

You want to find out whether youth unemployment has increased over the last ten years.

Which method would you use? Why?

The Challenge

For one of the investigations, explain:

1. Which research method you would choose.

2. One advantage of using that method.

3. One disadvantage of using that method.

4. Whether your research would mainly produce quantitative or qualitative data.

5. One ethical issue that you might need to consider.

Stretch and Challenge

There is an important sociological question hidden underneath all of this:

Can we ever study human beings in the same way that scientists study the natural world?

Some sociologists think careful measurement and statistics can help us discover patterns in society.

Others argue that human behaviour can only really be understood by exploring people’s experiences and meanings.

That disagreement is one of the reasons research methods are such an important part of sociology.

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