Last Updated on October 14, 2026 by Karl Thompson
This Methods in Context question came up on the June 2022 A-level sociology paper, Education with Theory and Methods (7192/1), as Question 05.
Below I summarise the item, give some hints on planning an answer, and then give a possible response, followed by my thoughts on the question and what the examiners said about how students answered it. NB: this isn’t an easy question, IMO!
New to these questions? Start with How to Answer Methods in Context Questions, which explains what the question asks, how it’s marked and how to plan it.
The item and question
The item is summarised in my own words below. The original wording is in the June 2022 question paper on the AQA website.
The item, Item C, made these points:
- On the topic: as well as compulsory subjects, pupils can often choose optional ones, and they choose them for different reasons: personal interest or talent, or advice from parents, school staff or others. HOWEVER, there are patterns in subject choice linked to class, gender and ethnicity, which may come from factors outside school.
- On the method: group interviews can encourage deeper thought, because participants can develop each other’s ideas. But participants may be influenced by peer pressure, and pupils, teachers and parents may find it hard to find a time to meet as a group.
The question was:
Applying material from Item C and your knowledge of research methods, evaluate the strengths and limitations of using group interviews to investigate the reasons for subject choices made by pupils. (20 marks)
Hints for answering this question
The difficulty with Methods in Context questions is keeping three things in mind at once:
- The specific topic, as elaborated on by the item: in this case, subject choice.
- The research contexts: where you would be researching, and who.
- The theoretical, practical and ethical strengths and limitations of the specific method: in this case, group interviews.
The easiest way to do this is to highlight the main points in the item, then jot down quick bullet points for the contexts and the method. For example, my plan would look something like this:
| Topic (subject choice) | Contexts | Method: group interviews |
|---|---|---|
| From the item: personal interest or talent; advice from parents, teachers and others; external factors (home, socialisation, poverty, culture); the influence of class, gender and ethnicity | School or home. Who: pupils, teachers, parents, or a mixture | Practical: access, time. Theoretical: validity, reliability, representativeness. Ethical: consent |
- I would then take each of the four topic points on the left and TRY to relate them to BOTH the contexts and the practical, ethical and theoretical issues.
- Then the contexts in relation to the method (and the topic).
- And finally, if you have time, start with the method and relate it to the other two.
- Try not to repeat yourself, but if you do it doesn’t matter, there are no marks for style. Do make sure you have a conclusion, though: the top band of the mark scheme expects one.
- Be careful NOT to just recycle what’s in the item.
This is NOT an easy question to answer!
For the general features of group interviews, see the group interviews section of Interviews in Social Research. For the research contexts, see Researching Pupils, Researching Teachers and Researching Parents.
Evaluate group interviews to investigate subject choices made by pupils
Suggested answer below…
(First a reminder of the question AND item!)
One of the general strengths of group interviews is it allows for respondents to bounce ideas off each other. This means you could get more in-depth answers than when interviewing individuals. It also allows for respondents to check each other’s answers for accuracy. A group interview can also be like a conversation, where the respondents are talking among themselves, which is natural. If the researcher is skilled they may even drift into the background. The researcher can also check group dynamics to know when to interject and possibly detect if respondents are exaggerating or lying based on the responses of others. All of this means group interviews should have relatively high validity.
However these strengths may not apply when researching this particular topic of subject choice.
If you are researching small groups of students and trying to find out their personal motives for choosing say science, or maths or performing arts, for example, they may not be forthcoming with their real motives if those motives are not perceived as being acceptable to peers. Embarrassment may prevent individuals from telling the truth in a group setting because of peer pressure.
Similarly ideas about what is acceptable or cool may result in students in a group giving you what they see as socially desirable motives rather than their actual motives. For example among boys it might be desirable to make a lot of money, so that might be the reason given for choosing economics, rather than them just being interested in the subject.
Validity may further be reduced by the types of student, as mentioned in the item. Working class boys are more likely to see taking an interest in school as cool, thus you are less likely to get valid information about students liking a subject as the motive. However with middle class boys it is more acceptable to express interest in school work.
Where parental influence is concerned it may be seen as shameful to admit this in front of one’s peers, so this method wouldn’t be good here.
Girls are more comfortable with conversational settings and discussing their feelings, thus you are more likely to get valid information about why girls choose their subjects compared to boys.
The mix of different classes, different genders and ethnicities in the group would also influence the results. In terms of reliability, it would be more difficult to repeat if you had a mixture because you may not be able to get the same mix in other schools.
Thus if you want reliability, you might want to do research on just boys and girls from one class background and ethnicity.
Another way of doing this would be to research on a subject by subject basis, and ask students why they chose that subject, here you would probably get more specific information compared to asking students in general.
Another possible way of getting validity in group settings might be to get all the boys, for example, who chose typically girls subjects, they might be more willing to open up if they are with other students who have chosen subjects outside of their gender domain. .
You can also research with parents and teachers, the latter may be able to tell you their take on why students choose different subjects. In terms of researching parents I think you’d have little to gain because they don’t necessarily know their children’s real reasons, and they could be just as unwilling to open up about their role in subject choice in a group.
From a practical point of view you would have to do these interviews in school, it’s going to be difficult to get groups of students together outside. This means you’d need to get past the headmaster, the teacher, gain parental consent ideally, it would be tricky practically.
And students would either need to agree to stay after school or be given time off lessons.
Group interviews would be quicker than individual interviews initially, you could research up to 5 students, any more and some students may clam up or sit back given the size of the group, but it would take a long time to transcribe.
You would be able to interview dozens of students in say a week, in one school, using this method, so it’s good for representativeness.
Ethically this allows for students to speak for themselves.
It might be best to do this BEFORE students take their subject choices, that way students are more likely to be open about pressure, and it might make them think more about making choices independently. This could be a good method for improving reflexivity in the research process.
In conclusion I don’t think this is a good method for researching this topic, it is too sensitive to reasonably expect students to open up about it.
However if you were to be very selective and select all the non typical students who have chosen one subject it could work to yield valid, if not very representative data.
Thoughts on this question
It is not an easy question. This is mainly because this is not a particularly good method for this topic. Also it’s one of the LEAST interesting topics for students to have to think about.
Because of these two factors, it is precisely the kind of question that will give you that empty and numb feeling. Especially in the exam you might well sit there and feel a sense of dredd. You might feel angry: ‘what is the point of this’? I think this and I’m a teacher INTERESTED in this kind of stuff. I can only imagine how bad this must have been for an average A-level student.
For the most part the examiners have provided some pretty good questions over the last few years. THIS is an exception, you just had to suck it up and get on with it!
But it is what it is.
What the examiners said
The AQA’s report on this exam backs up the approach above. In summary:
- Weaker answers mostly recycled the item and added little knowledge of group interviews. Some drifted into other research methods without using them to make a point about group interviews, and some wrote about interviews in general without dealing with the group format.
- Many answers described general problems of researching in schools, such as gatekeepers and the extra care needed with vulnerable pupils, without linking them to group interviews. The better ones did link them: taking large numbers of pupils out of lessons at once is disruptive, for example, and finding a suitable room for a group can be difficult.
- The strongest answers applied features of group interviews specifically to the reasons for subject choice. The most common was peer pressure leading to socially desirable answers: for example, some boys might not admit to choosing a subject seen as outside their gender, for fear of being ridiculed, which would reduce validity. Others pointed out that one or two students might dominate the discussion.
The examiners also noted that students’ knowledge of group interviews was generally weaker than their knowledge of the education topics on the rest of the paper. So if group interviews come up again, the marks are there for anyone who has revised them properly.
Sources and signposting
- AQA June 2022 question paper, 7192/1
- AQA June 2022 mark scheme, 7192/1
- AQA June 2022 examiners’ report, 7192/1
For more on how to answer these questions, see How to Answer Methods in Context Questions, and for another worked example, Methods in Context Questions: A Full Mark Answer from the AQA.
For more general advice on all the sociology exam papers, see my exams and past papers page.
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