Tag: questionnaires

  • Surveys on Family Life in the UK

    Social Surveys are one of the most common methods for routinely collecting data in sociology and the social sciences more generally. There are lots of examples of where we use social surveys throughout the families and households module in the A level sociology syllabus – so what do they tell us about family life in modern…

  • Outline and Explain Two Theoretical Problems of Using Social Surveys in Social Research

    Firstly, social surveys suffer from the imposition problem, closed questions limits what respondents can say Interpretivists argue respondents have diverse motives and it is unlikely that researchers will think up every possible relevant question and every possible, response, thus questionnaires will lack validity. This is especially true for more complex topics such as religions belief…

  • Using self-completion written questionnaires to investigate unauthorised absences from school

    An example of a methods in context question, mark scheme, and some thoughts on how to answer the question. The ‘methods in context question’ appears on paper 1 at both AS and A Level, and it’s the same format in both papers. The item and question below are taken directly from an AQA AS sociology…

  • Social Surveys – Advantages and Disadvantages

    Social Surveys are a quantitative, positivist research method consisting of structured questionnaires and interviews. This post considers the theoretical, practical and ethical advantages and disadvantages of using social surveys in social research.  The Theoretical Advantages of Social Surveys Detachment, Objectivity and Validity Positivists favour questionnaires because they are a detached and objective (unbiased) method, where…