Research Methods
This domain tests whether you can choose and justify a research method, and evaluate it using validity, reliability, representativeness and ethics. Questions often present a research aim and ask for a suitable design.
Core rules and concepts
- Positivism versus interpretivism: positivism seeks causal laws through quantitative, reliable data; interpretivism seeks meaning through qualitative, valid data.
- Key criteria: validity concerns whether data measure what they claim; reliability concerns consistency on repetition; representativeness concerns whether a sample reflects the wider population.
- Sampling: random, stratified, quota, opportunity and snowball samples have different strengths and weaknesses.
- Methods: questionnaires suit large samples but may lack depth; interviews range from structured to unstructured; observation may be participant or non-participant, covert or overt; documents and official statistics are secondary sources.
- Ethics: informed consent, confidentiality, avoiding harm, no deception and the right to withdraw.
Worked example
Question: A researcher wants to understand why pupils truant. Choose a method and justify it. An interpretivist design using unstructured interviews or overt participant observation can explore pupils' meanings and hidden reasons. The justification should address access, rapport, ethics and validity, and acknowledge that findings may not be representative. Triangulation with school records would strengthen the design.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating validity and reliability as synonyms.
- Ignoring sampling and generalisation.
- Claiming one method is always best.
- Forgetting ethical safeguards.
- Using official statistics without asking who produced them and why.