Investigating The Specific Topic Of Interest

Sample answer:Some sociologists do surveys and use other quantitative methods. Other sociologists use ethnographic methods and interviews; these are qualitative methods. Some people could try to argue that one approach is better than the other,

Qualitative research is flexible written form their results are ongoing and their conclusion can be changed while quantitative research is numerical, reliable, specific, data are collected by statistical analysis due to which quantitative are more accurate. Qualitative research uses open questions to find the depth of the information while quantitative research uses closed question, secondary data or experiments due to this it lacks the depth of the information and neglect the effect of the individuals which could be service provider, service users or other staff members.

Sociologists develop theories to explain and analyze society at different levels and from different perspectives. Sociologists study everything from the micro level of analysis of small social patterns to the “big picture” which is the macro level of analysis of large social patterns.

The use of research in the field of sociology has led to many breakthroughs in us as humans understanding both ourselves and our culture around us. As we as society continue working to develop a better understanding of how and why we act and interact with our surroundings we need to continue completing research to answer these questions. Research in sociology has created a better understanding of society and will continue to provide clues into the human mind. However, research must be completed properly and ethically along with proper research methods. Without proper procedures of completing research we as society may receive wrong information or biased answers about questions we want answered. There are four types of research that sociology uses to give us answers about our society and careful consideration must be taken to follow the rules of these research types.

A questionnaire is a list of a research or survey questions asked to respondents, and designed to extract quantitative date. Questionnaires are easily distributed to the community and can be completed and collected on the spot or be emailed or posted back to the researcher. Self completed questionnaires are the most common survey as they are cheap and can be passed to a lot of people. Some sociologists tend not to use questionnaires because of their low response rate and lack of validity. Also, some people may give false information so some researchers like to stick to interviews and experiments for increased accuracy. I will explore why sociologists shy away from using questionnaires.

It is common for researchers to compare qualitative and quantitative research methods. Quantitative methods originate from positivist and post- positivist research paradigms. Also, the methods objectively examine statistical data to determine cause and affect and often use generalizable data. There are various methods used in quantitative research such as surveys,

Sociologists observe the world to find a problem or an interesting pattern, then begin to study their findings. They use research methods to design a study, such as a detailed, scientific method for piloting research and obtaining data, or study an outline. The research method is the main step in a sociological study.

Research is an important step that many sociologist take in order to get answers to many of their questions. It is hard for many sociologist to lengthen their research with the findings they record. It is why many use, “the sociological research” which is based on a model and methods that many sociologist use while picking a topic and getting results. It is both helpful and useful for those who want to get results on a certain topic or issue. Not only does it make things easier but it also helps others to understand a reason behind an issue that revolves around our world now a day.

“Researchers who use quantitative research method seek objectivity through testable hypotheses and carefully designed studies, and gather date that can be reported in numbers and statistics” (Crawford, 2016, p. 66). According to Crawford (2016, p. 66) “conclusions from this study are drawn from statistics and generalized to populations of interest”. Unlike qualitative that helps to eliminate opinions and thoughts, quantitative quantify opinions and thoughts and they obtain results from a larger sampling population. As I had previously stated on my discussion board “Quantitative researcher’s collection methods include many different kinds of surveys for example; online surveys, paper surveys, online polls, face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, and etc”(myself). “They use the surveys to measure attitudes, behaviors, and opinions” (myself).

General speaking, quantitative research is thought to be objective, however qualitative research often involves a subjective element. There are differences designs in qualitative research in comparison to quantitative research. Qualitative research involves words, pictures, or objects; Quantitative involves data in the form of numbers and statistics.

Qualitative and quantitative research are methods used in Sociology to explain and describe data. However, these methods contrast in different important aspects.

Sociologists use many different designs and methods to study society and social behavior. Most sociological research involves ethnography, or “field work” designed to depict the characteristics of a population as fully as possible.

There are also some differences between these study designs, which may cause some problems for the inexperienced researcher. “Quantitative research is objective; qualitative research is subjective. Quantitative research seeks explanatory laws; qualitative research aims at

Because questionnaires only give a certain set of answers the respondents wanted answer may not be there. Official statistics are statistics produced by local and national government, government agencies and organisations all funded by the government. This also produces quantitative data; the advantages of this are published statistics are readily available and cost little or sometimes nothing to use and many government surveys are well planned and organised with detailed questionnaires or interview schedules so they meet the standards of

(i) Quantitative vs Qualitative Research: Qualitative research methods is based on values and not numbers while quantitative is based on numeric and Quantifiable data to generalize in its conclusion.