Of Methods and Methodology: 1. Positivism
A methodology is a framework for research that focuses on how it is possible to collect reliable and valid data about, in this instance, the social world. It’s shaped by two main considerations: 1. Our beliefs about the fundamental nature of the social world (ontological concerns). 2. How we believe is possible to construct knowledge […]
Attitudes to Marriage in China
As you may be aware, from time-to-time I’ve featured a variety of short pieces of research, on a range of topics, carried-out by Richard Driscoll’s students at the Shenzhen College of International Education in China. This latest study by Elim Wu (“What are High-School Girls’ Attitudes Towards Marriage in China’s International High Schools?”), a high school […]
Naturalistic Observation Lesson Plan
I’m a firm believer that when it comes to teaching research methods you can never have too many examples of lesson plans that either simulate the process of “doing research” or, as in the case of Bernard C. Beins (Counting Fidgets: Teaching the Complexity of Naturalistic Observation), turn it into a simple, but effective, lesson […]
Conducting Psychological Research
This is a free chapter, from an unpublished textbook by Shelia Kennison of Oklahoma State University, that you can either read online or download as a pdf document. The chapter covers a range of ideas and issues focused on the research process: • different research methodologies • causality • experimentation • representative sampling • reliability and […]
8 | The Research Process: Part 1
While Research Methods at a-level aren’t everyone’s cup of tea they can be interesting if students are given the time and space to bring together the theory with the practice. Unfortunately I can’t help you here with the practice (although I can give you a few pointers about how to carry-out a range of cheap […]
Sociology ShortCuts F’sheet
I’ve posted a couple of times about the Sociology Factsheets produced by Curriculum Press – particularly about how it might be an idea for teachers to get their students to make their own versions as both a revision aid and teaching resource for future sociology students – and I thought it might be interesting to […]
Crime, Deviance and Methods: Self-report Questionnaire
Opportunities for students to link crime, deviance and research methods in a practical way are often limited by the constraints of time and space – but one simple approach that can be used effectively in the classroom is a self-report crime questionnaire. Although there are a few of these kicking around (from Ann Campbell’s onward…) […]
A2 Psychology: Research Methods Free Chapter
One of the simple pleasures of Wandering the Web™ for a living, made all the more enjoyable by that intangible sense of the unexpected (I know, I live my life through contradictions), is coming across Stuff That Is Free. My not-so-little face lights up at the mere thought of finding Something For Nothing, even though […]
7 Sims in 7 Days – Day 6: For My Next Trick…
This sim involves a bit of very gentle trickery on your part as you use your little-known ability to mind-read as a way of enlivening some of the “possibly less interesting?” aspects of research methods. As with some of the other sims in the series this is a building-block resource; while it’s not very useful, […]
Teaching A-level Research Methods: Part 3
Talk the Walk At this point students need to get to grips with learning the basics of research methods. How you organise this is up to you, but one way is to get students to take ownership of their learning: If there are sufficient students, split the class into groups and give each group responsibility […]