Sociological Research Methods On Demand
3 short films whose aim is not simply to tell students about sociological methods, but to show their strengths and limitations in action by looking at how these methods have been applied in key sociological studies. The films are now available to buy as individual titles on our new Vimeo On-Demand site. Case Studies [5 […]
Sociology Flipbooks
A Flipbook is a way of displaying a pdf document online so that it has the look-and-feel of a paper-based magazine, one whose pages you can turn using a mouse (desktop) or finger (mobile). That’s it, really. I could talk about stuff like whether this creates a greater sense of engagement among students than the […]
Sociology in Focus for AS: Methods Resources
The final set of resources to accompany the free Sociology in Focus AS textbook is for Research Methods aka “Everyone’s Favourite Module” (Said no-one. Ever). Although the textbook is aimed at AQA, everyone, everywhere, does research methods so there’s little here that won’t be familiar, whatever the Specification. Probably. I’d be inclined to check, though.Just-in-case. […]
Free Textbook: Sociology in Focus for AS
For those of you with long(ish) memories, the original Sociology in Focus textbook first appeared in the mid-1990’s and I remember being quite taken by its novel(ish) attempt to reinvent “The Textbook” as something more than just a lot of pages with a lot of text. Although it did, with hindsight, actually have “a lot […]
Methods Mat
A generic Methods Mat template that might be useful for both Sociology and Psychology A-level Research methods teaching. The Research Methods Tables created by Liam Core got me thinking about how to present a similar level of information in a Learning Mat format (such as Stacey Arkwright’s Sociology Mats, the Psychology Studies Mat or the […]
Research Methods Tables
I’ve previously posted a couple of pieces of Liam Core’s work (a Sociology Literacy Mat and an A-level Evidence Bank Template) and since these have proven very popular with teachers I thought I’d tap him up for a few more resources. And, sure enough, he’s delivered. This time it’s a handy research methods table students […]
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 […]
Longitudinal Studies: Animated Explanations
Although longitudinal studies, such as Wikstrom’s PADS (“Peterborough Adolescent Development Study”: 2002 – 2010) research – designed to understand how families, schools and communities shape young people’s social development – are a well-established and hugely-valuable source of comparative data, teaching them as part of an a-level Sociology research methods course can be a little, shall […]
New Media: WeChat and the Chinese New Year.
One of the nice things about running Dorset’s Most Popular Sociology Blog (*) is that from time-to-time we get to feature the work of Richard Driscoll’s students at the Shenzhen College of International Education in China. Previous posts have, for example, examined ideas as diverse as Cultural Capital, Parental Involvement in Education, Social Identity and Matriarchy […]
Sociology and You. Too
A later (circa 2008) version of this American High School textbook that has a clean, attractive, design and some interesting content. Might well be worth considering as supplementary material to your existing resources, particularly because it is free… I’ve previously posted an earlier version of this American High School textbook that seems to have gone […]
Sociology and You: A Free Textbook
This American High School textbook just scrapes into the “published in the 21st century” criterion I set myself for finding free, out-of-print sociology texts, but I’ve included it because although it’s obviously a little dated – at least in terms of content if not necessarily design – Sociology and You (2001) was probably one of […]
Psychology Students YouTube Channel
I came across this Channel after following a Twitter link to one of its videos (Experimental Design in Psychology – well worth a watch if you’re interested in knowing more about Independent Groups, Repeated Measures or Matched Pairs designs). Overall, the Channel offers three types of video: 1. “To Camera” video lectures, which although quite […]
The Sociological Detectives: Hiding in Plain Sight
In this third outing in the Research Methods series, the Sociological Detectives investigate Overt Participant Observation through a simple piece of hands-on research. This PowerPoint Presentation – the 3rd in the Research Methods series (the others being The Research Process and Non-Participant Observation) – combines a hands-on approach to doing Overt Participant Observation with a […]
The Sociological Detectives: BOLO
In this research methods simulation students take on the role of Sociological Detectives to investigate formal and informal norms using non-participant observation. In the second simulation in the Research Methods series – the first, Trial and Error, introduced the Research Process – students again take-on the role of Sociological Detectives. This time, however, they are […]