Assessing the View that Practical Issues are the Most Important Factors in Deciding Which Research Method to Use

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Assessing the View that Practical Issues are the Most Important Factors in

Deciding Which Research Method to Use

In sociology, sociologists will often have to do research into certain

topics to gain a deeper understanding of them. There are many methods

of research that a researcher could use if they were researching into

society, such as observation, questionnaires, surveys, or interviews.

When choosing between these methods a researcher must consider many

factors, both practical and/or ethical. Sociologists are often

uncertain about which issues, practical or ethical, are the most

important.

Practical issues are possible problems with the experiment concerning

actual, pliable, real things; things that are physical and can easily

disrupt an experiment if not properly take care of. Almost all

sociological experiments have practical issues that must be looked at

and sorted out. They are therefore very important to be considered

when embarking upon an investigation. Some practical issues that must

be considered are:

* Cost - how much money will the experiment cost to the

investigator?

* Time - how much time would be required for this investigation?

* Funding - where will the money needed (if any) come from? For

example, Marxists or interpretivists who produce qualitative data

are less likely to get funding than Functionalists or positivists

with quantitative data.

* Access - will it be possible or easy to gain access to a group

that you may want to study?

* Data - how much data will be obtained and how will you store and

record it?

These give us an example of how much has ...

... middle of paper ...

..., and theory into consideration before choosing which method to

use in conducting their research. These issues must be considered to

ensure that a research method is the right one used for both the

investigation and the researcher. If they weren't taken into

consideration, then any research done could end up being worthless and

redundant. All of these factors are therefore important but in my

humble opinion, practical issues are most important as they will

actually stop research from happening whereas ethical and theoretical

problems will not; an investigation can be morally wrong and

theoretically unbalanced but without things like money and time it

would not even be an investigation. So, while all the factors

considered are important, I feel that practical issues are most

important in any research method decide upon.

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