What primary methods do sociologists use to collect data?
Primary research methods, including questionnaires, structured and unstructured interviews, participant and non-participant observation, and experiments, with their strengths and weaknesses.
A focused answer to the AQA GCSE Sociology research methods topic, covering the main primary methods (questionnaires, interviews, observation and experiments) and the strengths and weaknesses of each.
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What this dot point is asking
AQA wants you to know the main primary research methods, how each works, and the strengths and weaknesses of questionnaires, interviews, observation and experiments, judged against concepts such as reliability, validity and representativeness. You should also be able to do simple calculations such as response rates.
Questionnaires
A questionnaire is a written set of questions given to respondents to complete. Questionnaires can reach large numbers of people cheaply and quickly, producing reliable, comparable quantitative data that can be turned into statistics and repeated. Positivists favour them for spotting patterns across large samples. Their weaknesses include low response rates (many people do not return them), the risk of misunderstood or unanswered questions with no researcher present to clarify, and answers that may lack depth or be untruthful, which threatens validity.
Interviews
The key trade-off in interviews is between reliability and validity. Structured interviews are consistent and comparable (high reliability) but may miss the real meaning behind answers. Unstructured interviews capture meaning and detail (high validity) but cannot easily be repeated or compared, and a skilled interviewer can unintentionally influence answers (interviewer bias).
Observation
Experiments
Experiments try to test cause and effect by controlling variables. Laboratory experiments are highly controlled and reliable but artificial, so behaviour may not be natural, lowering validity. Field experiments take place in real settings, which is more natural but harder to control. Experiments on people also raise ethical problems, such as deception and lack of consent, and many sociologists argue people cannot be studied like objects in a lab.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of AQA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
AQA 20184 marksIdentify and explain one strength of using questionnaires in sociological research.Show worked answer →
A four-mark item: choose one strength and explain why it helps, using a methods concept.
One strength is that questionnaires can be sent to large numbers of people quickly and cheaply, so the sample can be large and representative.
Develop the point: because many people answer the same standardised questions, the data are easy to compare, turn into statistics and repeat, making questionnaires reliable and good for spotting patterns. Markers reward a clear strength, an explanation and a link to a concept like representativeness or reliability.
AQA 20214 marksA sociologist sends out 400 questionnaires and 120 are returned completed. Calculate the response rate as a percentage and explain why this could be a problem for the research.Show worked answer →
An applied four-mark item: do the calculation, then evaluate.
Calculate the response rate: . So only of questionnaires were returned, and were not.
Explain the problem: a low response rate of means most of the chosen sample did not reply, so the people who did reply may not be representative of the target population (those who respond may differ systematically from those who do not). This threatens the representativeness of the findings, so they cannot be safely generalised. Markers reward the correct percentage, working shown, and a link to representativeness or generalisability.
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Sources & how we know this
- AQA GCSE Sociology (8192) specification — AQA (2017)