How do sociologists choose who to study and do so ethically?
Sampling and ethics, including sampling frames, random, stratified, quota and snowball sampling, and ethical issues such as consent, confidentiality, harm and deception.
A focused answer to the AQA GCSE Sociology research methods topic, covering sampling frames and sampling methods (random, stratified, quota, snowball) and ethical issues such as consent, confidentiality and harm.
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What this dot point is asking
AQA wants you to explain how sociologists select who to study (sampling, including sampling frames and the main sampling methods) and the ethical issues they must respect, such as consent, confidentiality, avoiding harm and avoiding deception. You should also be able to work out the size of groups in a stratified sample.
Sampling
Sampling matters because sociologists usually cannot study everyone in a population, so they study a smaller group and use it to draw conclusions about the whole. The quality of the sample decides whether those conclusions are trustworthy: an unrepresentative sample gives misleading results no matter how good the method.
A sampling frame is not always available or complete, which is itself a source of bias. A school register lists every pupil, but for a study of, say, homeless people or illegal drug users there may be no list at all, so a representative sample cannot be drawn and the researcher may have to fall back on snowball sampling. Even where a frame exists it can be out of date or miss some groups (for example, people who are not on the electoral roll), so the sample drawn from it will under-represent those groups before any sampling method is applied. Choosing the sampling method is therefore only part of the task; the frame it is drawn from shapes how representative the final sample can be.
Sampling methods
Ethical issues
Sociologists must protect the people they study, and these duties are part of the AQA content:
- Informed consent: participants should agree to take part knowing what the research involves.
- Confidentiality and anonymity: participants' identities and information should be kept private and not revealed.
- Avoiding harm: research should not cause physical or psychological harm to participants.
- Avoiding deception: participants should not normally be lied to or misled about the research.
Covert research (where the group does not know it is being studied) is especially controversial because it breaks the principle of informed consent and involves deception, even though it can produce valid data by observing natural behaviour.
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 ethical issue a sociologist must consider when carrying out research.Show worked answer →
A four-mark item: choose one ethical issue and explain why it matters.
One ethical issue is informed consent: participants should agree to take part knowing what the research involves. They should not be studied without their knowledge unless there is strong justification.
Develop the point: without consent, research can harm or deceive people, which is unfair and damages trust in sociology, so researchers must normally explain the study and gain agreement. Markers reward a named ethical issue, an explanation and why it matters.
AQA 20214 marksA school of 1,000 pupils is 60% girls. A sociologist wants a stratified sample of 50 pupils. Calculate how many girls and boys should be in the sample and explain why stratified sampling is used.Show worked answer →
An applied four-mark item: do the calculation, then explain the purpose.
Calculate the numbers: girls are of pupils, so the sample should be girls. Boys are the remaining , so boys. The stratified sample is girls and boys.
Explain why: stratified sampling makes the sample match the proportions of girls and boys in the population, so the sample is representative and the findings can be generalised to the whole school. Markers reward the correct numbers, working shown, and the link to representativeness.
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Sources & how we know this
- AQA GCSE Sociology (8192) specification — AQA (2017)