Sociology Questions (Coursework Sample)

Sociology Questions
Name
Institution
Date
1 What are the positives and negatives of using surveys to complete a research project?
Positives
* High representativeness – surveys give a high level of general capability in terms of representing a great population. Because of the usual massive number of persons that answers surveys, the collected information holds a better account of the relative features of the general population drawn in the study. It is only through surveys that the data collected gives an almost exact attribute of a larger population as compared to other methods of data collection.
* Low costs – one is only supposed to pay for the questionnaires production when survey is being conducted as compared to the other methods of data gathering like focus groups and personal interviews that require the researchers to dig deeper into their pockets.
* Less or no observer subjectivity – the importance of surveys especially for scientific research is for the reason that every participant is provided with a standardized stimulus. The researcher’s biases are eliminated when such high dependability is obtained.
* Accurate results – as questions in the survey ought to go through cautious analysis and standardization, they give uniform definitions to every subject answering the questionnaires. Consequently, there is a better accuracy in terms of measuring the collected data.
* Convenient data collecting – survey can nowadays be administered to the participants in several ways, for example, questionnaires can be sent via fax or e-mail, or can as well be administered through the internet. Nowadays, researchers have embraced online survey because through that they can collect data from people globally.
* Excellent statistical significance – it is habitually effortless to find statistically significant results as compared to other data collection methods. This is due to the high representativeness resulted by the survey method (Sincero, 2012).
Negatives
* Inflexible design – it is impossible to alter the researcher’s initially used survey and methods that were used to administer it.
* Not ideal for controversial matters – it may be difficult for the participants to answer controversial questions accurately due to the probable difficulty of recalling the information related to them. The reality behind such controversial questions may not be relieved truthfully as when using other data collecting methods like focus groups or face-to-face interviews.
* Possible inappropriateness of questions – survey questions are always standardized before they are administered to the subjects, therefore, the researcher is forced to come up with general questions to accommodate the general population. Nevertheless, these general questions may not be as proper for every participant as they ought to be
2 What happens once a research project has been concluded?
* Summary of the survey – the researcher will summarize whatever that is learned from the research and will try to evaluate the strength of the hy...