Research Methods Group Essay

Beyonce Bent, Kishawna Ingram
Sociology
Group Essay
The dropout rated for secondary school students in the Caribbean is increasing. As a
researcher what quantitative or qualitative techniques would you use to explore this
issue? Justify your choice.
Sociology as a discipline is one that is often referred to as a social science. This is because it
has characteristics such as being empirical, theoretical, cumulative and objective. In
sociology research methods, which can be defined as strategies, processes or techniques
utilized in the collection of data or evidence for analysis in order to uncover new information
or create better understanding of a topic, are used to carry out sociological researches which
helps to establish that sociology can be studied as a science. The two types of methods that
are used by sociologists are the quantitative and qualitative method. According to (Chinapoo
et al, 2015) quantitative research methods are methods that result primarily in mainly
quantitative data and they are preferred by those using the positivist approach while
qualitative research methods are methods elicit mainly qualitative data and they are preferred
by those using interpretivist approach.
The issue of the dropout rates for secondary school students in the Caribbean increasing
should be researched using the quantitative research method. A dropout is often referred to as
a person who has abandoned a course of study or who has rejected conventional society to
pursue an alternative lifestyle and a secondary school is the term used to describe an
institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where
this takes place. For this research it is better to use the quantitative research method because
standard data can be collected, validity is enhanced by the use of large samples or a cross
section of the population, the data is easily replicable (reliability), it provides more objective
data, since the researcher may not have to interact with the respondents, the data are easy to
quantify and it facilitates theory formulation seeing as a large amount of data would be
collected, hence the formulation of theories would be easier. As a result, quantitative data
lends itself to Inductive theorizing (Mustapha, 2013).
Sociology
Group Essay
Therefore, the qualitative research on the other hand would not be suitable for the research
because it has typically small samples difficult to make comparisons, there is low
representativeness, it isn’t useful for finding trends or finding correlations, there is low
reliability as it is difficult to repeat the exact context of research, the subjective bias of the
researcher may influence data in other words interviewer bias may be prominent in the
research and also this type of research method can highly raise ethical concerns since
researchers may have to witness crime or immoral acts in order to obtain data for their
study[ CITATION Tho17 \l 8201 ].
For the research presented official statistics would be the best quantitative type of research
method to use. Official statistics are a major source of secondary data. The term refers to any
set of data collected by the government or other official body. This method is often times
used by sociologist to study social and cultural issues and changes in society through
statistical analysis[ CITATION sar20 \l 8201 ]. Statistical analysis is helpful to researchers seeing
as it is need to make predictions, to measure things, make comparisons, develop theories,
examine relationships, test hypotheses, describe phenomena, and explore issues such as
suicide rates as durkeim has explored and the source of news chosen by citizens in Trinidad
and Tobago which was done by Market Facts and Opinion Media Survey in November 2010.
The advantages of using official statistics is that it can show changing trends since
comparisons can be made from one year to another for example crime rates or levels of
unemployment overtime), it is large scaled information, the information is often factual and
provides qualitative data it enables easy comparison between social groups and the
conclusions from official statistics drawn are objective therefore free of researcher bias
because there is no interaction with the respondents or people from whom the information
was collect and it allows for the researcher to remain detached from respondents. Official
statistics can also generalize because such statistics usually cover data for a large number of
Sociology
Group Essay
people and it can also be used to gain a deeper understanding of human relationships
(Mustapha, 2013) and (Chinapoo et al, 2015).
Positivist perspective should be used for the research because it is more objective and also
this perspective employs methods that are scientific and that produce quantitative findings.
They argue that if society is not studied in an objective and scientific way, then any findings
is invalid and inaccurate. It is based on precise methods and can support a research with
statistical and objective data methods such as hypothetic- deductive method, correlations and
causations, multivariate analysis and laws can be used to conduct a successful quantitative
research. However the interpretivist do not believe that society is fixed or rigid in other words
they believe that human behaviour is not predictable and They stress the ability of individuals
to exercise control and choices over their actions and because everyone is different with
different views and attitudes it is not possible to use scientific methodology to study society.
For this research the functionalist sociological perspective is applied because they have a
penchant for using the positivists methods seeing as the functionalist believe that social
structures are objective and with regards to (Jones, 1991) ‘In the same way natural
phenomena are the products of laws of nature, people’s ideas and actions are caused by those
external social forces which make up social structures’ (Chinapoo et al, 2015).
In closure the social issue of the dropout rates of secondary school students in the Caribbean
increasing would be a successful research if the quantitative research method is applied to
this phenomena because in using the quantitative method the positivist approach can also be
put forward to obtain substantial data. Also it is advisable that the official statistics
quantitative research method be used because it is the most suitable for the research as it
would help the researcher gain factual information in order to easily analyse and make
comparisons of the data obtained which would be used to generalise on the data covered on
large number of people.

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Beyonce Bent, Kishawna Ingram

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