• What Are The Major Design Methods When Conducting Sociological Research?

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In today’s society, sociologist use a number of major design methods when conducting sociological research. Different research design include: the survey method, the observational method, the experimental method and existing sources/ secondary analysis. These various designs and research methods help sociologists to examine society and social behavior.
One of the major research designs used by sociologists to gather information is the survey method. This is conducted by having participants answer questions during interviews, using questionnaires face to face, or by telephone questioning. This design method allows researchers to determine how individual questions are interpreted and answered. Additionally, it allows them to know the differences and similarities after they gathered the information.
The advantages for the survey method is that it’s a lot quicker to determine the results. It also gives researchers the ability to gather a number of sociological perspectives. One of the other strengths is that if the interviewer has good communication skills than the interview will be conducted in a more professional manner, one that could yield better results. An advantage of using the face to face method of surveying is that it is much more effective when asking a person a question when you are physically present, due to it being more difficult for …show more content…

This method allows researchers to collect information and record the observations of the group being studied directly. The advantages of using this method of research is that it allows researchers to examine the immediate behaviours of the study group, it is a more natural way of gathering information, since most of the time the study group do not know they are being observed. Another advantage would be that researchers are very detailed with their observations. The disadvantages of using secondary analysis is that it the data collect can be