Research Issues

Informed consent means that participants should agree to take part in the research while knowing what it involves, so that people are not studied without their knowledge or against their wishes.

Protection from harm means that the researcher has a duty to avoid causing participants physical or psychological harm, for example by not exposing them to distress, danger or embarrassment as a result of the study.

Factor 1 — time and money. Research methods vary greatly in cost: long-term participant observation can take years, while a postal questionnaire is cheap and quick. A sociologist with a small budget and limited time may therefore be forced to rule out expensive methods and choose a cheaper one, such as a self-completion questionnaire, even if another method would suit the topic better.

Factor 2 — access and the availability of a sampling frame. The researcher must be able to reach the group being studied. Some groups, such as criminal gangs or powerful elites, are 'closed' and have no list (sampling frame) to draw a sample from. This makes representative surveys difficult, so the researcher may have to use observation or snowball sampling instead. Access therefore directly shapes which method is possible.

A postal questionnaire is a set of standardised written questions sent out to respondents to complete themselves and return.

Strengths. Because the questions are standardised and can be repeated by other researchers with the same results, questionnaires are highly reliable, which is why positivists favour them. They are also cheap and quick to send to very large numbers of people, so samples can be large and representative, allowing the findings to be generalised. The absence of an interviewer removes interviewer bias and the Hawthorne effect, and anonymity may encourage honest answers on sensitive topics, supporting objectivity.

Limitations. The main weakness is low validity: respondents may lie, misunderstand questions, forget, or give 'socially desirable' answers, so the data may not give a true picture. Fixed-choice questions impose the researcher's framework and miss respondents' real meanings — the key interpretivist objection. Response rates for postal questionnaires are often very low, which undermines the representativeness that is supposed to be their strength, as those who reply may differ from those who do not. The method is also inflexible, since the researcher cannot probe or follow up.

Overall, postal questionnaires are strong on reliability and representativeness but weak on validity, so they are best suited to measuring patterns across large populations rather than understanding meanings, and are most useful when combined with qualitative methods.

This view argues that the ideal of objectivity — research free from the researcher's bias and personal values — can never fully be reached in sociology.

First, a researcher's own values shape the study from the very start. Sociologists tend to study topics that interest or concern them, and their outlook can influence how they word a hypothesis and how they interpret the data, since the same findings can often be read in more than one way.

Second, funding and sponsorship can bias research. The body paying for a study can influence what is investigated, how it is designed and even how the findings are reported, because researchers may avoid conclusions that embarrass the sponsor and unwelcome results may go unpublished. This is known as funding bias.

Third, named sociologists argue value-freedom is a myth. Gouldner attacked the 'myth of value-freedom', arguing that claiming to be neutral is itself a value position that hides the researcher's real commitments. Becker, in 'Whose side are we on?', argued that sociologists inevitably take sides, and that the 'hierarchy of credibility' means the powerful are usually believed over the powerless. For all these reasons, supporters of this view argue that truly objective, value-free research is impossible.

Several arguments challenge the claim that sociological research can never be objective.

First, positivists argue sociology can be a science. Durkheim treated society as made up of 'social facts' that can be studied objectively, just as natural scientists study the physical world. His study of suicide used official statistics rigorously to uncover patterns, showing that sociology can produce objective, evidence-based conclusions rather than mere opinion.

Second, standardised methods reduce the influence of the researcher's values. Structured questionnaires and structured interviews ask everyone the same questions in the same way, limiting the chance for personal bias to creep in, which supports objectivity.

Third, objectivity can be protected by the wider scientific community. Because such methods are reliable and can be replicated by other researchers, results can be checked independently; peer review and the open publication of data expose bias and force researchers to justify their conclusions.

Finally, even where total objectivity is hard to achieve, reflexivity offers a solution. By being open and honest about how their own values, identity and choices may have shaped the research, sociologists allow readers to judge and correct for any bias. Research is therefore not hopelessly subjective: objectivity can be approached, even if it is never perfect.

Every research decision is shaped by three sets of factors, often remembered as PET: practical factors (time, money, access and a sampling frame), ethical factors (consent, harm, deception) and theoretical factors (the researcher's perspective on what counts as good data). The view in the question argues that practical factors matter most. There is strong support for this, but a balanced answer must weigh it against the ethical and theoretical factors. This essay argues that practical factors most often determine the final choice in practice, but that ethics can act as an absolute limit and theory shapes preferences.

The case for practical factors. In reality, a sociologist can only use the method they can afford and gain access to. Time and money are decisive: long-term participant observation can take years and large surveys are costly, so limited funding can rule the ideal method out and force a cheaper one such as a questionnaire. Access matters too: closed groups such as gangs or elites have no sampling frame, making representative surveys impossible and pushing the researcher towards observation or snowball sampling. The researcher's own skills and personal safety, and the characteristics of the subjects (for example young children who cannot complete written questionnaires), further constrain the choice. Examiner reports stress that practical constraints frequently dominate real research, which strongly supports the view.

The case for theoretical factors. However, the theoretical factor decides what a researcher even counts as 'good' data. Positivists, following Durkheim, want sociology to be scientific and so prefer reliable, quantitative methods such as questionnaires and structured interviews that reveal patterns. Interpretivists, following Weber, want to understand meaning (verstehen) and so prefer valid, qualitative methods such as observation and unstructured interviews. On this view, perspective comes first and shapes which method the researcher even tries to afford.

The case for ethical factors. Ethics can act as an absolute constraint that overrides both of the above. A method that would seriously harm participants, deceive them without consent, or break the law may be off-limits regardless of how cheap, accessible or theoretically ideal it is. This is especially true when studying children and other vulnerable groups, where consent and protection from harm are paramount. Ethics can therefore rule out a method entirely, which no practical advantage can rescue.

Evaluation. The practical case is powerful because every study has a budget and an access problem, and a theoretically ideal method is academic if it cannot be funded or reached. Yet practical factors do not operate alone: theory shapes what the researcher is trying to do in the first place, and ethics sets non-negotiable limits — no amount of money makes an unethical study acceptable. The three factors clearly interact rather than ranking cleanly, and which one decides the outcome varies with the topic and the group being studied.

Conclusion. Practical factors are usually the most important influence on the choice of method in practice, because research is only possible within the limits of time, money and access. However, the view is too strong if it ignores the other factors: theoretical perspective decides what good data is, and ethical considerations can rule a method out completely. It therefore depends on the research situation — but in the real world, practical factors most often determine the final choice, with ethics acting as an absolute constraint and theory shaping the researcher's preferences. The honest judgement is that the factors interact, with practical factors generally decisive but never the whole story.