Methods in Context- Tips and Advice

What is it?

- Methods in Context questions will ask you to evaluate the strengths and limitations of
any of the six main research methods for researching a particular topic within the
sociology of education, applying material from the item.
- Evaluate the strengths and limitation of using (method) to investigate (study). [20
marks]
- You MUST refer to P.E.T Factors in each paragraph

These are the different ways a MIC question could appear

Themes Methods Study

Truancy
Subcultures
Documents
Pupils Achievement
Official Stats
Teachers Parental involvement
Questionnaires
Schools Gender Identity
Interviews
Parents Class, Ethnicity and Language
Experiments
Classrooms Labelling
Observations
Teacher Expectations
Classroom Interactions

Essay Structure
- One 20-mark question that asks you to apply your understanding of research
methods to the study of some aspect in education
- Give yourself 30 mins to answer the question
- The key skill here is application, you need to connect up methods and research issues
- The item is the most important in this question
- Referring to studies is not required but rewarded if you do mention
- The question is based on skill not just content
- Introduction, Advantage (PERC), Disadvantage (PERC), Advantage (PERC),
Disadvantage (PERC), Conclusion
- Introduction: briefly describe the context and the advantages of using this method in
this context to study the topic
- Advantage: identify the method you have chosen, explain the method in more detail,
add to the context or theme of the item, link to the scenario particularly, refer to
theory, include internal criticism
- Disadvantage: identify the method you have chosen, explain the method in more
detail, add to the context or theme of the item, link to the scenario particularly, refer
to theory, include internal criticism
 - Conclusion: always say that triangulation is a better alternative, give an example and
explain why it is better

Paragraph Structure

- P – one strength of using …………….is (refer to a p.e.t factor) … (AO1)

- E – explain how it is a strength/weakness by linking it to context. (USE THE ITEM
TO HELP YOU!) (AO1)
- How could you indicate to the examiner you are making a link between methods,
education and the issue?
- R – reference to example, provide hypothetical scenarios! (AO2)
- How do you indicate to the examiner that you are putting yourself in the shoes of a
researcher?
- Refer to theory
- C– Criticise. You need to demonstrate how this point can also be a strength/weakness
… (AO3)
Example Paragraphs:
One advantage of using documents is that if personal documents are used when investigating
material deprivation, it provides rich qualitative data that is high in verstehen. This is
advantageous as it allows the researcher to gain an insight into an individual’s mind and have
an idea on how they actually feel about a particular topic. Personal documents can come in
different formats, such as letters, diaries, pictures and autobiographies. For instance, a child
may keep diary accounts of their day and if they are from a working-class background and
are materially deprived, they probably lack a sufficient amount of food and equipment for
school and so they might write in their diary about such things. Therefore, the researcher is
easily able to understand and make correlations with their school achievement and make links
with the fact that if a student is materially deprived this could potentially have effects on their
achievement. Interpretivists would value personal documents; due to the fact it provides real
world accounts and points of views and allows the researcher to explore and understand a
deeper meaning to their researcher. Although personal documents provide valuable data, they
are also subjective, meaning that the data collected from one student is personalised, so it’s
impossible to generalise and make assumptions based on one sample.
Another advantage of using documents when investigating material deprivation is that the
data produced is valid, as they are accessible by everyone which means that they are required
to contain factual and formal information. Furthermore, public documents such as school
ones are legally required, meaning they need to be accurate. For instance, if a researcher was
to look at the registers to see attendance rates ( which are mostly always accurate and taken
with precaution) , between social classes and understand which group is not present at school
they would easily be able to access this information and determine that it may be due to
material deprivation factors, such as not having a sufficient amount of food so the student
wouldn’t be capable of attending school, which gives the researcher an insight into
understanding why a certain class group’s attendance rate may be lower. Furthermore, a
researcher could also look into a school’s data on the number of students that have Free
School Meals which are also highly valid, and then compare their grades/levels of
achievement with whether they receive fsm. Public documents are preferred by positivists,
because of the high levels of reliability and the fact they are considered as secondary
resource. However, it can be argued the public documents do not allow researchers to
understand why the data may be the way it is, for example the use of registers does not
provide information on why a student was not present in school, therefore making public
documents not as useful to researchers as it lacks verstehen.

What to avoid
- Use the entire item not just the bit that relates to your chosen method – in your
weakness’s paragraphs use the points made for the other method describe and twist
them to show why they make that option of a method worse than the one you have
chosen.

- REMEMBER: This is methods essay NOT an education one, you do not need lengthy
descriptions for example, of studies that relate to education, however it may be a good
idea in this question in particular to use Willis’ Learning to Labour as an example of a
group interview but in relation to its use as a method NOT the study itself.

- LASTLY: APPLY APPLY APPLY – All examples should be related to the material in
the Item and Education, NOT methods in general.