Researching education | AQA A-Level Sociology
Updated: 2 days ago
For Specification 7192
AQA A-Level Sociology | Free Revision Notes
Estimated study time: 55–70 minutes
Researching education is about more than remembering the strengths and limitations of research methods. For AQA A-Level Sociology, you must be able to apply sociological research methods to the study of education, linking the method to the particular educational setting or issue being investigated. This Researching education A-Level Sociology revision page introduces the practical, ethical and theoretical considerations that shape educational research and prepares you for the more detailed Methods in Context lessons in the course plan.
Learning Objectives 🎯
By the end of this revision page, you should be able to:
Identify characteristics of education that may affect sociological research.
Explain how practical considerations can influence research into education.
Explain how ethical considerations can influence educational research.
Apply theoretical considerations to the choice of research methods.
Compare the possible usefulness of quantitative and qualitative approaches to educational research.
Analyse why the suitability of a research method depends on the particular educational issue being studied.
Revision Notes 📚
Researching education A-Level Sociology revision: what you need to know
AQA requires students to be able to apply sociological research methods to the study of education. This is called Methods in Context. The specification also requires knowledge of:
quantitative and qualitative methods
research design
questionnaires
interviews
participant and non-participant observation
experiments
documents
official statistics
primary and secondary data
positivism and interpretivism
social facts
theoretical, practical and ethical considerations affecting research.
The important word is apply. Knowing a generic advantage or disadvantage of a questionnaire, interview or observation is not enough. You need to consider what happens when that method is used to investigate a specific educational issue.
Your understanding of research design [Research design] therefore provides an important foundation for Methods in Context.
What makes education a distinctive research context?
The specification identifies several features and processes within education that sociologists investigate. These include:
differential achievement by social class, gender and ethnicity
teacher-pupil relationships
pupil identities
pupil subcultures
the hidden curriculum
the organisation of teaching and learning
educational policies and their effects on the structure and experience of education.
These different research topics create different methodological demands.
For example, a sociologist investigating patterns of educational achievement may be interested in data that allow comparisons between social groups. A researcher investigating pupil identities, however, may be more interested in how pupils understand and experience education.
This distinction is central to Methods in Context:
There is no research method that is automatically the "best" method for studying education. Its usefulness depends on the research question, the educational context and the researcher's practical, ethical and theoretical considerations.
The educational setting and research design
Research into education may take place within educational institutions and involve the people, relationships and processes that exist within them.
A researcher therefore has to consider both:
what they want to find out, and
whether their research design allows them to investigate it appropriately.
Consider a study of teacher-pupil relationships.
A researcher might use:
questionnaires to obtain responses from pupils or teachers
interviews to investigate participants' experiences
observation to examine interactions
documents where relevant information has already been recorded.
Each method may reveal a different aspect of the same issue.
This is why Methods in Context requires you to connect methodological knowledge with educational knowledge rather than treating the two as separate topics.
Educational achievement and educational experience
A useful distinction is between research concerned mainly with patterns and research concerned mainly with experiences and meanings.
Research focus | Examples from the education specification | Possible methodological priority |
Patterns | Differences in achievement by class, gender or ethnicity | Measuring and comparing differences |
Relationships | Teacher-pupil relationships | Investigating interaction and participants' experiences |
Identity | Pupil identities and subcultures | Understanding how pupils interpret their experiences |
Organisation | Organisation of teaching and learning | Investigating how educational processes operate |
Policy | Selection, marketisation, privatisation and equality policies | Investigating patterns, experiences and existing evidence |
This does not mean that each topic has one correct method. For example, teacher-pupil relationships could be researched quantitatively or qualitatively depending on the research question.
The distinction is developed further in quantitative and qualitative research [Quantitative and qualitative research].
Quantitative approaches to researching education
Quantitative data are numerical data.
A quantitative approach may be particularly useful when a sociologist wants to identify or compare patterns.
The education specification requires students to study differential educational achievement according to:
social class
gender
ethnicity.
A researcher studying these differences may therefore want evidence that allows groups or patterns to be compared.
Methods and sources identified in the specification include:
questionnaires
experiments
official statistics.
However, choosing a quantitative approach still raises practical, ethical and theoretical questions.
For example:
Can the researcher obtain the information needed?
Does the research design investigate the particular educational issue effectively?
Are there ethical issues involved in collecting the information?
Does numerical evidence provide the kind of sociological understanding the researcher wants?
Quantitative evidence should therefore not automatically be treated as superior simply because it can produce numerical comparisons.
Qualitative approaches to researching education
Qualitative data are non-numerical data concerned with qualities, meanings and experiences.
A qualitative approach may be especially relevant when the research question concerns educational experiences and social interaction, such as:
pupil identities
pupil subcultures
teacher-pupil relationships
experiences of teaching and learning.
Possible methods named in the specification include:
interviews
participant observation
non-participant observation
documents.
For example, if a researcher wants to investigate how pupils understand their identities within school, simply measuring how many pupils belong to different groups may not answer the question. The sociologist may instead want evidence about pupils' own interpretations and experiences.
This is particularly important when you move on to interviews in educational research [Interviews in educational research] and observation in educational research [Observation in educational research].
Primary and secondary data in educational research
AQA requires you to distinguish between primary data and secondary data.
Primary data are collected by the researcher for their own research.
A sociologist could, for example, collect data about an educational issue using:
questionnaires
interviews
observation
experiments.
Secondary data already exist before the sociologist's particular research project and can be used as evidence.
The specification specifically identifies:
documents
official statistics.
The two distinctions must not be confused:
Distinction | What it concerns |
Quantitative vs qualitative | The nature of the data |
Primary vs secondary | Whether the researcher collects the data for the study or uses existing data |
A study can therefore involve more than one of these categories.
For example, secondary evidence may be quantitative, while primary research may produce qualitative evidence.
Practical considerations in researching education
AQA requires students to understand practical considerations influencing the choice of topic, choice of method and conduct of research.
Practical considerations concern whether and how a research project can actually be carried out.
In an educational context, the researcher must think about the particular setting, participants, information required and research design.
Questions may include:
Can the researcher obtain the evidence needed?
Can the method be used in the educational setting concerned?
How much research can realistically be conducted?
Does the method allow the researcher to investigate the required group or educational process?
Is relevant secondary evidence already available?
Consider a sociologist who wants to investigate pupil subcultures.
A method that produces a large amount of numerical information might be practical for identifying broad patterns. However, if the research question concerns how pupils understand their own subculture, the researcher also needs to consider whether the method can obtain that kind of evidence.
Practical issues must therefore be linked to the specific aim of the educational research, rather than simply listed.
You will examine this dimension in more detail in practical considerations in sociological research [Practical considerations in sociological research].
Ethical considerations in researching education
The specification also requires students to consider ethical considerations affecting the choice and conduct of sociological research.
Ethical considerations are questions about whether the way research is carried out treats the people involved appropriately and responsibly.
When applying this to education, think about:
who is being researched
what information is being collected
how the research may affect the people involved
whether the nature of the educational issue makes the research particularly sensitive
how the way the research is conducted may create ethical problems.
For example, a researcher studying pupil identities or teacher-pupil relationships is investigating people's experiences and behaviour. Ethical decisions therefore cannot be separated from the way the researcher collects and uses evidence.
A strong Methods in Context answer does not merely state that "there may be ethical problems". It explains what aspect of this educational research creates the ethical issue and why this matters for the proposed method.
These issues are developed further in ethical considerations in sociological research [Ethical considerations in sociological research].
Theoretical considerations in researching education
Theoretical considerations concern the kind of sociological knowledge the researcher believes should be produced and how they believe society can best be studied.
The specification particularly identifies the relationship between:
positivism
interpretivism
sociological methods.
It also requires students to understand the nature of social facts.
These perspectives can affect researchers' methodological priorities.
Positivism
Positivism is associated with an approach to Sociology that emphasises the study of observable social patterns and the use of methods capable of producing systematic evidence.
For educational research, a positivist may therefore be interested in measurable patterns such as differences in achievement between social groups.
This may encourage an interest in quantitative evidence.
The specification's concept of social facts is relevant here because positivists are interested in social phenomena that can be investigated as realities external to particular individuals.
Interpretivism
Interpretivism places greater emphasis on understanding social action from the meanings and interpretations of the people involved.
In education, an interpretivist approach may therefore be particularly interested in:
how pupils understand their identities
how pupils experience teaching
how teachers and pupils understand their relationships
the meanings participants attach to educational processes.
This may encourage the use of qualitative evidence.
However, avoid reducing the debate to:
"Positivists use numbers and interpretivists use words."
The important distinction is why different sociologists prefer different kinds of evidence and what they are trying to understand about the social world.
You will examine this more fully in theoretical considerations in sociological research [Theoretical considerations in sociological research].
The relationship between research question and method
The suitability of a method begins with the research question.
Compare these two possible questions:
Question A: What differences exist in educational achievement between social groups?
Question B: How do pupils understand the relationship between their identity and their experiences of education?
Both concern education, but they ask for different kinds of evidence.
Question A places greater emphasis on identifying and comparing patterns.
Question B places greater emphasis on investigating meanings and experiences.
This does not determine the method completely, but it helps explain why researchers might make different methodological choices.
Comparing the methods named in the specification
At this introductory stage, you need to recognise that each method may offer different possibilities when applied to education.
Method/source | Possible use in educational research | Important question to ask |
Questionnaires | Investigating pupils' or teachers' responses | Does the questionnaire collect the kind of evidence required? |
Interviews | Investigating views and experiences | Will participants' accounts answer the research question? |
Participant observation | Studying educational interaction while participating in the setting | How does participation affect the conduct and evidence of the research? |
Non-participant observation | Observing behaviour without participating | What can observation reveal about the educational process? |
Experiments | Investigating relationships under a research design | Is an experimental approach suitable for the educational issue? |
Documents | Using existing written or recorded material | What can the document show about the research question? |
Official statistics | Examining existing numerical patterns | What can the statistics establish, and what can they not explain? |
Later lessons examine these individually, beginning with questionnaires in educational research [Questionnaires in educational research].
Methods should be evaluated in context
A common trap is learning a fixed list such as:
questionnaires are good because...
interviews are bad because...
observation is useful because...
Methods in Context requires a different way of thinking.
Start with the educational issue and ask:
What exactly is being investigated?
Who or what provides the evidence?
What type of data does the researcher need?
What practical considerations arise in this particular educational setting?
What ethical considerations arise?
What theoretical approach might favour or reject the method?
What can this method reveal about this particular topic?
What important aspect of the topic might it fail to reveal?
That reasoning prepares you for choosing methods for researching education [Choosing methods for researching education].
Applying method knowledge to different education topics
Differential educational achievement
Suppose the topic is social class differences in educational achievement.
A researcher may want to:
identify patterns
compare groups
investigate explanations for those patterns.
Existing numerical evidence could help with the first two aims. However, it may not by itself explain how pupils experience education or how processes inside education contribute to differences.
The research design therefore depends on the question being asked.
Teacher-pupil relationships
Teacher-pupil relationships involve interaction between people.
A researcher might investigate:
what teachers and pupils say about the relationship
interactions between teachers and pupils
differences between participants' interpretations.
An interview and an observation would produce different kinds of evidence. Neither is automatically superior.
Pupil identities and subcultures
Researching identities involves investigating how individuals and groups understand and construct their social position.
Qualitative evidence may therefore be particularly relevant where a researcher wants to understand meanings.
However, a researcher might also use quantitative evidence if the aim is to identify patterns concerning identities or group membership.
Again, the aim determines what counts as useful evidence.
Organisation of teaching and learning
A sociologist might study how teaching and learning are organised and how this affects pupils' experiences.
Possible evidence could come from:
observation
interviews
questionnaires
documents
official statistics.
Each would address different aspects of the issue.
Educational policies
Research into educational policies can involve questions about:
access to education
educational experiences
educational outcomes
the organisation and structure of education.
The researcher may therefore combine existing evidence with research into people's experiences.
This demonstrates why the specification treats research design, methods and their strengths and limitations as integral to Sociology rather than as an isolated topic.
Making a Methods in Context judgement
When evaluating a research method, avoid simply deciding:
"This is a good method."
A more sociological judgement asks:
How useful is this method for investigating this particular educational issue, given the practical, ethical and theoretical considerations involved?
Your conclusion may therefore be conditional.
For example:
a method may be useful for identifying patterns but less useful for understanding meanings
a method may suit one educational topic better than another
primary research may provide evidence designed for the researcher's exact question, while secondary evidence may already provide useful information
a researcher's theoretical position may affect what they regard as useful sociological evidence.
That balanced reasoning is at the heart of Methods in Context.
Key Words 🔑
Key word | Student-friendly definition | How it may be used in an exam |
Methods in Context | Applying knowledge of sociological research methods to a particular substantive topic, for AQA this includes applying methods to education. | Use educational characteristics throughout an evaluation rather than writing a generic methods answer. |
Research design | The way a sociological investigation is planned and organised to answer its research question. | Explain why a particular design is more or less suitable for researching an educational issue. |
Quantitative data | Numerical sociological data. | Apply to research where identifying or comparing patterns is important. |
Qualitative data | Non-numerical data concerned with meanings, qualities and experiences. | Apply when discussing research into pupils' or teachers' experiences and interpretations. |
Primary data | Data collected by the researcher for the particular research being conducted. | Distinguish research collected directly from existing secondary evidence. |
Secondary data | Data that already exist and are used by a sociologist for their research. | Apply particularly when discussing documents and official statistics. |
Positivism | An approach emphasising systematic study of observable social patterns. | Link theoretical preferences to the kinds of methods and evidence a researcher may favour. |
Interpretivism | An approach emphasising understanding the meanings people give to their social actions and experiences. | Apply to research concerned with pupil identities, relationships or experiences. |
Social facts | Social phenomena treated as realities beyond the individual and capable of sociological investigation. | Link to positivist approaches and the study of social patterns. |
Ethical considerations | Issues concerning the responsible conduct of research involving people. | Explain how the particular participants, topic or research procedure may create ethical concerns. |
Common Mistakes ⚠️
Mistake: Writing a generic research-methods answer
Why this is incorrect: Methods in Context requires you to apply research methods specifically to education. A paragraph that could be copied unchanged into a question about crime, families or health has probably not been applied sufficiently.
How to improve: Keep returning to the educational issue. Explain why the method matters when investigating these pupils, teachers, relationships, identities, processes or educational outcomes.
Mistake: Assuming that one research method is always best
Why this is incorrect: The specification requires students to consider theoretical, practical and ethical influences on method choice. Different research questions therefore create different methodological priorities.
How to improve: Ask what the sociologist actually wants to find out before evaluating the method.
Mistake: Confusing quantitative data with secondary data
Why this is incorrect: These are different classifications. Quantitative and qualitative refer to the nature of the data. Primary and secondary refer to where the data come from in relation to the research project.
How to improve: Learn the two distinctions separately and practise applying both to the same research scenario.
Mistake: Treating positivism and interpretivism as simple method labels
Why this is incorrect: The specification requires an understanding of the relationship between positivism, interpretivism and sociological methods. The theoretical perspective concerns what kind of sociological knowledge the researcher values, not merely a memorised list of methods.
How to improve: Explain what the researcher wants to discover and why this may lead them towards particular forms of evidence.
Mistake: Listing practical or ethical considerations without applying them
Why this is incorrect: Saying "there are practical problems" or "there may be ethical issues" does not explain their significance.
How to improve: Identify the specific feature of the educational research that creates the issue, then explain how it affects the use or usefulness of the method.
Mistake: Treating educational knowledge and methods as separate topics
Why this is incorrect: Methods in Context deliberately combines them. The characteristics of the educational topic affect how research can be conducted.
How to improve: For every methodological point, complete the sentence: "This matters when researching education because..."
Exam-Style Questions ✍️
Question 1
State one type of data that sociologists may use when researching education. (1 mark)
Question 2
Explain one difference between primary data and secondary data. (2 marks)
Question 3
Outline two reasons why the particular educational issue being investigated may affect a sociologist's choice of research method. (4 marks)
Question 4
A sociologist wants to investigate pupil identities and subcultures within schools.
Explain one practical consideration and one ethical consideration that may influence the design of this research. (6 marks)
Question 5
A sociologist is investigating differences in educational achievement between social groups.
Explain why quantitative data may be useful for this research. (4 marks)
Question 6
A sociologist wants to understand how pupils experience teacher-pupil relationships.
Explain why qualitative data may be useful for this research. (4 marks)
Question 7
Explain two ways in which a positivist and an interpretivist researcher might approach the study of education differently. (6 marks)
Question 8
Item A
A sociologist wants to investigate pupil experiences of the organisation of teaching and learning. The researcher is considering interviewing pupils. Interviews could provide evidence about how pupils understand their experiences, but the researcher's choice must also take account of practical, ethical and theoretical considerations.
Using material from Item A and your knowledge of research methods, evaluate the strengths and limitations of using interviews to investigate pupils' experiences of the organisation of teaching and learning. (20 marks)
Answers and indicative mark scheme
Question 1
1 mark for one appropriate answer, such as:
quantitative data
qualitative data
primary data
secondary data.
Question 2
Award up to 2 marks for explaining the distinction.
A suitable answer would explain that primary data are collected for the researcher's particular study, whereas secondary data already exist and are subsequently used for the research.
Question 3
Award up to 2 marks per developed reason.
Indicative content could include:
A study concerned with patterns of achievement may require different evidence from a study concerned with pupils' meanings or identities.
Different educational processes, such as teacher-pupil interaction and educational achievement, may be investigated using different types of evidence.
Practical considerations may make a method more or less suitable for a particular educational setting.
Ethical considerations may affect how research involving particular educational participants or issues can be conducted.
Theoretical priorities may affect whether a sociologist favours evidence of broad patterns or participants' meanings.
Question 4
Award up to 3 marks for the practical consideration and 3 marks for the ethical consideration, depending on development and application.
A strong practical explanation would connect the research design directly to investigating pupils and subcultures rather than merely stating that research takes time or resources.
A strong ethical explanation would identify how researching pupils' identities, relationships or experiences creates a responsibility to consider the effect and conduct of the research.
The key requirement is application to pupil identities and subcultures.
Question 5
Award up to 4 marks.
Indicative content:
Quantitative data provide numerical evidence.
Numerical evidence may allow patterns in educational achievement to be identified.
Groups such as those differentiated by social class, gender or ethnicity can be compared.
This suits a research question concerned with the distribution of educational achievement, although numerical patterns alone may not explain participants' experiences.
Question 6
Award up to 4 marks.
Indicative content:
Qualitative evidence can investigate meanings and experiences.
Teacher-pupil relationships involve social interaction.
Pupils may interpret the same educational relationships differently.
Qualitative evidence may therefore help a researcher understand participants' perspectives rather than simply measuring a pattern.
Question 7
Award up to 3 marks for each developed difference.
Indicative content:
Positivism places greater emphasis on studying observable social patterns, whereas interpretivism places greater emphasis on understanding meanings and social action.
A positivist studying education may therefore value quantitative evidence of patterns, while an interpretivist may value qualitative evidence about educational experiences.
Positivist research may be concerned with social facts, whereas interpretivist research focuses more closely on actors' interpretations.
Answers should explain the relationship between the theoretical position and methodological choice rather than merely naming methods.
Question 8
A successful response should evaluate the use of interviews specifically for investigating pupils' experiences of the organisation of teaching and learning. Generic discussion of interviews without educational application would not fully address the question.
Indicative content could include:
Interviews may allow pupils to describe and explain their experiences of teaching and learning.
They may therefore generate qualitative evidence relevant to an interpretivist interest in meanings.
Different pupils may provide contrasting interpretations of the same organisation of teaching and learning.
The researcher's design must take account of practical considerations involved in conducting interviews within the educational context.
Ethical considerations arise from researching people's educational experiences.
What participants say in interviews is one form of evidence and may not provide the same information as directly observing educational interaction.
A researcher interested primarily in broad measurable patterns may prefer, or supplement interviews with, other forms of evidence.
The usefulness of interviews ultimately depends on the particular research question and the researcher's practical, ethical and theoretical priorities.
For a high-level response, arguments should be developed, applied and evaluated throughout, leading to a reasoned judgement about the usefulness of interviews for this particular educational investigation rather than a general conclusion about whether interviews are a "good" or "bad" method.
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