Examine the problems some sociologists may face when using different kinds Essay

?Examine the problems some sociologists may face when using different kinds of auditions in their research (20 Marks) To hire project over variables and the environment they ar researching, sociologists often use laboratory experiments in research. Lab experiments ar used to test a hypothesis in a controlled environment, by altering an independent variable to see the subject variable being tested changes.Positivists favour this method of research as it is a more scientific approach to research, which aims to identify correlations and patterns in doings whilst gathering quantitative data. Carrying out such experiments can cause hardheaded issues for sociologists. One of the main practical issues is that the effect of society on passels demeanor is very obscure, and it is very rough for researchers using lab experiments to identify and control every(prenominal) the variables that may have an influence on behaviour.It would be impossible for a sociologist to research all t he influencing factors in a lab experiment, as this is far too complex to carry out in one controlled environment. Furthermore, lab experiments usually consider the study of a small sample as it would not be possible to study a greathearted group of individuals in a controlled laboratory, unless you had a lot of time and this could become costly. This makes it difficult to research large measure social issues that affect behaviour and may also cast down the representativeness of research carried out.For example, Stanley Milgram carried out research on obedience to an authorative figure. He valued to investigate whether Germans were particularly obedient to authority figures as this was a common land explanation for the Nazi killings in World War II. To do so he studied 40 Americans all of whom were male. This is a small scale sample which only represents males and is ethnocentric to American males therefore it would be difficult to generalise findings to the wider population a nd other countries.The unnatural background signals of a lab experiment means the participants are aware of the experiment taking place. This creates what is called the hawthorne effect where the behaviour the participants changes in response to the artificial surrounding and the fact they know they are being studied. As a result this reduces the validity of the results as the participants are not behaving in true-to-life ways and this would not provide a true account of the behaviour being researched.Interpretivists argue that the unnatural setting and low validity means that sociologists cannot gain verstehen, an empathetic understanding of the military personnel from the viewpoint of those being studied. Furthermore, there are ethical issues when conducting experiments on human beings. As a general rule, researchers must gain the informed hold from the research participants. However, when researching child participants or people with learning difficulties it may be difficult t o gain informed consent as they would not fully understand what they are consenting to