| Oh, there you are, good. |
| Sorry, I'm a bit late - there was a long queue. |
| So, have you worked out how to deal with this assignment then? |
| Not yet, we've only been here a couple of minutes ourselves. |
| Can you just remind me what the task is exactly? |
| Well, there are two, no, three, parts to it: |
| first, we've got to write an essay about ways of collecting data. |
| What's the title of the essay exactly? |
| I've got it here: |
| 'Assess the two main methods of collecting data in social science research'. |
| And how much do we need to write? |
| 1500 words. |
| That's for the essay. |
| Then, for the second part of the assignment, we have to choose one method of data collection, |
| and 'carry out a small-scale study', |
| 'making appropriate use of the method chosen to gather data from at least five subjects'. |
| And then we have to write a report on the study? |
| That's right, of three to four thousand words. |
| Did you get as far as discussing which form of data collection we should go for - |
| questionnaire or interview, isn't it? |
| Yeah, I think we should use a questionnaire. |
| It'll be so much less time-consuming than organising interviews, I reckon. |
| Once we've agreed on the wording of it, we only have to send it out and wait for the responses. |
| Yes, I think it probably would be quicker. |
| But what did that article he gave us last week say about the quality of data from questionnaires? |
| I'm pretty sure it recommended questionnaires as a source of 'highly reliable data'. |
| As long as you design the questionnaire properly in the first place, the data will be fine. |
| No, I'm sure it talked about drawbacks as well, didn't it? |
| Something about the response rate and the problems you get if it's too low. |
| Yeah, but we only need data from five subjects anyway. |
| I suppose so. |
| Another drawback I remember it mentioned was that |
| questionnaire data tends not to reveal anything unexpected, because... |
| it is limited to the questions fixed in advance by the researcher. |
| Come on, Rosa. This is only a practice. |
| It's not meant to be real research, is it? |
| Well, not sure about that. |
| Maybe I'd better go through the article again, just to be sure. |
| Can you remember what it was called? |
| Sample Surveys in Social Science Research', I think. |
| By Mehta. |
| MEHTA? |
| Yeah. |
| And he also recommended a more recent book, called... |
| 'Survey Research', by Bell, I think. |
| It's in that series published by London University. |
| And if we tried to use interviews instead, |
| I saw a book in the departmental library that'll be helpful: it's called 'Interviews That Work', |
| by Wilson, published in Oxford in 1988. |
| Right. |
| Oh, I've got a tutorial now. |
| Can we meet up again later this week? |
| What about Friday morning? |
| Suits me. 11 o'clock? |
| Fine. |
| Before Friday, I think we should all look through the reading list. |