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Distinguish quantitative and qualitative evidence; explain validity, reliability and representativeness; identify a sampling limit; justify a method and an ethical safeguard. Use fictional examples. You do not need to disclose personal experiences.
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Recall and connect
Retrieve L005, then connect a claim to the evidence needed to investigate it.
Missed the preparation? Read the recap
A count can describe a pattern; an account can explore meaning. Define what is measured, choose appropriate evidence and plan informed, voluntary participation.
Check an explanation after your attempt
Their practices, care, resources and decisions may differ despite matching composition.
Check an explanation after your attempt
Time measures could describe amount; accounts could explore interpretations of fairness.
Discover questions and data
Research questions shape evidence choices. Numerical measures are quantitative. Accounts of meanings are qualitative. Either can be collected for the current study or reused from an existing source.
Open the vocabulary reference
- Primary data
- Evidence collected first-hand for the current investigation.
- Secondary data
- Existing evidence used for a further investigation.
- Quantitative data
- Evidence expressed numerically, such as hours of care.
- Qualitative data
- Evidence about meanings and experiences, often in words.
- Operational definition
- A stated rule for deciding what a concept means in a study.
- Validity
- How well the evidence captures what the study intends to investigate.
- Reliability
- Consistency when a procedure is repeated under comparable conditions.
- Representativeness
- How adequately a sample reflects the relevant population.
- Population
- The group about which the researcher wants to make claims.
- Sample
- The cases selected from or within a population for study.
- Sampling bias
- Systematic over- or under-inclusion of relevant kinds of case.
- Social desirability
- Giving an answer that presents oneself in a favourable light.
- Informed consent
- Voluntary agreement based on understandable information about participation.
- Confidentiality
- Managing information so that unauthorised people cannot access it.
- Anonymity
- A condition in which a person’s identity is not known or identifiable.
- Triangulation
- Combining approaches or sources to examine a question from more than one angle.
Check an explanation after your attempt
How many minutes of care were provided yesterday? What makes a division of care feel fair?
Check an explanation after your attempt
For example, unpaid help meeting another person’s needs. Clarify whether supervision, emotional support or care across addresses is included.
Discover research quality
Research design matters more than a method label. A standardised question can produce consistent answers yet measure care poorly. A long interview can explore meanings but still be influenced by wording, recall and the interviewer. A large volunteer sample is not automatically representative. Explain each judgement in relation to the research question and the way the evidence is collected.
Open the vocabulary reference
- Primary data
- Evidence collected first-hand for the current investigation.
- Secondary data
- Existing evidence used for a further investigation.
- Quantitative data
- Evidence expressed numerically, such as hours of care.
- Qualitative data
- Evidence about meanings and experiences, often in words.
- Operational definition
- A stated rule for deciding what a concept means in a study.
- Validity
- How well the evidence captures what the study intends to investigate.
- Reliability
- Consistency when a procedure is repeated under comparable conditions.
- Representativeness
- How adequately a sample reflects the relevant population.
- Population
- The group about which the researcher wants to make claims.
- Sample
- The cases selected from or within a population for study.
- Sampling bias
- Systematic over- or under-inclusion of relevant kinds of case.
- Social desirability
- Giving an answer that presents oneself in a favourable light.
- Informed consent
- Voluntary agreement based on understandable information about participation.
- Confidentiality
- Managing information so that unauthorised people cannot access it.
- Anonymity
- A condition in which a person’s identity is not known or identifiable.
- Triangulation
- Combining approaches or sources to examine a question from more than one angle.
Check an explanation after your attempt
Validity: captures the intended concept. Reliability: consistent procedure or result under comparable conditions. Representativeness: sample reflects the relevant population.
Check an explanation after your attempt
No. The omission can be repeated reliably while the measure remains incomplete for the stated concept.
Discover ethical decisions
Plan voluntary informed consent, proportionate protection of private information and a way to skip or stop participation. Explain confidentiality honestly; removing names may not prevent identification from detail.
Open the vocabulary reference
- Primary data
- Evidence collected first-hand for the current investigation.
- Secondary data
- Existing evidence used for a further investigation.
- Quantitative data
- Evidence expressed numerically, such as hours of care.
- Qualitative data
- Evidence about meanings and experiences, often in words.
- Operational definition
- A stated rule for deciding what a concept means in a study.
- Validity
- How well the evidence captures what the study intends to investigate.
- Reliability
- Consistency when a procedure is repeated under comparable conditions.
- Representativeness
- How adequately a sample reflects the relevant population.
- Population
- The group about which the researcher wants to make claims.
- Sample
- The cases selected from or within a population for study.
- Sampling bias
- Systematic over- or under-inclusion of relevant kinds of case.
- Social desirability
- Giving an answer that presents oneself in a favourable light.
- Informed consent
- Voluntary agreement based on understandable information about participation.
- Confidentiality
- Managing information so that unauthorised people cannot access it.
- Anonymity
- A condition in which a person’s identity is not known or identifiable.
- Triangulation
- Combining approaches or sources to examine a question from more than one angle.
Check an explanation after your attempt
Ask “How is care divided, and how do you feel about this?” The revised question avoids suggesting the desirable answer.
Check an explanation after your attempt
Confidentiality concerns access and use; anonymity concerns identification. Limit identifiable information and explain who can see it and any limits.
Apply the study proposals
Fictional design exercise; no data collection is required. A team wants to investigate how adults aged 18 or over in one town divide unpaid care and what they consider fair. Proposal A: a closed online questionnaire advertised on a parents’ forum, aiming for 200 volunteers. Proposal B: semi-structured interviews with 12 adults deliberately selected for varied care arrangements. Proposal C: a seven-day time-use diary with shared categories of care. These are proposals, not findings. The intended population includes adults who do not use the forum and adults without children.
Check an explanation after your attempt
Adults are examining materials. The image alone does not establish a sampling process, consent or whether a formal research study is taking place.
Optional scaffold
The research question asks… This method could provide… However… This affects… A proportionate improvement would be…
Check an explanation after your attempt
A may compare reported amounts but misses adults outside the forum. B can probe fairness but twelve purposively selected accounts do not support a population frequency estimate.
Optional scaffold
The research question asks… This method could provide… However… This affects… A proportionate improvement would be…
Check an explanation after your attempt
A diary can record activities near the time they occur. Burden, forgotten entries and private details require clear guidance and a proportionate design.
Challenge the design
A method choice is a reasoned trade-off. Match the evidence to the question.
Check an explanation after your attempt
A broad recruitment questionnaire could compare amounts and selected interviews explore fairness. Explain sampling and measurement limits; combining methods does not erase them.
Optional scaffold
The research question asks… This method could provide… However… This affects… A proportionate improvement would be…
Check an explanation after your attempt
Proposal A has not produced data and its recruitment may be biased. Even completed responses would describe reported care among selected volunteers unless further evidence justified a wider claim.
Prove: retrieval check
Answer without notes, then check explanations. Retry after correcting insecure ideas. This is separate from the 15-mark mini-test.
Not marked.
Prove and improve
Complete retrieval, then write independently for eight minutes.
Success criteria
Two distinct questionnaire problems. For each, identify the problem, apply it to family research and explain its effect on the evidence. Extended writing needs teacher review. No automatic mark is given.
Prepare for Lesson 7
Read the passages on institutions, functions and evaluation.
Institutions and society
Sociologists can ask what recurring institutions contribute to social life. Families, schools and economic organisations may perform overlapping activities.
Functions as an explanation
A function is a contribution to a wider social system. Functionalists ask how institutions may help maintain order. A claimed contribution must still be examined, rather than assumed.
Questions for evaluation
Ask who benefits, whether an activity is performed everywhere and whether another institution could perform it. Use fictional examples; no judgement about your own family is required.
Check an explanation after your attempt
An established pattern of social organisation, such as education, may transmit skills and expectations.
Your progress summary
Completion records attempts, not correctness. Review your extended response with a teacher and use the feedback to choose your next practice.
Restore a backup
Resource: RFTS-AQA-AL-SOC-7192-FAM-L006 · v1.0. Original Reach for the Star learning resource. The six-mark task is a classroom bridge assessment, not an official AQA Paper 2 format. Teacher mark guidance is supplied separately.