Methods in Context: Practice Questions

These are original questions written for Marlbridge, in the style and at the standard of the examination. They are not reproduced past-paper questions — examination boards hold copyright in their own papers. Use these alongside the official past papers available free from your board.

Related: Methods in Context revision notes

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Section A

1. Using material from the item below and your knowledge of research methods, evaluate the strengths and limitations of using structured interviews to investigate teachers’ expectations of different pupils.

Item: Researchers investigating teacher expectations must consider that teachers are busy professionals with limited time, that classroom observation may not always be possible, and that teachers may be reluctant to admit to differential treatment of pupils. [20]

2. Using material from the item below and your knowledge of research methods, evaluate the strengths and limitations of using unstructured interviews to investigate pupils’ attitudes towards school work.

Item: Researchers investigating pupils’ attitudes must consider that pupils are often minors, meaning informed consent typically also needs to be obtained from a parent or guardian, that pupils may see an adult researcher as an authority figure similar to a teacher, and that school timetables limit when research can take place. [20]

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Answer (worked, showing the methods-in-context approach)

A strong response weaves method and context together throughout, rather than treating them as two separate lists. It should draw on points such as:

Practical fit (method + context): structured interviews are relatively quick to administer, which suits teachers’ limited free time referenced in the item — but a fixed set of questions may not capture the nuance of how expectations actually form in the classroom, which is a limitation specific to researching a subtle, situational attitude like teacher expectation. [practical, applied]

Access and status: researchers need to gain access via school gatekeepers, and teachers — being professionals used to being observed and evaluated — may give socially desirable answers in a structured interview rather than admitting to differential treatment, directly reflecting the item’s point about reluctance to admit bias. [ethical/theoretical, applied]

Validity: structured interviews’ fixed questions may not allow a teacher to explain the complex, often unconscious reasoning behind differing expectations, reducing validity for this specific topic — an unstructured or semi-structured approach might build more rapport and elicit more honest reflection, but at a cost of comparability and time (both practical issues raised by the item). [theoretical, applied]

Reliability: the standardised nature of structured interviews does support reliability (another researcher could repeat the same questions with the same teachers), which is a genuine strength specific to this method, even though it doesn’t resolve the validity concern above.

A response scoring in the top band explains at least three or four such combined points in depth, rather than covering many points shallowly, and reaches an overall judgement about whether structured interviews are, on balance, well suited to this specific topic.

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Answer to Question 2 (worked)

Consent and the power imbalance (ethical/theoretical, applied): because the pupils are minors, informed consent typically must be obtained from a parent or guardian as well as the pupil — a practical and ethical hurdle the item flags directly — and even once consent is given, pupils may see the adult researcher as an authority figure similar to a teacher, which threatens the validity of an unstructured interview specifically, since pupils may give the answers they think an authority figure wants to hear rather than their genuine attitude to school work. [ethical/theoretical, applied]

Rapport versus structure (theoretical, applied): unstructured interviews’ flexible, conversational format is well suited to building the rapport needed to offset that power imbalance, and to letting a pupil’s own words and priorities shape which attitudes get explored — a genuine strength for this specific topic, since attitudes to school work are personal and not easily reduced to fixed categories. [theoretical, applied]

Practical fit (method + context): the flexible length and structure of an unstructured interview must still work within school timetabling, which limits when the research can take place, directly reflecting the item’s point about timetable constraints — a researcher may need multiple short sessions rather than one long interview. [practical, applied]

Reliability trade-off: the same flexibility that builds rapport makes unstructured interviews low in reliability, since no two interviews follow an identical set of questions, making them harder for another researcher to repeat exactly — a genuine limitation, even though it is the price paid for the validity gains described above.

As with Question 1, a top-band response explains three or four such combined points in depth and closes with an explicit judgement on whether unstructured interviews are well suited to researching this specific topic with this specific age group.

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Where marks are usually lost

• Discussing structured interviews’ strengths and weaknesses in general, without reference to teachers or expectations specifically.
• Discussing the sensitivity of the topic without linking it to a specific feature of the named method.
• Ignoring the item — the item is there to be used, and answers that don’t engage with its specific points miss marks for application.
• No overall judgement at the end weighing whether the method suits the topic on balance.
• Forgetting the power imbalance between adult researchers and child or teenage participants — an education-specific issue examiners reward when it is explained, not just mentioned.
• Listing method-only and context-only points side by side rather than genuinely combining them into single points, which is what separates a middle-band answer from a top-band one.

For condensed recall notes on the method-and-context framework itself, see the Methods in Context revision notes.