Exam-useful questions from this chapter, grouped by marks, each with a full model answer. Try writing the answer yourself first, then check it against this one.
1 1-Mark Questions
Q. Why does this chapter say a researcher should select the research method after carefully specifying the research question?
Answer: Because a given research method is not necessarily appropriate for all questions, and for most questions the choice of methods is usually limited. The specific question decides what evidence is needed, so it is specified first and a suitable method is selected after that.
Q. Name the two kinds of considerations, together, that decide which method a researcher should choose.
Answer: Technical criteria (how compatible the method is with the question) and practical considerations (time, resources, and the circumstances of the research).
2 2-Mark Questions
Q. Turn the broad topic ‘Household Appliances and Domestic Work’ into one specific, researchable question, and name one method you would use.
Answer: Specific question: ‘Has the coming of the washing machine changed who does the laundry in households in my neighbourhood?’ Method: a short survey of households in the neighbourhood, since the question needs to compare the current division of labour with what it was earlier across enough households to represent the neighbourhood.
Q. Give one advantage and one disadvantage of the survey method, as described in the chapter.
Answer: Advantage: it can cover a large number of people, so the results represent the group or population fairly. Disadvantage: its questions are fixed in advance, so it cannot adjust to unexpected or interesting answers, and it captures only one moment in time.
Q. Why might a researcher combine a survey with the archival method, rather than using only one of them?
Answer: A survey mainly tells you about what is happening today, while the archival method (old newspapers, magazines, television programmes) shows how things were in the past. Combining both gives a picture of change over time, which a survey alone cannot give, as the chapter’s mass-media example shows.
Q. In the public-space example, why does the chapter say that a group’s ABSENCE from a space can be significant?
Answer: Because if a whole class or group of people (say, poor people or middle-class people) is never seen using a space, that absence itself tells the researcher something about who uses that space and who does not, which is exactly the kind of information observation is meant to notice.
Q. Why does the chapter deliberately suggest topics that are ‘not obviously or directly derived from the textbook’?
Answer: Because, as the chapter says, it will be easier for students and their teachers to think of their own project related to the texts.
3 4-Mark Questions
Q. A student wants to research ‘Changing Aspirations of Different Age Groups’. Explain how the student should proceed, from choosing a specific question to selecting a suitable method, and mention one practical difficulty they might face.
Answer: Step 1, narrow the broad topic to a specific question, for example, ‘Have the career ambitions of Class XI students changed compared to what their parents wanted at the same age?’ Step 2, choose a method suited to this question, here a combination of a short survey (to cover many students quickly) and a few interviews with parents (for depth and memory-based comparison), since the chapter’s own table marks observation ‘Not suitable’ for this topic, gives entries for survey and interview, and says the archival route depends on availability of material from the past (such as school essays). Step 3, plan for practical difficulties, such as parents being hard to reach, memories from decades ago being unreliable, or students being unwilling to discuss career worries honestly.
Q. Explain, with the chapter’s own example, how the SAME research question can be answered using three different methods.
Answer: For the question ‘Are children in single-sex schools happier than children in co-educational schools?’, the chapter shows three routes: (1) Interview students directly about how they feel about their school and compare answers across school types; (2) Observation, spending time in both kinds of schools and watching student behaviour against pre-decided criteria for ‘happiness’; (3) Survey, designing a questionnaire on how students feel, distributing it equally across both kinds of schools, then analysing the collected answers. This shows that a single question can genuinely support more than one method, and the final choice depends on technical fit and practical considerations.
Q. List any four practical difficulties a student researcher might face while conducting a survey in school, as described in this chapter, and suggest how each could be handled.
Answer: (1) Cost, time and effort of making enough copies of the questionnaire. (2) Needing a teacher’s permission to distribute it in class. (3) Permission being refused the first time, or being asked to come back later. (4) Students not returning the form or not answering all questions. Handling (the chapter gives options only for the fourth): for (4), go back and ask respondents to complete it, or ignore incomplete questionnaires and consider only the complete ones, or consider only the completed answers. Suggestions for the others (not from the chapter): keep the questionnaire short so copies cost less; ask for permission well in advance; and if refused, return later as asked or approach another class or teacher.
4 6-Mark Questions
Q. Choose any ONE of the six project topics this chapter suggests. Frame one specific research question on it, name and justify the method(s) you would use (referring to both technical fit and practical considerations), describe how you would collect your data, and list two practical difficulties you might face along with how you would handle them.
Answer: Topic chosen: The Use of Public Space. Specific question: ‘How has the use of the open ground near my locality changed over the last five years?’ Method and justification: a combination of observation (to see, first-hand, how the ground is currently used across different times of day) and a few interviews with long-time residents (to learn how its use has changed and to add detail that old records may not contain), and, where available, old local newspaper reports or other records of the ground’s past uses (the book’s table lists this archival question for public spaces). This fits the question technically (change over time needs both a present-day picture and a past account) and practically (a small neighbourhood ground is realistic to observe repeatedly and residents are easy to access). Data collection: schedule several short observation visits at different times of day over two weeks, and interview four or five residents who have lived there for over ten years, noting their answers by hand. Practical difficulties: (1) residents may not clearly remember details from years ago, handled by cross-checking their accounts against each other rather than relying on one person; (2) the ground’s use may vary a lot by day or season, handled by spreading observation visits across different days and times rather than a single visit.
5 Case Studies
(A) 1 mark Why was Priya’s teacher right to reject her first idea, ‘Kitchen appliances in Indian homes’?
Answer: Because it is a broad topic, not a specific, answerable research question; the chapter says a topic must first be narrowed into one specific question before any method can be chosen.
(B) 2 marks Suggest ONE method Priya could use for her narrowed question, and give one reason for your choice.
Answer: A short survey of a number of households in her neighbourhood, since the question needs to compare who does the laundry now against who did it before, across enough households for the answer to represent the neighbourhood generally, which a survey can do better than a small number of interviews.
(C) 3 marks Priya finds that many households cannot clearly recall how laundry was divided before they owned a washing machine. Suggest how combining a second method could help her answer her question more fully, referring to the idea of combining methods from this chapter.
Answer: Priya could combine her survey with a small number of detailed interviews with older family members who remember the household’s routines from before the washing machine arrived. The chapter’s mass-media example combines a survey with archival methods to study change over time. The same logic applies here: the survey shows the present situation across many households, while flexible, in-depth interviews let Priya follow up past detail that a short, fixed-question survey cannot capture.