Suggestions for Project Work

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Sociology Class XII (Indian Society), Chapter 7.

Are children in single sex schools happier?

Suppose you want to answer this. You could ask students directly. You could sit in a school corridor and watch. You could hand out a questionnaire to a hundred students. Each route gives a different kind of answer, costs different effort and has different traps. Choosing between them is the real skill this chapter teaches. It has no new theory to memorise. It tests whether you can match a question with a method and think through what can go wrong. That is exactly what CUET's case based questions ask.

Question first, method second

Reading about research and doing it are very different. A real project is longer and more elaborate than a school project, so the chapter offers small tasks that give you a feel for research. The projects are suggestions, and you may think up your own with your teacher.

Every research question needs a suitable method. One question can often be answered by more than one method, but a given method does not suit every question. So the first tasks are to state the question carefully and then select a method. That choice depends on two kinds of reasons:

From topic to question. A topic is broad ("co-educational and single sex schools"). A question is specific. The chapter's examples: Do students in co-educational schools do better in studies than students in boys only or girls only schools? Are boys only schools always better than co-educational schools in sports? Are children in single sex schools happier than children in co-educational schools? Only after the question is fixed do you choose the method.

One question, three methods. Take the last question, "are school children in single sex schools happier?"

The practical difficulties of a survey

The chapter walks through what can go wrong. You must first make enough copies of the questionnaire, which takes time, effort and money. You may need permission from teachers, and may not get it the first time. After you distribute the forms, many may not come back, or some questions may be left blank. Then you have to decide how to deal with it:

The point is not that one response is right. It is that you must expect such problems and decide in advance how you will handle them.

Pause and predict: you finish a survey of 100 students and only 60 forms come back. Name one thing you could do about the missing 40.

Check your answer: you could go back to those respondents and ask them to complete the form, or you could decide to analyse only the forms you have and say so clearly. Both are responses the chapter mentions. What counts is that you choose and explain your decision rather than ignore the gap.

The four methods compared

The chapter revisits the research methods from the Class XI book. This table is the one to learn.

Interviews can be deep or short. An interview may be intensive: one person for a long time (two to three hours) or in repeated visits, to get a detailed story. Structured interviews follow a pre-decided pattern of questions. Unstructured interviews fix only the topics, and the actual questions emerge in the conversation.

Observation: what does not happen also counts. The researcher must pay attention without deciding too early what matters. Sometimes what is absent is as telling as what is present. If your question is how different classes use an open space, it is significant that poor people, or middle class people, are never seen in it.

Pause and predict: you want to know how many hours different people really spend watching television, and you suspect people guess wrongly when asked. Which method helps most?

Check your answer: observation. The chapter notes that observation lets you capture the divergence between stated views and actual behaviour, for example hours people really watch as against hours they feel they watch or think is appropriate.

Combining methods. Using more than one method on the same question, to look at it from different angles, is often highly recommended. For example, to study the changing place of newspapers and television in social life, combine a survey (what is happening today) with archival methods (what magazines, newspapers or programmes were like in the past).

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: a survey covers many people and an interview covers few but goes deep. In reality: researchers call the use of several methods on one question triangulation, and they also decide who to survey (a sample) and how to protect those they study (consent and anonymity). A sample that is not representative can mislead a survey just as badly as a badly worded question. Why it matters: it shows why the chapter keeps stressing planning before collecting.

Six project themes

The topics are in no particular order, and the chapter says they were chosen to be not directly derived from your textbooks, so that you and your teacher can think of your own links. Remember: these are topics, and you must still frame a specific question.

Which method suits which topic

The chapter gives a grid pairing topics with methods. Learn the logic rather than every cell.

Practical advice in the grid. Public transport projects may suit only bigger cities. For appliances, boys should be encouraged to take this up, so that it does not become a "girl's topic". For public space, take familiar, specific places that people know and relate to. For aspirations, interviewees should not be from your own school. For media, try not to pre-judge the issue (for example "it is so sad that letter writing has declined"): ask, don't tell.

Two views. For the exam: the chapter says most methods can be used with most topics, as long as the specific question fits the method. Another reading: methodologists would add that a method also shapes what counts as evidence: a survey turns experiences into counts, while an interview keeps them as stories. Neither is automatically better; the question decides.

Worked example: designing a mini project

Worked example: How do different people use the open ground in your colony? The steps below show the thinking that CUET case questions reward.

Common wrong step. Starting with the method ("let me do a survey") before fixing the question. That is the reverse of the order the chapter teaches.

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: The Challenges of Cultural Diversity is the last content chapter of the Indian Society book; this one turns to doing research yourself.
• Class XI link: Doing Sociology: Research Methods gives the full account of survey, interview, observation and their limits.
• Related: Mass Media and Communications supports the communication media theme, and The Market as a Social Institution helps with the commodity biography theme.