7 - Other Sources of Data

Question 1

document

Answer 1

can be ‘read’, was not produced for social research

• analysing documents is unobtrusive and non-reactive
• removes threat of validity

Question 2

4 criteria for assessing quality of documents

Answer 2

1. Authenticity (genuine and unquestionable origin?)
2. Credibility (free from error and distortion)
3. Representativeness (typical of time/place? extent of uniqueness?)
4. Meaning (clear and comprehensive?)

Question 3

diaries, letters, autobiographies

Answer 3

• often used by historians, not social researchers
• written by purported author?
• people who are aware of an audience may not reveal everything on paper (what people don’t write can be of significance)
• who was able to record/write/read?
• what has been damaged/destroyed?

Question 4

3 types of household photograph

Answer 4

idealization (formal portrait)
natural portrayal (informal snapshot)
demystifcation (subject in atypical, often embarrassing situation)

Question 5

government documents

Answer 5

authentic, have meaning

perhaps not credible

Question 6

advantages of secondary analysis

Answer 6

• saves costs and time
• high quality data (sampling procedures are usually rigorous, often national scope, generated by highly experienced researchers)
• opportunities for longitudinal analysis
• subgroup analysis (when samples are large)
• opportunity for cross-cultural analysis
• more time for data analysis
• reanalysis can offer new interpretations
• wider obligations of social researcher (social research is chronically underanalyzed)

Question 7

disadvantages of secondary analysis

Answer 7

• lack of familiarity with data
• complexity of data
• ecological fallacy (occurs when you make conclusions about individual based on analyses of group data)
• no control over data quality
• absence of key variables

Question 8

advantages and disadvantages of official statistics

Answer 8

• often based on whole populations rather than samples
• problem of reactivity is less pronounced
• possible to chart trends over time
• but records only those processed by stats collectors (consider crime/suicide rates)

Question 9

unobtrusive method

Answer 9

removes observer from behaviour under study
-studying physical traces (like grafitti, paper trail of finance), archive materials (data form governments and ngos), and simple observation (observer has no control over behaviour)