evaluate qualitative secondary data (20)

Question 1

intro

Answer 1

-secondary qualitative data is information that is not collected by the sociologist themselves, but already exists in the form of visual and printed material
-this can include newspapers, letters, government reports, TV shows, school records, diaries, radio shows, pictures, and more
-some of them can be first hand accounts from someone’s personal experiences, and some secondary data is also produced by the media

Question 2

practical (strength)

Answer 2

-the practicality of a research method refers to how easy it is to conduct, looking at access to locations, funding, time, and ppts
-secondary qualitative data is practical as it may be the only way to collect data about something that happened in the past
-it is also cheap and easy to access

Question 3

ethical (strength)

Answer 3

-the BSA issues a “statements of ethical conduct” which encourages researchers to consider factors such as harm, deception, privacy and confidentiality of the ppt. Ethical research must consider the impact the study may have on both the ppts and the researcher themselves
-there are no huge ethical implications of using qualitative secondary data
-using secondary data is also less complicated of an ethical issue than when using primary data collection methods

Question 4

theory (weakness)

Answer 4

-Positivism is an approach to sociological research based on social facts. They believe we shouldn’t go beyond the boundaries of what is observed and prefer quantitative methods of research because statistics are factual and measurable, allowing for comparisons between groups/the findings
-Positivists do not like qualitative data as they find quantitative data to be more reliable, scientific, and easier to analyse and compare, therefore they would opt for quantitative secondary data

Question 5

reliability (strength)

Answer 5

-reliability refers to the repeatability of a study, so if the study were to be replicated it would produce the same results
-secondary data is useful to compare with primary data so we can spot patterns and trends, and use this to draw conclusions
-qualitative secondary data is particularly useful for extra insight due to it’s highly detailed and in-depth nature

Question 6

representativeness (weakness)

Answer 6

-representativeness is the extent to which a sample mirrors the researcher’s target population and reflects it’s characteristics
-the representativeness of qualitative secondary data depends on the representativeness of the original source
-older documents are likely not representative of the target population, and some data may even withhold data from particular people on purpose, meaning the representativeness of secondary data tends to be low

Question 7

validity (weakness)

Answer 7

-the validity of a research method refers to how detailed and accurate the study’s results are
-there’s potentially a lot of bias when it comes to secondary data and researchers need to be aware of this when using this data