Official Statistics Flashcards
Positivist see OS as ________ social facts, and they can be used to establish _____ and ______ relationships. (T)
Objective, cause, effect.
Do positivist like official statistics?
Yes.
What does detailed analysis of OS make it possible to do? (T)
To make predictions of future events.
They are _______ because of their standardised ___________ and collection techniques. So they can be easily _________. (_)
Reliable, standardised, replicated, T.
As they are based on large data sets, what do they provide? (T)
Reliable, representative and generalisable information.
OS are used to make _____________ between ________ and map out trends over periods of time. (_)
Comparisons, variables, T.
Statistics are readily… (P)
available, and cheap and quick to use.
Why is biased reduced when using OS? (P)
The collection of statistics is not influenced by the researcher.
What are statistics useful to help shape? (P)
Social policy decision making.
Why do OS gave no ethical problems? (E)
They are in the public domain, require no consent to be used, and preserve anonymity as no individuals are identified personally.
Do intepretivists like official statistics?
No, positivist do
Official statistics are seen as 1)_______ 2)___________ with 3)______ statistics meaning they are easily 4)___________
1) social
2) constructions
3) soft
4) manipulated
Soft statistics reduce…
The validity, reliability and representativeness
1)__________ use qualitative methods such as 2)__________ and 3)__________ to discover how statistics are socially constructed.
1) interpretivists
2) observations
3) interviews
What are recorded births and deaths referred to as?
Hard statistics
Soft statistics are a theoretical 1)__________
1) disadvantage
Statistics can be easily bias, what does this lower?
Validity
Why can statistics be bias?
The ways in which statistics are recorded can of changed, making the old statistics bias.
Statistic are a form of (qualitative or quantitative) data
Quantitative
What do statistics lack?
Insight into the meanings, feelings and motivations of the people being studied (theoretical disadvantage)
Official statistics are not collected by the researcher. This means the data is…
Secondary
What is the practical problem with secondary data?
May not include all the necessary information required
The way statistics are defined and measured can change over time. How does this effect statistics?
This makes it difficult to make comparisons over time as things change.
A 1)_________ problem is statistics cannot be verified (double 2)________)
1) practical
2) checked
