Positivism and Interpretivism

Question 1

Who was Auguste comte

Answer 1

founder of positivism
pushed to have sociology as a science

Question 2

what’s a hypothetico deductive research

Answer 2

an approach to research that beings with a theory and then derives a testable hypothesis from it

Question 3

interpretivists believe

Answer 3

See the world as mainly a socially constructed place
-don’t believe scientific methodology is useful
- use qualitative research techniques
- in order to understand human action we need to achieve verstehen

Question 4

what is a social fact

Answer 4

a definable characteristic that exists external from social actors in institutions

Question 5

practical factors of government stats

Answer 5

they’re available and more accessible than private data

Question 6

ethical factors of public stats

Answer 6

-collected in national interest
- enable us to check on performance of public bodies
-collection of them can have harmful affects

Question 7

theoretical factors of public stats

Answer 7

-lack validity as sometimes government tamper with them for their owen protection
- structural sociologists say they only serve elite groups interest