Research Methods

Question 1

What is primary data and is secondary data

Answer 1

Primary : is the data that a sociologist collects themselves.

Secondary: is data already found by someone else which can then be used by sociologists.

Question 2

Benefits for primary and secondary data?

Answer 2

Benefits for primary : it is accurate and specific to what they are researching since they are doing it themself.

Benefits for Secondary: it is quicker to get and cheaper.

Question 3

Drawbacks to Primary and Secondary data?

Answer 3

Primary: Data is expensive and quite time consuming

Secondary: Data can be inaccurate sometimes and you might not be able to get what you were looking for.

Question 4

what is Qualitative data?

Answer 4

Qualitative : gives a “feel” for what something is like, for example, what it feels like to get a good gcse result
-> evidence is gathered by methods which allows participants to answer themselves.
-> example questions : “what are your favourite toppings on a pizza?” or an unstructured interview.

Question 5

What is quantitative data?

Answer 5

-> is information in a numerical form
-> examples: official statistics or graphs.

Question 6

What is a positivist?

Answer 6

-> refers to the scientific way of viewing a social phenomena
->observable and directly measurable
->quantitative
->reliable and representative data is important.

Question 7

What may a positivist look at?

Answer 7

->data
-> consider the causation based on all the evidence
-> use structured interviews, official statistics, experiments.