Research Methods - Secondary Sources of Data

Question 1

What are official statistics ?

Answer 1

quantitative data collected by the government

Question 2

what are hard stats?

Answer 2

stats that are accurate such as marriages , divorces birth and deaths

Question 3

what are soft stats?

Answer 3

not always accurate bc of the way they are gathered

Question 4

2 ways gov collects os data?

Answer 4

registration - – people are required to register events as births, deaths and marriages.
Official surveys – such as the 10-yearly Census.

Question 5

what are practical strengths of OS?

Answer 5

-free source of huge amounts of data
-produced from large samples
- useful for making comparisons
- useful for researching social change ( data collected at regular intervals)
- data is quantative - easier to analyse

Question 6

what are practical limitations of OS?

Answer 6

gov collects data for its own purpose so wouldnt apply to sociologist
gov may use different defintions then sociologists

Question 7

what are ethical strengths of OS?

Answer 7

-Refers to groups of ppl so no need for informed consent
- issues of anonymity have already been dealt with by original researcher
-os is presented in graphs and is impossible to identify participants

Question 8

theoretical strengths of OS

Answer 8

positivists - say reliable as they can be replicated
sample is large and respresentative of population
positivits say it is valid as it is social facts and are true measure of things like crime

Question 9

what are theoretical limitations of OS ?

Answer 9

interpretivists say that it lacks validity as it is a social construct as its created by police doctors

Question 10

what do marxists argue ?

Answer 10

Irvine argues that OS are a part of ruling class ideology, designed to
serve capitalism, e.g. OS underestimate the number of unemployed
people to make capitalism look good. The OS are gathered by the
gov and the gov ensures the OS protect capitalism.

Question 11

what are documents?

Answer 11

written texts, but also paintings, photos, radio and TV
broadcasts, Internet output, personal diaries, etc.

Question 12

what are public documents ?

Answer 12

produced by organisations such as the gov , school welfare agencies business and charities

Question 13

what are personal documents ?

Answer 13

produced by private individuals and include letters , diaries , photographs

Question 14

historical documents

Answer 14

can be both public or private documents created in the past

Question 15

practical strengths of documents

Answer 15

may be the only source of info
- free source of lots of info
- save time as already gathered

Question 16

practical limitations of documents

Answer 16

not always possible to access them
-only create documents for their own use not sociologist so may not meet sociologists needs

Question 17

ethical strengths of documents

Answer 17

historical personal documents - fewer ethical issues esp if they’ve passed away
public documents - issue of consent has already been addressed by previous researcher

Question 18

ethical limitations of documents

Answer 18

personal documents from living person consent has to be obtained and possibly of anyone mentioned in thr documents
too

Question 19

theoretical strengths to docs

Answer 19

interpretvists - personal docs are not written w researcher in mind so are valid
- qualitative so provide validity and insight into human behaviour

Question 20

theoretical limitations to docs

Answer 20

unreliable
- unrepresentive
- may be invalid if forged so lacks authenticity
-lacks credibility - might be insincere

Question 21

an example of docs

Answer 21

thomas and Znaniecki studied people’s experience of emigration from europe to US . put adverts ih the polish newspaper’s in chicago
provided them with 764 letters which revealed true meaning of what emigration was like

Question 22

content analysis

Answer 22

RM used for analysis of content of documents especially ones that are produced by mass media ( TV and newspapers

Question 23

practical strengths of content analysis

Answer 23

cheap and quick
accessible as it analyses newspapers and tv shows which are accessible

Question 24

theoretical strengths of content analysis

Answer 24

objective
reliable as can be replicated

Question 25

theoretical limitations

Answer 25

invalid - tells us how much of something happened but not why

Question 26

strengths of using official stats to research edu

Answer 26

data easier to obtain stats are gathered and published annually so can be used to study changes in social trends overtime representative reliable

Question 27

limitations of using official stats to research education

Answer 27

gov use it for their own purposes may not be what the sociologist needs may not be valid as data may show low number of pupils on fsm but it’s not always the case as school could be M/C majority some children may not claim FSM bc of peer pressure and bullying

Question 28

public docs about education include

Answer 28

school website ofsted reports textbooks exam board specifications

Question 29

private documents relating to education are

Answer 29

Pupils work SIMS text messages between students letters to and from parents notes passed between students in lesson

Question 30

documents to research education - strengths

Answer 30

P- freely available often schools website . Gillborn researched racism at a school he used school policy documents , local authority statements on racism and thr minute of staff meetings . this gave him a good idea on the school stance on racism E- public documents are available for anyone to see so no need for informed consent T- representative as sone public documents have to be completed and held by schools on the same way eg racist incident reports