Secondary Data (Positivists) Flashcards
What is secondary data?
This is data that has already been collected.
What are official statistics?
Data collected by the government and gathered by surveys carried out by state agencies (Official National Statistics)
CENSUS is a questionnaire survey carried out by the government, done every 10 years since 1851 to the whole population.
General Household Survey, The Family Expenditure Survey & Labour Force Survey collect data on income, wealth, jobs, family life, unemployment, poverty etc.
What are unofficial statistics?
Quantitative data collected from non-government sources (employee’s, professional bodies, trade unions, political parties, think tanks, charities etc.)
STRENGTHS of official statistics
Easy and cheap to access
Available on the internet and involve little effort on behalf of the sociologist.
Up-to-date and gives a contemporary picture of patterns and trends in human behaviour.
‘Hard reliable facts’ by Positivists as they’ve been collected in a standardised, systematic and scientific fashion.
Statistical relationships can be identified by comparing official statistics from regularly conducted surveys (CENSUS)
Gathered by surveys involving a large representative sample thus findings can be generalised to similar populations.
Trends over a period of time can be seen.
Can form a basis of the hypothesis.
WEAKNESSES of official statistics
Don’t represent a complete picture of whatever social or sociological problem the sociologist is interested in.
Political abuse of statistics can be manipulated or ‘massaged’ by governments for political advantage.
Statistics are socially constructed thus don’t appear or happen, they are the end result of someone making a decision or judgment on a particular set of activities.
Tells us little about human stories or interpretations that unpin them.
Hard statistics - highly reliable and accurate
Soft statistics - open to different interpretations
