Secondary methods in research

Question 1

What personal/historical documents do sociologists use for their research? (examples)
Whose studied used suicide notes (1967)?
What are the quantitative/qualitative strengths of personal/historical documents? Weakness?
Reliability/validity strengths? Weakness?
Representativeness strength? Weakness?
Practicality strength? Weakness?
Ethics strength? Weakness?
Who theoretically favours this approach? Does not?

Answer 1

-Personal documents include; letters and diaries(some which are published).
-Historical documents include the census, birth, marriage and death records, archives etc.
-Jacobs used suicide notes in his study (1976).
-Quantitative/qualitative strengths= Rich, qualitative data. Weakness= rarely produces quantitative data.
-Reliability/validity strengths= High in validity and Verstehen. Weakness= Not reliable. Might not be valid(dishonesty etc.)
-Representative strength=Could look at a representative sample of historical documents. Weakness= Usually cannot be generalised.
-Practicality strength= Many documents are in public libraries/online so easily accessible. Weakness= Gatekeepers.
-Ethics strength=Often documents are written to be read and are made publicly available. Weakness= Historic-can’t give consent & privacy.
-Favoured by interpretivists. Not usually favoured by positivists.

Question 2

What public documents do sociologists use for their research(Examples)?
What difficulty may sociologists find with these sources?
What data are they primarily used to produce? Which of these may contain alternative data as well?(give example)
How did Cohen incorporate this in his study of ‘folk devils and moral panics’?

Answer 2

-Public documents include: Sociological journal articles, books, media reports such as newspapers.
-They may be difficult to analyse.
-They are mostly used to produce qualitative data but there may be quantitative data in some journal articles for instance.
-Cohen included analysis of media reports about the mods and rockers, among other research methods.

Question 3

What did Chubb and Moe use to study marketisation in education?
Qualitative/ quantitative strengths of this source? Weakness?
Reliability/validity strengths? Weakness?
Representativeness?
Practicality strength? Weakness?
Ethical strength?
Theoretically favoured by? Not favoured by?

Answer 3

-Official statistics.
-Qualitative/quantitative strength= Quantitative data. Weakness= No qualitative data.
-Reliability/validity strength= should be reliable data. Weakness= Not valid. Collected for a particular purpose. Political bias?
-Very representative.
-Practical strength=Easily accessed, often free and instant. Practical weakness= Can be behind a paywall.
-Ethical strength=Data already exists so highly ethical.
-Favoured by positivists. Not useful for interpretivists, distrusted by Marxists.