secondary qualitative Flashcards
public documents
documents produced by public organisations eg the black report - comprehensive examination of class and health in the uk
personal documents
documents created by private individuals eg anne frank’s diary
historical documents
documents both public and private - created in the past
practical advantages to documents
cost - normally free and easily available
personal skills arent required
time - done quite quickly if easily available
historical analysis - often the only way to study historical events
theoretical advantage to documents
validity - often provides very in-depth data - letters and diaries reveal how people feel about and interpret their lives
practical issues for documents
time - long time to analyse and collect eg historical
access - some official documents are kept hidden through official secrets act
ethical issues for documents
consent / privacy - if using private documents you need to ensure informed consent and maintain privacy and confidentiality where required
theoretical issues for documents
subjective - interpretaton
representativeness - private documents may not be representative of wider population
validity - not all private documents may be accurate and may be deliberately false
content analysis
process when qualitative data is turned into quantitative using thematic content analysis
practical advantages for content analysis
cost - cheap process
course material - easy to get relevant source material
theoretical advantages for content analysis
positivism - good way to do quantitative, objective analysis of qualitative source material
practical disadvantages for content analysis
time - may take a while to generate large amount of data
theoretical disadvantages for content analysis
validity - interpretivists argue that counting how many times something appears - no meanings so low validity
reliability - categories different for different sociologists - thematic
positivist views on documents
dont generally use documents as prone to subjectivity when analysed
if used then content analysis
interpretivists views on documents
documents provide rich in-depth data
not concerned about representativeness
