Strength and Limitation P.E.T - Documents

Question 1

Strengths- practical - secondary sources

Answer 1

They are readily available- The use of documents as a research method is cheaper and less time consuming than other methods. . This is because the researcher does not have to spend a great deal of money or time collecting their own information as it already exist. This allows the analysis and interpretation of the data to be carried out relatively quickly.
- Accessibility- personal documents may provide information on areas of social life which sociologists cannot readily study with primary research for a number of reasons. For example A Journey (2010) are a personal account of life as a prime minister, and documents written by those engaging in illegal, secretive or deviant activities describe circumstance where it would be unsafe for the researcher to collect data.

Question 2

Limitation- Practical

Answer 2

-not possible to gain access, individuals wont create documents with sociologist in mind, so it might not contain the required information.
- created to their own purpose not the sociologist

Question 3

Strength- Ethical

Answer 3

• Few ethical issue than primary methods

Question 4

Limitations- Ethical

Answer 4

• Consent given- Organisation must be informed and provide consent to use their material, especially if the research is of a sensitive nature. However, there may be practical problem to this as the person may be decreased or untraceable. this raises the ethical issues of whether it is acceptable to use existing materials is consent cannot be given
• Historical documents- Informed consent cannot be given with many historical documents, as the author is often no longer alive. This raise the issue of invasion and privacy and confidentiality of data. Moreover, this sort of use is open to abused as the researcher can alter the material by exploiting or distorting it to support their research purpose.

Question 5

Strengths- Theoretical

Answer 5

Deeper insight- Documents that produce qualitative data provide a better insight into people’s lives and meanings. Those who adopt an interpretivist approach argue that this is the only way to get a better insight into really understanding people’s motives and the reasons behind their behaviour.
- Authentic statements - Authentic Statements authors views as they are not written with the sociologist in mind

Question 6

Limitation- Theoretical

Answer 6

• Faulty memory- Documents, especially personal and historical are heavily dependant on peoples memories and can be prone to ‘false memory syndrome’ that is, information may be distorted, selective or incorrect. This can reduce the validity of the information
• Unrepresentativeness- Documents, especially personal ones, often represent the experience and events of an individual or a small group of people and this amkes them unrepesentative, so its diificult to genralise from the dindigs, However, government stawstical data, as offical stastics are based on veyr larges sample which makes them represtnative of people genral views.