Topic 3 Research methods

Created by: saskiagh4
Created on: 30-11-23 19:05

PRIMARY DATA - those collected by sociologists themselves - only exist because sociologist has collected them

SECONDARY DATA - those which already exist + are collected from secondary sources

can take qualitative/quantitative form
these may be either:
public documents - private documents for a person's own use which record part of a person's life
personal documents - those which are produced for public knowledge

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QUALITATIVE SECONDARY SOURCES - newspaper, radio + TV reports, websites, novels, literature, art, autobiographies, diaries, letters

advantages:
- valuable/only source
- useful for interpretivists - gain insight into ideologies of those that produced the

disadvantages:
Scott - suggests 4 criteria for judging secondary data:
1 - authenticity - evidence genuine/forgery e.g. diaries of Hitler sold for millions
2 - credibility - is evidence believable? does it contain biases?
3 - representativeness - typical

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CONTENT ANALYSIS:
rm that produces primary quantitative data from the study of qualitative secondary sources - way of analysing the content of documents
done by:
creating categories, going through qualitative material + recording the no. times something a

e.g. Glasgow Media Group
video-recorded TV news bulletins for a year + then made a CA
categorising reports on industrial unrest + evaluating them
showed statistical evidence of bias towards management + against workers: managers portrayed in calm, peacef

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ADVANTAGES OF CONTENT ANALYSIS:
- cheap
- no involvement with people
- reliable as produces quantitative statistical data
- enables discovery of things

DISADVANTAGES OF CA:
- depends on the categories or how they interpret what they see - personal judgements
- describing but not good at explaining
- interpretation may differ according to researcher

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QUANTITATIVE SECONDARY SOURCES:
statistical data produced by groups
ADVANTAGES OF USING OFFICIAL STATISTICS:
- important for planning/evaluating social policy
- only source in that area
- cheap + available
- comprehensive - representative
- cover long ti

- provide useful background material - e.g. identify hypothesis for future study
- avoid ethical issues

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DISADVANTAGES OF OS's:
- collected for administrative purposes - definitions + classifications may be unsuitable for research
- produced by the state - inaccurate/not complete picture - which statistics are collected + which are not

SUICIDE STATISTICS:
Atkinson - suicide statistics are social constructions reflecting behaviour of ' '. tell us more about decision-making of living rather than intentions of the dead + the real no.

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HEALTH STATISTICS:
inaccurate because:
- depend on people persuading doctors they're ill - decision making
- may diagnose incorrectly - state of d's knowledge
- not all sick people go to the doctor + not all people persuade the doctor they're sick
- priva

CRIME STATISTICS:
- only include crimes known to the police - only 1/4 reported to police + fewer recorded as offences - 'dark number'
- low clear-up rates - 1/4 are cleared up
- unreported crime - due to embarrassment; fear of violence; mistrust

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Topic 3 Research methods

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