SECONDARY RESEARCH METHODS

What are the main types of secondary data?

historical documents, perosnal documents, government statistics, media content, research by other sociologists

What are the main types of primary data?

experiments, interviews, questionnaires, observations, self report techniques

What is primary data?

information collected by the resaecrher to address a specific issue or problem, it’’s unique, first hand and from an original data source

positives of primary data?

more up to date info, tailored to your study, ensures relevance, have to abide by modern ethic comittees, gather quantative and qualatative data, no need to rely on other’s data, present unexpected findins and steer research in a new direction

negatives of primary data?

more expensive to undertake, requires high level of researcher skill, more time consuming, mauy have researcher bias, could put you at risk, access to participants could be hard, could be unethical if you don’t have informed consent

What is secondary data?

a data source that is already in existence, is being used for the purpose for which it was not originally intended or by someone other than the researcher who collected it can be raw data or published summaries

positives of secondary data?

quick, easy, cheap, access larger/more difficult popualtions

negatives of secondary data?

may not be reliable data, may not be wholly relevant data, may be out of data

Why do sociologists use secondary data sources?

data can be collected from groups unwilling to provide accounts of their activities, can provide data that would be illegal/unsafe to obtain, provides a cheaper option, historical information for when the participants are too old/ill to be interviews, the information required already exists as secondary data

What research methods provide only quantative data?

statistics

What research methods provide only qualatative data?

media content, academic work, interviews, transcripts, newspapers

What research methods provide quantative and qualatative data?

historical documents, prior research

What are the 3 main categories of secondary research methods?

statistics, documents, prior research

What are unofficial statistics?

statistics which are compiled by charities, businesses and other agencies

How are unofficial statistics gathered?

charity surveys, business surveys, non governmental organisations

What are official statistics?

statistics compiled by government agencies and made freely available to the public

How are official statistics gathered?

official census, official crime rate, examination results, registration

What are the strengths of official statistics?

provide an overview into social issues, generate further research, high reliability, useful insight into trends, large scale

What are the negatives of official statistics?

can lack validity, can be manipulated, not everything is reported, decision of officials of what to report

What are hard statistics?

more factual as there is a legal obligation to provide the data

What are soft statistics?

more open to interpretation and often only represent a percentage of the social issue they are looking to measure

Examples of hard statistics?

birth rates, death and marriage certificates

Examples of soft statistics?

unemployment figures, racist incidents of schools

What is the comparative method?

retains the main principles of the experiment but collects data on different societies or social groups and then compares them with another society or group, tries to uncover cause and effect relationships

What are soft statistics vulnerable to?

having dark or hidden figures that are unreported

practical strengths of official statistics?

cheaper, less time consuming, allow comparison between groups, may have been collected over a long period of time, free, allow comparison between groups

practical weaknesses of official statistics?

statistics may not be relevant, may not be accessible or may not exist, definitons change over time, may have political leanings

ethical strengths of official statistics?

less ethical issues that experiments, safer for researchers, already in public domain, far less inavsive for participants as well

ethical weaknesses of official statistics?

statistics could be used in a socially insensitive way, harmful to those in poverty and allows government to ignore their needs, in the past statistics on ;intelligence’ data have been mainpulated to justify the oppression of specific ethnic groups

theoretical strengths of official statistics?

very reliable, usually generalisable, positivists like it, hard statistics are valid and reliable

theoretical weaknesses of official statistics?

could be interpreted wrong, researcher bias, less valid if soft statistics, interpretivists like it, only quantative data, some statistics are less representative than others, some of the population are hard to survey

What are victim surveys used for?

alternative estimate of the level of crime to official statistics, find out from victims whether they reported their crimes to the police, can find out about victims fear of crime, help build up a profile of people likely to be victim of crime

problems with victim surveys?

only tells about crimes with victims, some victims may not be aware they are victim, rely on respodents being truthful, relies on subjective assessment, national crime surveys anoly give an estimate of the crime levels across the country

Why are self report surveys used?

reveal that far more of the population are involved in crime than they report, questions traditional ideas of a ‘law breaker’

problems with self report surveys?

rely on truthfulness, often include high levels of trivial responses

interpretivists views on official statistics?

statistics are ‘social facts’ and that they are objective measures of real rates in society

interpretivists views on official statistics?

lack validity and ‘social constructs’ in society

examples of documents?

recepits, reports, police record, maps, shopping lists, timetable, bank statements, registers, songs, court records, photos, certificates, parish registers, web pages, blogs, emails,textbooks, transcripts, adverts, letters, newspapers, books, paINTINGS, NOVELS, MEDICAL RECORDS, GOV REPORTS, DIARES

What are public documents?

produced by organisations,some of this is publicaly available, but some is private,

What are historical documents?

paintings, parish records, parliamentary records, may be only inight available into the past.

What are personal documents?

produced by or for individuals, can be first hand accounts

What is the Thomas and Znaniecki (1919) study?

used documents including letters to study the migration of polish people and social change. As interactionists, they were interested in people’s personal experiences of these events

Why do interpretivists like about documents?

give an insight into what indviduals are thinking (verstehen)

What are John Scott’s proposed 4 criteria for assessing the usefulness of documents?

authenticity, credibility, representativeness, meaning

practical strengths of documents

may be only source available, reasonably cheap, readily available (save time)

ethical strengths of documents?

consent is not needed (dead) and may be in the public domain

theoretical strengths of documents?

find out about people’s experiences, assist with triangulation, interpretivists love it

practical weaknesses of documents?

tricky to access, expensive to access (paywall), requires skill to analyse, getting hold of personal documents are tricky to place

ethical weaknesses of documents?

tricky to maintain consent and privacy

theoretical weaknesses of documents?

less quantative data, uses interpretation which is open to bias, validity may be, low, may not reveal their true feelings,

What is content analysis?

allows researcher to take qualitative data and to transform it into quantative data, reearcher will use ‘coding units’

How do you conduct content analysis?

collect data, read it lookig for themes relevant to your study, identify categories that are mutually exclusive, tally the amount of times it crops up

strengths of content analysis?

relaible way to analyse quantative data, easy technique, not too time consumin, allows statistical analysis to occur

weaknesses of content analysis?

causality cannot be established easily as it merely describes the data, only describes data as it cannot extract any deeper meaning or explanation for the data patterns arising

What is literature search?

useful when embarking on a piece of your own research, tandard to write a ‘literature review’ of previous relevant research before you start your research, sociologists cab then aim for a different angle or avoid mistake, may be flawed or unreliable because it was created by humans with their won biases and motivations