Quantitative Research Methods

Question 1

According to positivists, why should sociology model its research methods on those of the natural sciences?

Answer 1

In their view, this will produce objective, true, scientific knowledge of society.

Question 2

Give an example of a pattern of social reality.

Answer 2

There are clear patterns of educational achievement and underachievement.

Question 3

According to positivists, why do social patterns exist?

Answer 3

They exist because society exerts an influence over its members, systematically shaping their behaviour in various ways.

Question 4

How can cause and effect be discovered?

Answer 4

Positivists believe through careful observation and measurement , they can discover laws of cause and effect that explain social patterns.

Question 5

Give an example to show how quantitative data can be used to show patterns of behaviour in society.

Answer 5

Quantitative data on exam results may show class differences in achievement. By correlating this with other quantitative data on class differences in income, we may be able to show that low income is a cause of underachievement.

Question 6

In what sense is a laboratory experiment a controlled experiment?

Answer 6

The laboratory is an artificial environment on which the scientist can control different variables in order to discover what effect they have.

Question 7

Briefly explain what happens to the experimental group in an experiment.

Answer 7

The experimental group are exposed to a variable (independent variable) that the researcher believes may have a particular effect.

Question 8

Briefly explain what happens to the control group in an experiment.

Answer 8

The control group aren’t exposed to the independent variable - their conditions are kept constant.

Question 9

Briefly explain how a laboratory experiment can show cause-and-effect relationships.

Answer 9

The condition of both groups is recorded before and after the experiment. If a change is discovered in the experimental group but not the control group, they may conclude that this was caused by the treatment the two groups received.

Question 10

Briefly explain the following practical issues associated with laboratory experiments:

• Open systems
• Individuals are complex

Answer 10

Open systems:

• Sociologists such as Keat and Urry (1982) argue that lab experiments are only suitable for closed systems.
• However, society is an open system where countless factors are at work in any given situation, interacting with each other in complex ways.
• This makes it impossible for the researcher even to identify, let alone control, all the relevant variables.

Individuals are complex:

• Therefore it’s not really possible to ‘match’ the members of the control and experimental groups exactly.
• While we can find identical samples of chemicals, no two human beings are exactly alike.

Question 11

Briefly explain the following practical issues associated with laboratory experiments:

• Studying the past
• Small samples

Answer 11

Studying the past:

• Lab experiments cannot be used to study an event in the past, since we cannot control variables that were acting in the past rather than the present.
• Nor can we keep people in lab conditions for long periods of time so we can study them.

Small samples:

• Lab experiments can usually only study small samples.
• Making it difficult to investigate large-scale social phenomena.
• Ex: we cannot study all or even a large sample of the members of a major religion.

Question 12

Briefly explain the following practical issues associated with laboratory experiments:

• The Hawthorne effect
• The expectancy effect

Answer 12

The Hawthorne effect:

• A lab experiment is in an artificial environment and any behaviour that occurs in it may also be artificial.
• In particular, if the subjects know they’re being experimented on, this may make them act differently.
• Ex: they may feel self-important, anxious or resentful about being in the experiment and act differently as a result.

The expectancy effect:

• Refers to the fact that what a researcher expects to happen in the experiment can affect its actual outcome.
• This can occur by the experimenter consciously or unconsciously treating the subjects in such a way that it influences how they respond and produces the result the experimenter expected.

Question 13

Briefly explain the following ethical issues associated with laboratory experiments:

• Informed consent
• Harm to subjects

Answer 13

Informed consent:

• This means gaining their agreement to take part, having first explained to them in terms they can understand, the nature and purpose of the experiment, what risks and effects there may be, and the uses to which the findings will be put.
• However, this can create the Hawthorne effect.

Harm to subject:

• Research shouldn’t normally harm the participants.
• However, some argue that minor or temporary harm may be justified ethically if the results yield significant social benefits.

Question 14

According to positivists, what is the theoretical strength of laboratory experiments?

Answer 14

Their reliability. However, in other respects they suffer from important limitations even from a positivist perspective.

Question 15

Briefly outline three reasons why positivists regard laboratory experiments as highly reliable.

Answer 15

• The original experimenter can control the conditions and specify the precise steps that were followed in the original experiment, so others can easily repeat these steps to re-run it.
• It produces quantitative data, so the results of the re-run experiments can be easily compared to the original.
• It’s a very detached and objective method: the researcher merely manipulates the variables and records the results. Their subjective feelings and values have no effect on the conduct or outcome of the experiment.

Question 16

According to positivists, why is representativeness important?

Answer 16

Because they aim to make generalisations about how the wider social structure shapes individuals’ behaviour.

Question 17

What is meant by external validity?

Answer 17

We cannot be confident the findings are true for the wide population.

Question 18

Briefly outline two reasons why laboratory experiments may lack external validity.

Answer 18

• As experiments can only study small samples, there’s a greater risk that they’re not a representative cross section of the population the researcher is interested in. If so, the findings cannot be generalised beyond the experiment itself.
• Lack of external validity arises out of the high level of control the experimenter has. The higher the level of control we have over an experiment, the more unnatural the circumstances this creates.

Question 19

What is meant by internal validity and why might laboratory experiments lack it?

Answer 19

Their findings may not be true for the subjects of the experiment itself, let alone the wider world.

Question 20

According to interpretivists, why are laboratory experiments inappropriate for studying human beings.

Answer 20

• Humans are fundamentally different from objects natural scientists study.
• We have free will and choice.
• Our behaviour isn’t ‘caused’ by external forces, so it cannot be explained in terms of cause-and-effect statements as positivists believe.
• Our choices can only be understood in terms of choices we make freely on the basis of meanings we give to events.

Question 21

Briefly outline two ways in which a field experiment differs from a laboratory experiment.

Answer 21

• It takes place in the subjects natural surroundings.

- Those involved don’t know they’re subjects of an experiment, thereby avoiding the Hawthorne effect.

Question 22

What variable did Rosenthal and Jacobson manipulate in their field experiment and how did they do it?

Answer 22

They manipulated teachers’ expectations about pupils by giving them misleading information about the pupils abilities in order to discover what effects this had on the children’s achievement.

Question 23

Briefly explain the following types of field experiment:

• Actor tests
• Correspondence tests

Answer 23

Actors tests:

• To test the hypothesis that there’s racial discrimination in employment, Brown and Gay (1985) sent a white and a brown actor for interviews for the same post, to see which one would be offered the job.
• Actors were of different ethnicity but matched for age, gender, qualifications etc.

Correspondence tests:
- Wood et al (2010) sent closely matched job applications for almost 1000 vacancies, apparently from three different applicants of different ethnicity.

Question 24

What is the value of field experiments?

Answer 24

They’re more natural and valid for real life, and they avoid the artificiality of lab experiments.

Question 25

What is meant by the trade-off between naturalism and control in field experiments? Why is loss of control a problem?

Answer 25

The more natural and realistic we make the situation, the less control we have over the variables the might be operating. If so, we cannot be certain that we have identified the true cause.

Ex: while it may have been racism that resulted in the white actors getting more job offers, we cannot be certain because Brown and Gay couldn’t control (or even know about) all the other variables in the situation.

Question 26

Why might field experiment be seen as unethical? How might you counter this view?

Answer 26

Since they involve carrying out an experiment on subjects without their knowledge or consent. However, in Brown and Gay’s and Noon’s experiment, although the researchers did deceive their subjects (the employers) no harm was done, and something of value to society was learnt as a result.

Question 27

Briefly outline how the comparative method works.

Answer 27

• Identify two groups that are alike in all major respects except for the one variable we’re interested in.
• Then compare the two groups to see if this one difference between them has any effect.

Question 28

Briefly outline the three advantages of the comparative method over laboratory experiments.

Answer 28

• It avoids artificiality.
• It can be used to study past events.
• It avoids the ethical problems of harming or deceiving subjects.

Question 29

How does the lack of control in a thought experiment affect the findings?

Answer 29

It gives the researcher even less control over variables than do field experiment, so we can be even less certain whether a thought experiment really has discovered the cause of something.

Question 30

Briefly define the following types of questions used in questionnaires:

• Closed-ended
• Open-ended

Answer 30

• Closed-ended: respondents must choose from a limited range of possible answers that the researcher has selected in advance (e.g yes/no/idk). These answers are pre-coded for ease of analysis.
• Open-ended: Respondents are free to answer however they wish, in their own words, without any pre-selected choices being offered by the researcher.

Question 31

Briefly outline three practical strengths of questionnaires.

Answer 31

• Quick and cheap way to gather large amounts of quantitative data from large numbers of people, widely spread geographically.
• No need to recruit and train interviewers - respondents complete the questionnaire themselves.
• Data is usually easy to quantify, particularly where pre-coded questions are used, and can be computer-processed to reveal relationships between variables.

Question 32

Briefly outline seven practical limitations of questionnaires.

Answer 32

• Data is often limited and superficial. This is because questionnaires need to be fairly brief - most people are unlikely to complete a long, time-consuming questionnaire.
• May be necessary to offer incentives (such as entry into a prize draw) to persuade respondents to complete the questionnaire. This adds to the cost.
• Questionnaires are only snapshots - pictures of reality at one moment in time, when the respondent answers the questions. They fail to capture the way people’s attitudes and behaviour change.
• Questionnaires are inflexible - once it is finalised, the researcher is stuck with the questions they’ve decided to ask and cannot explore any new areas of interest should they come up during the course of the research.

Question 33

Briefly outline the reasons why positivists favour the use of questionnaires.

Answer 33

• They produce representative findings that can be generalised to the widest population.
• They’re reliable, objective and detached method for producing quantitative data, testing hypotheses and developing causal laws of social behaviour

Question 34

Briefly explain how questionnaires can be used to establish correlations.

Answer 34

Because they yield quantitative data about the links between different variables.

Ex: by correlating respondents’ answers to a question about their occupation and one about their level of education, we might be able to make the generalisation that w/c people are less likely to go to university.

Question 35

Define reliability.

Answer 35

Reliability involves replicability: if another researcher repeats the research using the same method, they should gain the same results (a replica) as the first researcher.

Question 36

According to positivists, why is reliability important?

Answer 36

Because it allows a scientist’s findings to be checked and confirmed or falsified by others. If others can repeat the research and obtain the same results, we can have more confidence that its findings are true.

Question 37

Briefly explain why questionnaires are seen as a reliable method of collecting data.

Answer 37

When we repeat someone’s research, we can use a questionnaire identical to the original one, so new respondents are asked exactly the same questions as the original ones. In other words, the questionnaire is a standardised measuring instrument.

Question 38

How do questionnaires enable comparisons to be made.

Answer 38

By asking the same questions in different times or societies, we can compare the results obtained. If the results differ, we can assume this is because there’s a real difference between the societies or times we’re comparing.

Question 39

According to positivists, why is representativeness important?

Answer 39

Because they’re macro or structural theorists - they aim to make generalisations about how the wider social structure shapes our behaviour.

Question 40

Briefly outline the two main reasons why questionnaires may yield representative data.

Answer 40

They’re large scale:

• Can be distributed quickly + cheaply by post or email over wide geographical areas so they can collect information from a large sample of people.
• Result: findings stand a better chance of being truly representative of the wider population.

They use representative samples:
- Researchers who use questionnaires tend to use more sophisticated sampling techniques designed to obtain a representative sample.

Question 41

Briefly explain why questionnaires might not be representative.

Answer 41

Representativeness can be undermined by low response rate, especially if those who do return their questionnaires are different in some way from those who don’t (for example, better educated).

If so, this will produce distorted and unrepresentative results, from which no accurate generalisations can be made.

Question 42

What is a sample?

Answer 42

Smaller sub-group drawn from the wider research population we’re interested in.

Question 43

What is the aim of sampling?

Answer 43

Usually to ensure that the people we’ve chosen to study are representative or typical of the research population. If they are, we can generalise our findings to the whole research population.

Question 44

Why is sampling important for positivists?

Answer 44

In enables them to make law-like statements.

Question 45

What is a sampling frame?

Answer 45

A list of members of the research population.

Question 46

Briefly explain the following representative sampling techniques:

• Random sampling
• Quasi-random sampling.

Answer 46

• Random sampling: where the sample is selected purely by chance, e.g. names drawn out of a hat.
• Quasi-random sampling: is similar, e.g selecting every tenth name on a list.

Question 47

Briefly explain the following representative sampling techniques:

• Stratified random sampling
• Quota sampling

Answer 47

• Stratified random sampling: we divide (‘stratify’) the population into the relevant categories (e.g w/c males, w/c females), and then randomly select a sample of each, ensuring that the proportions of the total sample in each category are the same as in the overall population.
• Quota sampling: is similar, but instead of choosing the samples randomly, researchers go looking for the right number (quota) of each sort of person required in each category.

Question 48

Briefly explain the following non-representative sampling techniques:

• Snowball sampling
• Opportunity sampling

Answer 48

• Snowball sampling: collects a sample by contacting key individuals, who are asked to suggest others to be interviewed, and so on, adding to the sample ‘snowball’ fashion. This is a way to contract a sample who might otherwise be difficult to find e.g criminals.
• Opportunity sampling: chooses from those individuals who are easiest to access e.g a captive audience such as prisoners.

Question 49

Why do interpretivists have less need for representative samples?

Answer 49

They believe it’s more important to gain a valid understanding of actors’ meanings that to discover laws of behaviour, so they’re less concerned to make generalisations.

Question 50

According to positivists, why is it important for research to be objective and detached?

Answer 50

The scientist’s own subjective opinions and values must be kept separate from the research and not be allowed to ‘contaminate’ or affect the subject matter or research findings in any way.

Question 51

Briefly explain why questionnaires are seen as detached and scientific.

Answer 51

The sociologists personal involvement with their respondents is kept to a minimum.

Question 52

What do interpretivists seek to discover?

Answer 52

The meanings that underlie our actions and from which we construct social reality. Their main concern is with validity.

Question 53

Define validity.

Answer 53

Obtaining an authentic or truthful picture of how actors construct and experience social reality.

Question 54

Why do interpretivists tend to reject the use of questionnaires?

Answer 54

They argue that questionnaires cannot yield valid data about the meanings of social actors.

Question 55

Why do interpretivists reject the positivists’ preference for detachment and objectivity?

Answer 55

They believe it fails to produce a valid picture of actors meanings.

Question 56

According to interpretivists, why do questionnaires give invalid data?

Answer 56

They’re the most detached of all primary methods. The lack of contact between researcher and respondent makes it almost impossible to clarify what the questions mean or to check that the researcher has correctly understood the answers given.

Question 57

Briefly explain why respondents might not give full and accurate answers in questionnaires.

Answer 57

Problems of validity are created when respondents lie, forget, don’t know or don’t understand (and don’t admit they don’t know).

Ex: In Schofield’s research on the sexual behaviour of teenagers, in reply to the question, ‘are you a virgin?’ one girl answered, ‘no, not yet’.

Question 58

Use an example to explain why respondents might give answers they feel they ought to give in questionnaires.

Answer 58

Among groups where churchgoing is thought socially desirable, respondents in questionnaires on church attendance exaggerate how often they attend.

Question 59

Why do interpretivists prefer observation to questionnaires?

Answer 59

It allows us to see for ourselves what people actually do, rather than what they say they do.

Question 60

Why do questionnaires pose relatively few ethical problems?

Answer 60

Questions are often about less sensitive, routine factual topics. Even where questions are about more sensitive or personal issues, respondents aren’t obliged to answer them.

Question 61

What ethical guidelines should be observed when using questionnaires?

Answer 61

• Take care to avoid causing psychological harm.
• Gain respondents informed consent.
• Make it clear respondents have a right not to answer any questions they don’t wish to.
• Parental consent may be required before administering them to children.

Question 62

According to interpretivists, why do questionnaires impose the researcher’s meanings on the research?

Answer 62

By choosing in advance which questions to ask, the researcher has already decided what is important is important and what isn’t.

Question 63

Briefly explain how closed-ended questions may distort reality and undermine validity.

Answer 63

Closed-ended questions are a kind of straitjacket where responders have to try and fit their views into the answers on offer. If they feel some other answer to be important, they have no choice but to express it.

Question 64

Briefly explain how open-ended questions may distort reality and undermine validity.

Answer 64

Open-ended questions allow respondents to give whatever answer they wish, but when the researcher codes them to produce quantitative data, non-identical answers may get lumped together.

Question 65

Briefly outline structured interviews.

Answer 65

Each interview is conducted in the same standardised way, with precisely the same questions, wording, order, tone of voice etc.

Question 66

Briefly outline unstructured interviews.

Answer 66

• They’re like a guided conversation.
• The interviewer is free to vary the questions, wording, order etc pursuing whatever line of questioning seems appropriate, asking follow up questions etc
• Group interviews are relatively unstructured.
• They include focus groups, where the researcher asks the group to discuss certain topics and records their views.

Question 67

Briefly outline semi-structured interviews.

Answer 67

They have the same set of questions in common, but the interviewer can also probe for more information and ask additional questions.

Question 68

In what ways are structured interviews like questionnaires?

Answer 68

They both involve asking people a fixed set of prepared questions. In both cases, the questions are usually closed-ended with pre-coded answers. Both produce mainly quantitative data.

Question 69

What is the main difference between structured interviews and questionnaires?

Answer 69

In a structured interview, the questions are read out and the answers filled in by a trained interviewer rather than by the interviewee. Interviews thus involve a social interaction, whereas questionnaires involve little to no interaction between the researcher and respondent.

Question 70

Briefly outline five practical advantages of structured interviews.

Answer 70

• Structured interviews can cover large numbers of people because they’re quick and fairly cheap. E.g Young and Willmott (1962) interviewed 933 people in this way in their research of families in east London.
• They’re suitable for gathering straightforward factual info such as a person’s age, job, religion etc.
• Results are easily quantified because they use closed-ended questions with pre-coded answers. This makes them suitable for hypothesis testing.
• Training interviewers is relatively straightforward and inexpensive, since all they’re expected to do is follow a set of instructions. However, this is more costly than questionnaires.
• Response rates are usually higher than for questionnaires: perhaps because people find it harder to turn down a face-to-face request, and some may welcome the opportunity to talk. Young and Willmott had only 54 refusals out of 987 people they approached.

Question 71

Briefly outline three practical limitations of structured interviews.

Answer 71

• Like questionnaires, structured interviews are inflexible, because the interview schedule is drawn up in advance and the interviewer must stick to it rigidly. This makes it impossible to pursue any interesting leads.
• Because the interview schedule is drawn up in advance, researchers must already have some knowledge of the subject and a clear hypothesis to test. This makes this method unsuitable for investigating unfamiliar topics.
• Structured interviews are only snapshots taken at one moment in time, so they fail to capture the dynamic nature of social life.

Question 72

Why do structured interviews pose relatively few ethical problems?

Answer 72

Questions are more likely to be a routine factual nature about less sensitive topics. Even where questions are intrusive, interviewees are under no obligation to answer them.

Question 73

Why might feminists view interviews as oppressive?

Answer 73

Because the interview is a social interaction, some interviewees (especially women) may feel pressured to answer questions.

Question 74

Why might it sometimes be difficult to keep interviewees’ identity confidential? Give an example.

Answer 74

Fiona Brookman (1999) notes that is can be difficult to keep confidential the identity of murderers who have been interviewed. If their case has received much publicity, even minimal details can make them identifiable.

Question 75

Suggest two special considerations that should be taken into account when interviewing vulnerable people.

Answer 75

• Such interviews may need to be kept brief and special care needs to be taken to not put pressure on the interviewee.
• Parental consent may be required when interviewing children.

Question 76

According to positivists, why are structured interviews appropriate for testing hypotheses?

Answer 76

They can establish correlations between variables by analysing interviewees’ answers. This allows us to make generalisations about behaviour patterns. Once a correlation has been established, we can construct a hypothesis about its possible cause.

Question 77

Briefly explain why structured interviews are seen as reliable method.

Answer 77

They’re reliable because they’re easy to standardise and control.

Question 78

According to positivists, why might structured interviews be likely to give representative findings?

Answer 78

• Relatively quick and cheap to conduct, so large numbers can be surveyed.
• Relatively high response rates and the sophisticated sampling techniques that are often used also help improve representativeness.

Question 79

Briefly outline four reasons why structured interviews may not give valid data.

Answer 79

• Usually use closed-ended questions. This forces interviewees to choose from a number of limited pre-set answers. If none of these fits what the interviewee wants to say, the data will be invalid.
• They give interviewers little freedom to explain questions or clarify misunderstandings.
• People may lie or exaggerate and this will produce invalid data.
• The sociologist has to draw up the interview schedule in advance, perhaps with little knowledge of the subject.

Question 80

Why does Reinharz call the use of survey methods for data collection ‘research as rape’?

Answer 80

“The researchers take, hit and run. They intrude into their subjects’ privacy, manipulate the relationships, and give little or nothing in return. When the needs of the researchers are satisfied, they break off contact with the subjects.”

Question 81

Briefly outline Oakley’s criticism of positivistic methods such as structured interviews.

Answer 81

Oakley argues that this positivists ‘masculine’ approach to research places a high value on objectivity, detachment and hierarchy, and regards ‘science’ as more important than furthering the interests of the people it researches.

Question 82

Briefly explain how the roles taken in an interview may mirror the gender divisions and hierarchies of patriarchal society.

Answer 82

• The researcher takes the active role in asking the questions.
• Interviewees have a passive role as mere objects of study, to be milked for info by answering the questions. They have no role in deciding the subject or direction of the interview.

Question 83

According to Graham, how do questionnaires and structured interviews give an invalid picture of women’s experience?

Answer 83

They impose the researcher’s categories on women, making it difficult for them to express their experiences, and concealing the unequal power relationships between the sexes.

Question 84

Define secondary data.

Answer 84

Data collected by someone else for their own non-sociological purposes.

Question 85

Briefly describe the following sources of information used to create official statistics, giving an example of each:

• Registration
• Official surveys

Answer 85

Registration: The law requires parents to register births.

Official surveys: Such as the Census or the General Household Survey.

Question 86

Briefly describe the following source of information used to create official statistics, giving an example:
- Administrative records

Answer 86

Administrative records: Of state agencies such as hospitals, courts and schools. These include records of illnesses,convictions, truancy etc.

Question 87

Give an example of ‘non-official’ statistics.

Answer 87

Stats produced by non-state organisations. For example, churches produce membership and attendance stats, while the charity Shelter produces stats on homelessness.

Question 88

Briefly outline four practical advantages of official statistics.

Answer 88

• They’re a free source of huge amounts of quantitative data.
• Only the state has the power to compel individuals to supply certain data. For example, heads of household must complete the Census form. This reduces the problem of non-response.
• Official stats allow us to make comparisons between groups.
• Because official stats are collected at regular intervals, they show trends and patterns over time. This means sociologists can use them for ‘before-and-after’ studies to identify correlations between variables and suggest possible cause-and-affect relationships.

Question 89

Briefly outline four practical disadvantages of official statistics.

Answer 89

• The government produces stats for its own purposes, and not for the benefit of sociologists, so there may be none available on the topic we’re interested in.
• There may be mismatches between sets of statistics. For example, if we want to compare stats on ill health with stats of unemployment for the people of a particular town, we find find that the two sets of data cover slightly different areas and therefore different populations.
• The definition the state uses in collecting data may be different from those that sociologists would use. For example, they may define ‘homelessness’ differently. In turn this may lead to different views of how large the problem is.
• The state may change the definitions it uses over time, and different states may define the same term differently. This makes comparisons over time or between countries difficult.

Question 90

Using the example of mental illness, briefly explain how official statistics may be used to identify and measure behaviour, test hypotheses and develop casual laws.

Answer 90

• By using official stats to identify patterns in mental illness, positivists can establish correlations.
• Stats may reveal, say, gender differences in rates of depression.
• From this knowledge, a testable hypothesis can be put forward to explain a possible causal link between the variables.

Question 91

Why is representativeness important for positivists?

Answer 91

Because they wish to make general statements about society as a whole and how it shapes our behaviour.

Question 92

Why do official statistics often provide a more representative sample than research that sociologists are able to carry out themselves?

Answer 92

They’re very large-scale, often covering the entire population. For example, stats gathered by compulsory registration, such as birth and death stats, are likely to cover virtually all cases and therefore be representative.

Question 93

Apart from the use of large samples, why might official statistics provide a sound basis for making generalisations?

Answer 93

They’re only based on a sample of the relevant population and great care is taken with sampling procedures when conducting official surveys.

Question 94

According to positivists, why are official statistics reliable?

Answer 94

They’re compiled by trained staff who used standardised categories and collection techniques, and follow set procedures that can be easily replicated by others.

Question 95

Why might official statistics be unreliable?

Answer 95

Census coders may make errors or omit information when recording data from Census forms, or members of the public may fill in the form incorrectly.

Question 96

According to interpretivists, why should we treat official statistics as a topic for investigation rather than as a useful resources? Give an example to illustrate this.

Answer 96

In their view, stats are merely social constructs that represent the labels officials attach to people.

Ex: official stats on mental illness are largely a record of the number of people who consult a doctor about their problem, and whom the doctor then deems to be suffering. Thus to end up as a stat, the individual has to go through a series of social interactions.

Question 97

Briefly explain what is meant by soft statistics. Give an example.

Answer 97

• Tend to give a less valid picture of reality.
• Often complied from the administrative records created by state agencies such as the NHS.
• Represent record of decisions made by agencies, rather than the real world.
• Often neglect ‘dark figure’ of unrecorded cases.
• Ex: schools may keep a record of racist incidents, but pupils don’t report every incident, and teachers don’t record all those that are reported.

Question 98

Briefly explain what is meant by hard statistics. Give an example.

Answer 98

• Provide a more valid picture.
• Ex: they include stats on births, deaths, marriages and divorces.
• While a small number of births and deaths go unrecorded, we can place a high level of trust in the validity of hard stats.
• This is because: there is little dispute as to how to define the categories used to collect data (e.g death, divorce). Also, they’re often created from registration data.

Question 99

Briefly explain how the Marxist view of official statistics differs from the positivist view.

Answer 99

Marxists reject the positivists claim that official stats are objective facts.

Question 100

Briefly explain how the Marxist view of official statistics differs from the interpretivist view.

Answer 100

Marxists don’t see official stats as merely the outcome of the labels applied by officials. Instead they regard them as serving the interests of capitalism.

Question 101

Identify three ways in which Marxists see official statistics as performing an ideological function.

Answer 101

• Politically sensitive data that would reveal the unequal, exploitative nature of capitalism may not be published. Ex: since the 1980s, data derived from analysis of Census returns no longer includes class difference in death rates.
• The definitions used in creating official stats also conceal the true reality of capitalism. Ex: the state has frequently changed its definition of unemployment, and this has reduced the numbers officially defined as unemployment.
• Social class categories used in official stats are based on occupation. This gives the impression of a gradual hierarchy of several classes, rather than a conflict between two opposed classes.

Question 102

Briefly explain two reasons why feminists criticise the use of official statistics.

Answer 102

• Feminists such as Oakley and Graham reject the use of quantitative survey methods such as structured interviews and questionnaires because they regard this as a ‘masculine’ or patriarchal model of research. Official stats are often created using these methods.
• Official stats are created by the state, which feminists regard as maintaining patriarchal oppression. In this view, official stats are a form of patriarchal ideology - they conceal or legitimate gender inequality and maintain women’s subordination.

Question 103

Using examples, briefly explain why not all official statistics may reflect patriarchy.

Answer 103

Some stats, such as those on earnings from paid work, show clear evidence of gender inequality.

Question 104

Briefly outline why official statistics tend to present fewer ethical problems than other research methods.

Answer 104

• There are few problems with confidentiality and privacy.
• The data refers to whole groups and it’s rarely possible for the sociologist to identify actual individuals. Because of this, informed consent is largely irrelevant.
• Although individuals often have no choice about providing info, it’s the state that compels them to do so, not the sociologist.

Question 105

Give an example of an ethical issue that may be raised when using official statistics.

Answer 105

• The use of an organisation’s unpublished stats may raise ethical issues.
• Ex: if a researcher made public a school’s confidential stats on bullying, this could harm its reputation and chances of recruiting pupils.
• In such cases, informed consent and concealing the organisations identity may both be essential.

Question 106

List 5 examples of practical issues.

Answer 106

• Time and money
• The requirements of funding bodies
• The personal skills and characteristics of researchers
• The subject matter of the study
• Research opportunity

Question 107

List 5 examples of ethical issues.

Answer 107

• Informed consent
• Confidentiality and privacy
• Harmful effects
• Vulnerable groups
• Covert methods

Question 108

List 3 examples of theoretical issues.

Answer 108

• Reliability
• Validity
• Representativeness

Question 109

Which types of research methods do positivists prefer?

Answer 109

• Experiments
• Questionnaires
• Structured interviews
• Analysis of official stats

Question 110

What is a closed system?

Answer 110

Where the researcher can control and measure all the relevant variables and make precise predictions, as in physics or chemistry.

Question 111

What is a standardised measuring instrument?

Answer 111

A field yardstick that can be used by any researcher, just like a thermometer or pressure gauge is used in the natural sciences.