Research Methods #7: Documents

Question 1

What are documents, and who are they favoured by?

Answer 1

• Documents are secondary data, favoured by interpretivists, which are created by individuals, groups and organisations.
• They mainly contain qualitative data that expresses beliefs and meanings held by an individual and/or organisation.
• Different types of documents include personal private documents and historical documents.

Question 1

What are personal documents?

Answer 1

• Personal documents take the form of diaries, memoirs, autobiographies and letters.

Question 2

What are the advantages of personal documents?

Answer 2

ADVANTAGES

• Valid - Written for personal purposes so will have a high degree of validity and provide an in-depth and genuine insight into people’s attitudes; can achieve verstehen
• Practical - They are cheap and save researcher’s time.
• lluminates many areas of social life.
• Can be used to confirm or question other interpretations and accounts.

Question 3

What are the disadvantages of personal documents?

Answer 3

DISADVANTAGES

• Some groups are unlikely to produce personal documents such as letters and diaries and so their views aren’t represented while those with time and literacy skills may be over represented.
• Personal documents such as letters are written with an audience in mind and may affect what is being recorded. Personal bias is likely to be present.
• Gatekeepers may not want to disclose their personal information and it may be hard to interpret data for personal documents that are not intended for others to see such as a personal diary.

Question 4

What are historical documents?

Answer 4

Historical documents provide evidence from the past.

Question 5

What are the advantages of historical documents?

Answer 5

ADVANTAGES

• They allow comparisons over time (for example birth, death and marriage rates)
• They are useful when assessing the outcomes of various social policies (Eg. raising the school leaving age)

Question 6

What are the disadvantages of historical documents?

Answer 6

DISADVANTAGES

• Un-representative - some documents may have been lost or destroyed
• The validity of the documents are open to question as they may have been written selectively
• The authenticity of a document is open to question as it might not have been written by the person it is attributed to, therefore undermining its reliability