L6.2-L7 Flashcards
(22 cards)
advantage of official stats
usually READILY AVAILABLE for everyone to access and use
- they cost little or nothing to access
- eg internet
advantage of official stats (sample)
REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLES are used to collect official stats
- very large samples
- eg the census = whole of UK
govt surveys are …
WELL PLANNED, ORGANISED, DETAILED
- usually involve some kind of additional research (like an interview too)
some surveys are … (time)
CONDUCTED REGULARLY
- eg monthly, yearly
- usually up to date and current
- reliable and has HIGH TEMPORAL VALIDITY
strength of official stats (easy to …)
PATTERNS and TRENDS of data are usually very easy to identify
- useful when analysing large amounts of official stats
official stats can be used …
AGAIN AND AGAIN (test retest) to look at diff variables over a period of time
- research may have MULTIPLE USES
advantage of non official stats
more research to use - not just govt data
- comparisons to official stats can be made
validity - more options for a sociologist to choose
disadvantages of non official stats (3)
typically only focus on one location
- smaller sample size
biased - they may have their own agenda
less funding - limited budget
what are non official stats
not compiled / owned by the govt
- collected by independent companies
family histories
method involves using the recorded histories left by those who experienced past events
- can take the form of sound recordings, film or old photos
- can provide insight into conditions and events from the past
advantage of family histories
ACCURATE - detailed insight into the past
- physical evidence
- sometimes there may be limited research - it’s good to have something to refer to
disadvantages of family history
LIMITED - can’t generalise it to the whole population
- only one person / family
could be OUTDATED - irrelevant
previous sociological research
rich sources of info that have been collected by other sociologists
- examine the research topic, aim, results and then decide is we want to replicate the study or extent the topic into a new area
advantage of previous sociological research
you can expand on other research
- more efficient because you have the data already
- saves time and money
- less work for you
disadvantage of previous sociological research
data may be outdated
may question the accuracy and validity
bias
John Scott’s guide for assessing secondary sources
AUTHENTICITY - whether the document is genuine
- soundness = document is complete and reliable
- authorship - who wrote the document
CREDIBILITY - amount of distortion in a document
- can relate to inaccuracy
- author may be writing about info they don’t believe in
REPRESENTATIVENESS - sociologist must be aware of how typical or untypical the documents are
- survival - many documents don’t survive well - not been stored properly
- availability - some documents aren’t readily available
MEANING
- refers to ability of researcher to understand the document
longitudinal studies
piece of research carried out over a long period of time
- focuses on tracking the process of change over time
- data collected in sequence (eg yearly)
- can be used to identify causal relationships and correlations
longitudinal studies can take various forms such as … (2)
PANEL STUDIES
- data collected from a sample selected from sampling frames (eg postcode address file)
- eg british household panel study (started in 1991, yearly)
COHORT STUDIES
- aim to study people who have the same social characteristics (eg age)
- whole group of people may be studied - school class or a sam0e of the class
methods used in longitudinal studies
interviews
focus groups
surveys
how may the research be funded ? (longitudinal)
govt funding
charities
investors
research councils
advantages of longitudinal studies (6)
comparisons over time
high in validity
high in verstehen
many variables over time
correlations
can be used to inform policy making
disadvantages of longitudinal studies (7)
people may drop out
low in reliability
quite limited - specific to the people involved
expensive
time consuming
demand characteristics
bias researcher - gets too close to pps
