primary, secondary, quantitative, qualitative methods

Question 1

What is primary data?

Answer 1

information collected by sociologists themselves for their own purposes

Question 2

What is an example of primary methods?

Answer 2

• social surveys
• participant observation
• experiments

Question 3

What is an advantage of using primary data?

Answer 3

can gather precise information

Question 4

What is a disadvantage of using primary data?

Answer 4

can be costly and time consuming

Question 5

What is secondary data?

Answer 5

information that has been collected by someone used by other sociologists for their own purposes

Question 6

What is an example of secondary methods?

Answer 6

• official statistics
• documents

Question 7

What is an advantage of using secondary data?

Answer 7

quick and easy as data has already been produced

Question 8

What is a disadvantage of using secondary data?

Answer 8

may not provide the exact information that the sociologist needs

Question 9

What is quantitative data?

Answer 9

refers to information in a numerical form

Question 10

What are examples of quantitative data?

Answer 10

official statistics - for example, how many girls passed five GCSE’s or more (structured interviews, questionnaires)

Question 11

What is qualitative data?

Answer 11

gives further detail about official statistics - for example, what it felt like to get good GCSE results (participant observation, unstructured interviews, newspaper articles)