Research Methods: Documents

Question 1

What type of data are documents

Answer 1

Secondary data

Question 2

What are documents

Answer 2

-Any written or visual text

Question 3

What are the types of documents

Answer 3

-Personal documents
-Public documents
-Historical documents
-Mass media documents

Question 4

What are personal documents

Answer 4

-First person accounts of social events and experiences, including the writers feelings and attitudes

Question 5

Examples of personal documents

Answer 5

• Diary
• Letters
• Photo albums
• Autobiographies

E.G The Polish Peasant in Europe and America - Thomas and Znanieckis (1919)

Question 6

What are public documents

Answer 6

-Produced by organisations E.G governments, schools, businesses and charities

Question 7

What are historical documents

Answer 7

-A personal or public documents created in the past

Question 8

Examples of public documents

Answer 8

• Ofsetd reports
• Records of parliamentary debates
• Official reports of public inquiries

E.G The Black Report (1980) became a major source of info for sociologists

Question 9

Examples of historical documents

Answer 9

• Paintings
• Letters
• Diaries

Question 10

What are Scott’s aspects of assessing documents (1980)

Answer 10

-Credibility
-Represenattive
-Authenticity
-Meanign

Question 11

Practical advantages of using documents

Answer 11

-Rich in qualitative data- often provide in depth insights into people’s thoughts, feelings and experiences
-Cheap and accessible- Many are free and easy to access, saving time too
-Historical value- documents can provide data from the past that wouldn’t be available through interviews ad observations

Question 12

Practical disadvantages of documents

Answer 12

-Limited access- some documents (eg private letters may be restricted/ confidential)
-Incomplate dat- some may lack key info or contact that researchers need to fully understand

Question 13

Ethical disadvantages of documents

Answer 13

-Personal document - confidential and private. Possibly no informed consent given .
-Researchers must protect identities of individuals mentioned in sensitive documents

Question 14

Theoretical advantages of documents

Answer 14

• No researcher effect- documents are usually created for other purposes so not influenced by the presence of a researcher- avoiding the Hawthorne effect
  -Personal meaning- reveal how individuals make sense of the world, making them useful for interpretivist approaches
  -Allows for an extra check on results obtained by primary methods, providing another source of data.

Question 15

Theoretical disadvantages of documents

Answer 15

-Authenticity- some may be fake/ altered or hard to verify
-Credibility and bias- authors may present a distorted view due to personal bias, hidden agendas or social desirability
-Lack of representativeness to wider population (personal documents especially )
-Interpretation problems- can be hard to understand, especially if written in old language
-Some data maybe incomplete