Sociology Secondary Research Methods
- Created by: chlopayne
- Created on: 16-04-19 09:45
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- Secondary Sources
- Research which came from work by another researcher.
- Practical issues
- Be aware what information already exists - literature review.
- Time and money can be saved.
- If a study is concerned with social change, it most likely will have been explored.
- Problems; Issues of validity, reliability and representativeness.
- Existing sociological research
- Literature review is an evaluation of existing research.
- Highlights areas of debates or gaps in knowledge.
- Check reliability and validity.
- Check how up to date existing research into the topic is.
- Official statistics
- Mostly used by positivists, prefers quantitative data.
- Advantages; availability, identification of trends and patterns, able to make international comparisons.
- Disadvantages; data isn't collected with sociological research in mind, the way stats are collected changes over time - categories used and definitions.
- Disadvantages; reliability and validity of data, doesn't tell us why something happened.
- Personal documents (diaries/letters)
- Mostly used by interpretivists, prefers qualitative data to understand meaning and emotions.
- Advantages; availability, valid data.
- Disadvantages; not representative and nature of what was written can be affected by the intended audience.
- The mass media
- Some studies using mass media produce primary data e.g. content analysis.
- The Mass Observation Project (1981), each year volunteers contribute responses to a list of open-ended questions, covering personal and social issues.
- Content analysis, example of quantitative data. Easy and reliable, doesn't tell us the nature of the content.
- Interpretation by the researcher and conclusions may be more subjective.
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