Theory and Methods

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Theory and methods revision
- Types of data
  - Quantitative data
    - numbers and statistics
      - easy generalised to form a law of behaviour
        structured interviews
        questionnaires
    - more reliable
    - does not provide meaning behind behaviour
  - Qualitative data
    - verbal data involving opinions and meanings
    - unstructured interviews, observations and documents
    - good for researching topics
    - Open to interpretation
  - Primary
    - more valid
      - time consuming
      - could be biased/ethical
    - First hand by a researcher to perfectly suit the hypothesis
  - secondary
    - newspapers, government consensus'
      - may not be valid or reliable
        compare past and present society
- 5 key things
  - Reliability- can it be repeated in the future to get similar results
    - representativeness
      - generalisability- extent to which the findings can be applied to the population
        validity
        true to real life?
  - objectivity- all personal and emotional bias has been removed
identify a topic of interest
- gather background info
  - identify research question or hypothesis

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