Choice of Method

Positivism and interpretivism 

• Positivists – argue that society is an objective and measurable reality that exists out there. Our behaviour is the result of social forces shaping our behaviour and their aim is to discover the causes of our behaviour. They like quantitative data as it is reliable and representative.  
• Interpretivists - claim there is no objective social reality, there is just subjective meanings that people give to events. The aim of research is to uncover actor’s meanings and view of the world. They prefer qualitative research as it produces valid data.  

The key concepts  

• Reliability – the method must be able to be replicated. A reliable method creates data that can be used to re-test hypotheses about social behaviour.  
• Representativeness – researchers choose to study a sample of the population as a large…