Official statistics

Official statistics

Key Terms

• Secondary data: Data collected by someone other than the user.
• Social facts: The values, cultural norms and social structure external to the individual. 
• Quantitative: Produces mass measurable data. 

General strengths

• They give wider and more representative picture of a situation than an individual sociologist could obtain through primary research.
• They can be compared though difference periods of history and different places.
• Quick and easy to obtain. 
• Free/cheap.
• They're compiled by experts meaning they're unlikely to have errors.

General weaknesses

• Comparisons may be difficult because of different ways of categorising items. 
• Government bias.
• Methods of gaining early statistics may be unreliable and categories may vary. 
• They may not be available for some…