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Official statistics - Research Methods - Coggle Diagram
Official statistics - Research Methods
Quantitative data collected from registration (births, deaths) and official surveys by national/local governments and agencies (churches, businesses, trade unions)
include births, deaths, marriages/civil partnerships, unemployment, crime and educational attainment figures
DISADVANTAGES
PRACTICAL DISADVANTAGES
statistics are collected for different purposes and not for the benefit of the researcher
definitions may vary to researchers
definitions may change over time which makes comparisons difficult
RELIABILITY
staff complying statistics are always open to human error/mistakes
VALIDITY
'soft' statistics are less valid such as police statistics because not all crimes are reported or recorded - dark figure of crime
attempts to fix this - Crime Survey for England and Wales and victim-studies
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
POSITIVISTS
EMILE DURKHEIM (1897) sees statistics as valuable
use official statistics to test hypotheses to discover the causes of the behaviour patterns revealed by the statistics
INTERPRETIVISTS
MAXWELL ATKINSON (1971)
argue official statistics lack validity
statistics don't represent social facts - they're socially constructed and represent the labels given to them
we should therefore investigate how they're socially constructed
MARXISTS
JOHN IRVINE (1987)
they see the state and therefore official statistics as serving the interests of capitalism
they are part of the ruling class ideology - a part of the ideas and values that help to maintain the capitalist class in power
argue official police statistics systematically underestimate the number of people taking part in demonstrations against government policies - giving the impression that there's less opposition to capitalism
ADVANTAGES
PRACTICAL ADVANTAGES
free source of huge amounts of data
saves time and money
statistics allow for comparisons among groups
shows trends over time as they're collected at regular intervals
REPRESENTATIVENESS
cover very large numbers so provide a representative sample
some are less representative than others
dependant on who collects them
RELIABILITY
complied in a standardised way by trained staff who follow set procedures
VALIDITY
'hard' statistics are valid such as births, deaths, marriages and divorces