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Research methods - Topic 3 - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Interpretivists argue stats aren't objective facts but are social constructions (product of process of interpretation and decision making by those with authority - treat statistics with caution:
        
        Health Statistics
        
        They depend on people persuading doctors they are ill = doctors decision making
        
        Doctors may diagnose an illness/death incorrectly - reflecting state of doctors knowledge (stats may not be accurate)
        
        AIDS deaths recorded as other diseases like pneumonia before AIDS was discovered
        
        Not all sick people go to the doctor and not all people that persuade doctors they are ill actually are (hypochondriacs)
        
        Private medicine = makes profit (more likely to diagnose illness - patients receive treatment producing profit)
        
        Crime Statistics
        
        Often Inaccurate (don't show full extent of crime in society)
        
        They only include crimes known to the police - 1/4 crimes get reported, there's a 'dark number' of unreported crimes
        
        Low clear-up rates
        
        Only about 1/4 of all crimes reported to the police and recorded by them as 'cleared up' - offender identified with taken action
        
        75% of known offences are committed by very different criminal types from those who come before the court
        
        Unreported Crime
        
        People may not report offences to the police
        
        Suicide Statistic
        
        Atkinson and other interpretivists argue that suicide statistics are social constructions representing coroners, doctors, relatives - and their definition of suicide (they tell more about the decision - making process of living than the intentions of the dead and the real numbers of suicide
      - Attempts to overcome the inadequate statistics of official crime and make more accuracy using victim surveys to discover the 'dark number' of unrecorded crime
      - Produced by the state - public statistics may be 'massaged' - not accurate (avoids political embarrassment) - affects what stats are collected and which aren't - makes questions on validity
      - Collected for admin purposes rather than sociological, definitions and classifications adopted may be unsuitable for that reason
    - - Avoids any ethical issues, publicly available, unlikely to breach personal confidence or cause harm to individuals
      - Background material for other issues that will be studied - identifying a hypothesis for investigation
      - Allows intergroup / international comparisons (between working and middle class, family size, divorce)
      - Covers a long lifespan, allows the examination of trends over time - can be used for 'before and after' studies
      - Often comprehensive in coverage, large samples - more likely to represent
      - Important for planning and evaluating social policy (responding to housing needs, transport and education planning and meeting care needs of elderly)
    - - Before recorded it has to have been:
        
        Observed
        
        Identified as a crime
        
        Reported
        
        Investigated
        
        Dealt with by court
        
        At each stage people make decisions - not a factual process but a subjective one based upon opinions
- - - - Content Analysis
        
        RM = Primary data from study of secondary qualitative sources
        
        Done through sorting categories and looking through documents (analysing content)
        
        Glasgow Media Group
        
        Analysed tv news bulletins over a year - categorised them and evaluated them
        
        Showed media is biased towards managers (calm surrounding) and against workers (busy and noisy)
        
        Gave impression that managers are more rational (research challenged media’s claims of impartiality
        
        Disadvantages:
        
        Depends in category the researcher chooses
        
        Mainly concerned with describing things, not explaining it
        
        Interpretation differs on the researcher so it doesn’t fit into a category
        
        Advantages:
        
        Cheap
        
        No people involvement
        
        Reilable data that others can check
        
        Enables discovery beyond things before the anaylsis (stereotyping in children’s books)
      - Credibility
        
        is evidence believable / reliable
        Media is often biased
        
        Published autobiographies from politicians = scepticism (selected material included only) promotes downplay negatives
      - Meaning
        
        What do the document mean
        
        Do they remain the same as the first product
      - Representativeness
        
        Is it complete?
        
        Anything missing (history)
        
        Government often ban publication of official records
        
        Past people couldn't read/write
        
        Secondary data represents privileged?