Assess The Value Of Quantitative Sources Of Data i

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Assess the value of quantitative sources of data in sociological research Quantitative sources of data are objective pieces of data, which leaves no room for interpretation and consequently, personal bias. Positivists prefer this type of data because they see sociology as a science, and objective data is extremely reliable. This data allows a sociologist to measure and see trends in social behaviour and thus develop laws in which the statistics reflect patterns in society. Quantitative sources of data are acquired through a variety of methods, such as questionnaires, structured interviews, experiments and official statistics. The practical advantages of these are that the data collected is not influenced by the researcher and therefore, bias is reduced. Quantitative studies can cover a huge number of people, making them reliable and representative. This is impractical in qualitative research as a great amount of time is needed in order to get data. Statistics are cheap and quick to use, as they are often published and readily available. Durkheim could access the data of many European countries in his Suicide study at little cost. Statistics furthermore produce credible and reliable sources of information, through mediums such as the government. However, the practical problems with quantitative data is that is hard to compare data that has been collected in different ways. Furthermore, data can quickly change and thus the information collected may need to be collected repeatedly, with data such as population growth. Statistics are secondary sources of data, so any errors in the data cannot be picked up by a third party so the statistics could have been altered to fit a trend or incorrectly collected and thus not valid. The ethical advantages of quantitative sources of data is that the participant will always give permission before you collect the data as they
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