2695000
Description
Flashcards by ashiana121, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by ashiana121
over 9 years ago
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| Question | Answer |
| What type of source are documents? | Secondary |
| Who are documents created by? | Individuals, organisations or groups |
| Give some examples of personal documents | Diaries, letters, autobiographies, notes, photo albums |
| Give some examples of public documents | Government reports, charity reports, business reports that are available to the public |
| What type of data could documents contain? | Qualitative or statistical |
| Why do interpretivists use documents? | They prefer open-ended research methods that produce valid, quantitative data that allows them to see the meaning attached to events |
| Why do interpretivists regard documents as high in validity? | Because they are the freely expressed meanings of those who produce them |
| Why do positivists reject the use of documents? | They lack reliability and representativeness |
| How would positivists use documents? | Use the statistical data or convert the qualitative data into quantitative data using content analysis |
| What are 2 advantages of personal documents? | - They often have a high degree of validity because they are created for personal purpose and so provide genuine insight into peoples attitudes - Cheap and save time as they are already there |
| What are some disadvantages of personal documents? | - Some personal documents can be hard to access - Some groups are unlikely to produce personal docs and so their views are not represented whereas those with the time and skills may be over-represented - Some personal documents are created after the event with hindisght - Personal bias may be present - Some personal docs are written with an audience in mind which could affect what is recorded |
| Public documents are often what? | Plentiful, detailed, cheap and easy to access |
| Why may the contents of public documents be bias? | The publisher is aware that they are open to the public |
| What advantages comes with government funded documents like the Black Report? | They are full with data that the sociologist would have been unable to collect themselves |
| What is the only way we can study past societies with no survivors to question? | Historical documents |
| What is the disadvantage of studying historical documents? | Interpretation - meanings of words change over time |
| Why may some historical documents give an unrepresentative picture of the past? | Some are lost or destroyed |
| How can news reports be quantified? | In terms of amounts of time/space given to particular points of view |
| What doesn't content analysis tell us? | Its meaning |
| How do interpretivists get round this? | They use qualitative content analysis to examine the meanings attached to particular words and images |
| What problem does this have? | Interpretation - different researchers may interpret the same image or statement differently |
| John Scott suggests 4 tests of any document. What are these? | Meaning, authenticity, representativeness, credibility |
| What questions should be asked to test a documents authority? | Is it genuine? Is it what it claims to be? |
| What question should be asked to test a documents credibility? | Can we believe the document and the sincerity of the author? |
| "How typical is the document of a wider social group?" Is a question we could ask to test the... | Representativeness |
| Why are documents useful to sociologists? | They provide insights to social behaviour, they can provide a historical or 'insider' perspective |
| Why may documents not be useful to sociologists? | If they are limited in terms of availability, representativeness and lack of systematisation, and they may not cover all areas of sociological inrest |
| What does this mean about the position of documents in studies? | They are rarely the main element but often contribute an important dimension to the research |
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