positivism

• Positivists see society as shaping the individual and believes social facts shape individual action
• The world should be investigated using natural sciences such as biology and physics.

  • Through scientific techniques, they can find laws that govern society
• Positivists prefer quantitative methods because they have good reliability and representativeness
• Some quantitative methods they like are:

  • Questionnaires
  • Statistics
  • Surveys
• Using quantitative methods, you can have a large overview of society, they are more interested in trends and patterns.
• In positivist research, sociologists tend to look for relationships or correlations between the two.
• A study of a quantitative method is:

  • Durkheim's study of suicide