Theoretical issues

• What do positivists believe

  .Positivists believe sociology is a science of human behaviour

  .Generalisation about human behaviour and find social facts
• What methods do positivists prefer

  .quantitative data

  .questionaires -as they aim to discover cause and effect patterns

  .interested in how structures control our behaviour
• What do Interpretivists believe

  .They believe the aim is to understand any underlying thoughts ,feelings, meanings behind behaviour and research to achieve verstehen
• What methods do Interpretivists prefer

  .qualitative data

  .unstructured interviews as they want to achieve verstehen
• What are social facts

  Patterns in human behaviour that can be observed and analyses ,society is an objective factual reality made up of social facts
• what is the definition of verstehen

  empathic understanding
• What is Reliability and how is it achieved

  .Reliability is if the method can be easily repeated and you would gain the same findings

  .It is achieved by following a standardised procedure by using the same questions each time
• Why do positivists favour reliable data

  it shows the patterns in human behaviour
• What is Representativeness and how can it be achieved

  .If the sample of people in the study reflect the wider population

  .it is achieved by using a large sample so data can be generalised
• What is Generalisation

  .When the studys data can be used to reflect the wider population
• How is generalisation useful

  .only need to do smaller samples ,instead of surveying loads of people