Sociology - positivists and interpretivists

• Do positivists prefer quantitative data or qualitative data

  Quantitative
• Do they prefer reliability or validity

  They prefer reliability
• What does reliability mean?

  When repeated should get similar or same results
• Examples of quantitive data

  Surveys

  Questionnaires

  Official statistics
• Why do positivists prefer quantitive data

  Allows researcher to remain detached from the respondents
• Do Positivists aim to be scientific or non scientific

  Scientific because it's "detached" "value free" objective
• What do positivists believes shapes individuals

  Society's shapes the individuals (Durkheim- social facts "value consensus " the norms)
• Do interpretivists prefer quantitive or qualitative data

  Qualitative
• What methods gain qualitative data

  Unstructured interviews

  Participant observation
• Why do interpretivists like qualitative data

  Allows researcher to gain a close interaction with respondents

  Gain in dept sight into lives of respondents
• Do interpretivists prefer validity or reliability

  Validity
• What does validity mean

  Results are accurate

  Produces a genuine picture of what something is like

  Eg going to observe someone more valid view of what's it's going to like than a questionnaire
• Do they want scientific or non scientific

  Non scientific
• Why do they want to be non scientific

  Because they want a deeper meaning of somethings and not just statistics as they want to know the Meaning behind things they want to feel empathy for participants
• What the key concept called that means " putting up yourself in particpents shoes"

  Verstehan
• What do interpretivists believe about society and individuals


  They believe individuals shape society