Official stats

• Official stats, positivists 


  Secondary data produced by the governments/charities/businesses on a wide range of issues (crime, divorce)
• Hard stats


  Objective, politicians can't change them, e.g. births and marriages
• Soft stats


  Subjective and politicians can change them, e.g. stats on poverty, crime and employment
• Examples of official stats

  • UK Census - survey of every household carried out every 10 years
  • TV ratings
• Weaknesses on official stats

  • Lack validity, government may present stats in a biased way, manipulate to make their politics more favourable, e.g. crime stats may say more about policing than actual crime factors
  • Definitions and the way data is collected may vary, impossible to compare data, definition of unemployment changes
• Strengths

  • Practical = collected at regular intervals showing trends and patterns > cause and effect relationships. Gov. collects stats for it's own purpose, doesn't explain reason
  • Representative = good basis for generalisations and testing hypothesis > covers large numbers. Sometimes stats are manipulated to make a country look better
  • Reliable = complied in standardized way by trained staff. Could make errors
  • Valid = hard stats measure what they claim to measure, soft stats less valid (police stats don't record all crimes)