quantitative research methods

• practical issues

  • time and money
  • the requirements of funding bodies
  • personal skills and characteristics of researchers
  • the subject matter of the study
  • research opportunity
• ethical issues

  • informed consent
  • confidentiality and privacy
  • harmful effects
  • vulnerable groups
  • covert methods
• theoretical issues

  • reliability
  • validity
  • representativeness
• positivism and quantitative methods

  • sociology should model its research methods on the natural sciences like physics and chemistry
  • produce objective, true, scientific knowledge of society
  • positivists see society as an objective reality made up social facts that exist just like the physical world
  • social reality follows patterns that can be observed and measured e.g. social patterns of educational achievement
  • prefer quanititive methods