Evaluation

• positivism focuses on objective measures that can be replicated, which makes them highly reliable
• positivism understands the impact of social structures and socialization on individuals, behaviour can be understood in the context of the society individuals live in
• prefers to uncover trends, patterns and correlations, which can help to identify social issues on a large scale
• often uses large samples so findings can be generalised onto the wider or whole population. This also means that findings are highly representative
• involves a complete statistical analysis based on which reserachers can make predictions
• involves more efficient methods of data collection; surveys and questionnaires can be automated, easily entered into a data base and further manipulated
• views humans as too passive. even if social structures influence behaviour, they aren't as predictable as positivists believe
• disregards social context and human individuality
• qualitative data makes it hard to interpret data without context
• researcher bias in interpretation or collection of data