Topic 1 - Choosing a research method

Topic 1 - Choosing a research method

1. Primary and secondary sources of data

   • Primary data
     • Social surveys: questionnaires or interviews
     • Participant: The sociologist joins in
     • Experiment: usually field and the comparative method
   • Secondary data
     • Official statistics produced by the government
     • Documents such as letters, emails, diaries, photos, the internet etc

2. Quantitative and qualitative data

   • Quantitative data - information in a numerical form