welcome to this cheetah to you sociology topic video looking at theory and methods focusing on quantitative and qualitative methods in this video we're going to look at the differences between quantitative and qualitative data including which methods produce which type of data and which groups of sociologists prefer which type of data and how useful quantitative and qualitative data are we'll also look at which form of data is the most useful in understanding contemporary society but first of all we need to define what is meant by quantitative and qualitative data quantitative data is data that is able to be presented in numerical form and is more objective in nature it can be analyzed in conclusions drawn that are more likely to be reliable and it can be repeated to see trends over time qualitative data is more contextual data and is often presented in written verbal or visual formats and therefore open to interpretation it offers researchers more of an insight or vish staying into the lives of others and has greater validity sociological researchers look to collect these types of data in their research but what type of data they require is often based upon their preferred methodology for conducting research positivists are more likely to use methods that generate quantitative data as this form of data is preferred in observing social facts and allows the research to establish trends and patterns of behavior methods that generate quantitative data can easily be replicated which means that researchers will be able to use the same methods to measure trends over time and across different cultures it tends to be used on a larger scale to look at wide-ranging social issues interpretivists on the other hand prefer the use of methods that collect qualitative data this is because they are looking for the meanings and motivations behind people's behaviors and these are more likely to be expressed in words and through images and symbols as it is relatively time consuming to collect and analyze the methods collecting qualitative data are smaller in scale due to the nature of individual responses being different it's unlikely that these methods will be able to be replicated with similar findings and instead these methods focus more on the experiences and perspectives of smaller groups and individuals rather than being able to be generalized to the entire population we'll look first at some of the methods that produce quantitative data these tend to be more structured in nature and often the researcher is detached from the research subjects to allow for an objective viewpoint approaches used in natural sciences such as experiments both lab or controlled and field experiments usually produce quantitative data in these experiments the independent variable is manipulated and the dependent variable measured they are also usually subjected to statistical tests to assess the probability of the results being achieved by chance questionnaires are another method to produce quantitative data if the questions have been pre-coded and have a finite number of responses or closed questions responses can easily be analyzed and trends and patterns organized into charts tables and graphs and the same is true of opinion polls and other surveys that can assess an individual's intended behaviors or past behaviors and these can be collated and represented through percentages in charts and diagrams non-participant observations do not exclusively produce quantitative data but they can be used in a structured manner to observe the frequency of behaviors over a period of time which produces quantitative data official statistics usually compiled from other quantitative methods and compiled by the office for national statistics in the uk is another source of quantitative data and finally content analysis while using qualitative data as an input images in magazines representations on television and movies it produces a quantitative data out let's look at some of the uses of quantitative data well they're widely used by governments in the reporting of social trends health education crime unemployment welfare and this data is then used for planning budgets for different governmental departments and for introducing new social policies to tackle any issues that might arise opinion polls predominantly used in political reporting show the voting intentions of the electorate or their attitudes to social issues such as brexit fear of crime health care in education we see lots of quantitative data used lead tables exam results university admissions broken down by gender ethnicity and receipt of free school meals and in the private sector and charities statistics are often referred to as unofficial statistics are used in marketing funding projects on specific areas or specific social issues or as a discussion point in the media looking at qualitative methods the methods that produce qualitative methods are participant observations whether these are covert or overt and some non-participant observations where people's actions opinions motivations and insights are recorded transcribed and analyzed unstructured interviews the flexible nature of these allows for a broader range of responses which are usually recorded by researchers then transcribed and analyzed questionnaires with open questions these are where the respondent can expand upon their opinions usually in written form providing a range of qualitative responses to researchers to analyze secondary sources those that are not produced with the intention of being researched such as personal documents things like reports diaries medical histories and historical documents which give us an insight into the lives of those in the past are two forms of qualitative data another method is case studies now these are usually a mix of data sources but take the form of an in-depth research into an individual or group usually a case that is seen as an anomaly it doesn't fit into the normal behavior patterns and the finding of these case studies are often presented in a qualitative format ethnographic approaches utilize quality of data photographs videos blogs as well as methods such as unstructured interviews and journals diaries and other forms of media such as tv websites films articles and documentaries produce qualitative data that researchers may use the main advantage of using qualitative data is the ability to gain an insight into the different perceptions of people and the meanings and motivations behind their behavior secondary sources particularly historical documents allow us to access views that other methods would not allow us to do these personal and historical documents can reveal interesting changes and attitudes over time and help us to understand the process of social change qualitative methods are also useful in gaining the views of those who are underrepresented in society or hard to access covert observations with criminals may reveal why people turn to crime while unstructured interviews with victims of crime might reveal the impacts of criminals actions a final use of qualitative research is in informing other research sociologists when they conduct research will look to other work in that field to inform some of their ideas and using articles books and journals written by others in that field are invaluable to moving forward on knowledge of society so which method is better for studying contemporary society the answer to that question depends upon your theoretical perspective as both have their uses structural theorists prefer quantitative data in their research as it allows them to see the big picture in society whereas social action theories prefer qualitative data as it offers them an insight into the experiences of those they are studying while a lot of research in contemporary society is focused upon the experiences of individuals there are still important quantitative research projects for example the census which informs governments of future planning and allows different departments to plan for the future as we've seen in families education and health care however quality of data is better suited to the diverse range of individuals in the late modern and post-modern society a greater focus on the individualism means that individual experiences will differ from one person to the next and qualitative methods often target those that are ignored in society bringing new voices to the discussion of social issues perhaps the most complete way of researching society is to combine these methods increasing the validity by using qualitative methods and the reliability by using quantitative ones this is referred to as methodological pluralism researchers will combine methods such as using official statistics to analyze areas of poverty and then conducting unstructured interviews with people in those areas to see how poverty impacts on on their lives willis's learning to labor is an example of this using a mixture of questionnaires observations and unstructured interviews he investigated the experiences of working class boys that were part of an anti-school subculture another example is the now common use of both open and closed questions on questionnaires collecting quantitative data that illustrates a person's preference or behavior then asking open questions to find out why that is the case and as with many aspects of research in sociology perhaps the best way of viewing society is through combining these approaches that concludes this cheetah to you sociology topic video on theory and methods looking at quantitative and qualitative methods thanks for watching