Why do positivists like official statistics?
Official Statistics are favoured by Positivists because they allow us to spot trends, find correlations and make generalisations. They also allow the research to remain detached so there is less room for the subjective bias of the researcher to interfere with the research process.
How are official crime statistics collected?
Definition: Crime statistics are drawn from the records that are kept by the police and other official agencies, these records are published every six months by the Home office. Official statistics are useful for revealing long terms patterns in crime as they have been collected since 1857.
What is the difference between official and unofficial statistics?
Unofficial data are data that either guide research surreptitiously, or do not guide research but should. By contrast, official data are those empirical findings reportable in scientific publications, susceptible to statistical analysis and believed to be replicable.
What is the advantage of statistical methods?
The statistical analysis brings in numerous benefits to make the best usage of the vast data available, such as assisting in market research, product development, mapping out the company’s growth rate, improve the efficiency of the company, etc.
What are the importance and limitations of statistics?
Limitations of Statistics Statisticians improve the quality of data with the design of experiments and survey sampling. (iii) Statistics laws are true on average. Statistics are aggregates of facts. So single observation is not a statistics, it deals with groups and aggregates only.
What are the advantages of official statistics?
Advantages of official statistics are that they are likely to involve a much larger sample than a sociologist could ever achieve (often referring to the entire target population rather than a sample of it) and it is free and accessible, so therefore practical.
What are the advantages of statistical tools?
Statistical methods have done more for us than make it practical to measure the reliability of results. They have pro- vided methods of testing technique and have made possible the design of more efficient and more comprehensive experiments.
What are the limitation of statistics?
Statistics deal with groups and aggregates only. 2) Statistical methods are best applicable to quantitative data. (3) Statistics cannot be applied to heterogeneous data. (4) If sufficient care is not exercised in collecting, analyzing and interpreting the data, statistical results might be misleading.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of official statistics?
Advantages of official statistics: cheap; wide coverage; reliable; available. Disadvantages of official statistics: rigid; definitions; selective; sampling. The social construction of official statistics. Example: crime and criminal statistics.
What are non official statistics?
Non-official statistics refers to numerical data collected and published by a variety of public and private organisations (the Rowntree Foundation, for example, publishes statistics on poverty).
Why do sociologists use statistics?
Sociologists use statistical analysis to study social and cultural issues and changes in society. Statistical analysis is helpful when researchers need to measure things, examine relationships, make predictions, test hypotheses, develop theories, make comparisons, describe phenomena, and explore issues.
How often are official statistics collected?
We design and run the census in England and Wales every 10 years. We also work with the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland and Scotland to carry out the census of population. We also provide a service for you to request specific information.