Friday 6 April 2012

Official Statistics

Official statistics are a source of secondary data and are easily available to sociologists as they already exist. These statistics could be present, the recent past or distant past.
Official statistics are the statistics produced and published by the government and its agencies and are collected through government surveys, registration and record-keeping.

Advantages:
They are readily available
They cover a wide range of subjects in detail
They cover large populations, so are usually representative
They are genereally reliable
They enable comparisons to be made over time

Disadvantages:
The data may not be valid
The data may be incomplete
The data may have been altered for political purposes

9 comments:

  1. prettiest revision i've ever seen

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  2. But how is it invalid? What makes it invalid?

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    Replies
    1. Dark figures on crime etc. Not always reported

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    2. Dark figures on crime etc. Not always reported

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  3. Azim, if you are still wondering, it may not be valid if it's not true to what it set out to measure. For example, if you're doing some research and you want to find out the pass rate of a school and their data says 100%, you'd need to check their sample. If you checked the sample, and it said that they only entered 1 pupil, then this isn't a true representation of the whole school's ability to pass an exam.

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  4. Can the data collected from official statistics be qualitative as well as quantitative?

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    Replies
    1. no as the data collected is numerical making it quantative

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