Data

Information collected or used in research.

Information collected or used to investigate a research question.

Data is the information sociologists use to investigate the social world. A researcher studying education might want to know how subject choices differ between girls and boys. They might also want to understand why pupils make those choices.

Information collected or used in research to investigate social patterns, experiences and behaviour.

Link each strength or limitation to the research question: explain what the data would help the sociologist discover, or what it would miss.

Do not assume that numerical data is representative, or that official statistics are automatically valid. Consider how the data was collected.

Identify primary or secondary data by how the researcher obtained it, not by whether it contains numbers or words.

Information collected and analysed during research.

Information collected and used as evidence in research into society.

Sociologists use data—information collected as evidence—to investigate society. They might want to understand pupils’ experiences of school or patterns of crime in the UK. One important choice is whether to collect new information themselves or use information that already exists.

Definition

How each exam board covers it

AQA GCSE Sociology · 8192

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Eduqas GCSE Sociology · C200