Examine the Disadvantages Some Sociologists May Find When Using Official Statistics in Their Research

Examine the disadvantages some sociologists may find when using official statistics in their research

Official statistics are a secondary method of gaining data which are highly supported by Positivists but not so much by Interpretivists for a variety of reasons. The usages of official statistics come with many disadvantages as well as advantages.

One reason Positivists support the use of official statistics is that they allow quantitative data to be gathered. However, Interpretivists, such as Maxwell Atkinson argue that due to this, qualitative data cannot be gathered which can reduce the validity of the findings. Sociologists cannot find meanings nor gain insight about sociological topics of interest through the use of official statistics.

Official statistics are produced from a variety of reasons, for example to see the number of racist cases in schools. However, certain topics of interest for a sociologist may not have any official statistics available. Due to this, sociologists would need to find another means of research.

Most, if not all, official statistics are produced by the Government. This may not allow accessibility to certain sociologists for their research which will not allow research to commence. This is because some of the official statistic figures may only be of use to certain organisations or institutions such as schools or hospitals.

Official statistics are based on certain definitions that are familiar to society. For example, racism is defined as being prejudice against a particular race. This delimitation is known nationally. However, sometimes, governments can change these definitions and so they do not match the sociologist’s definition of racism, for example. Due to this, the official statistics produced do not actually account for what the sociologist is interested in. This, therefore, reduces the validity of the official statistics as they may not be real. Also, certain definitions may be misunderstood, which can also lead to a decrease in validity.

Although generally the reliability of official statistics is seen to be high, some errors maybe made in the collection or printing of the figures which can considerably reduce reliability.

Official statistics do cover a large population making the samples generally representative. However, official statistics produced from official surveys, such as the British Crime Survey may be less representative as they are only based on the relevant population. Sociologist cannot always be certain that the official statistics are produced from a representative sample and therefore they cannot make accurate generalisations.

As official statistics are a secondary method of gathering data, it may be said that they are not fully reliable as other people may have been subjective or bias in the collection of the data and sociologists would not even be aware of this.

Finally Marxists argue that official statistics serve capitalism. They argue that the statistics that the state produces are part of the ruling class ideology. For example, they argue that the state has changed the official definition of unemployment so that the figures disguise the real levels of unemployment. Due to this, the validity of the data is also reduced and is highly biased favouring the ruling class and mocking the working class.

Overall, although the use of official statistics does have many advantages such as being cheap, generally easy to access avoids ethical issues etc, they do come with many disadvantages that a sociologist needs to consider before using them in their research.