Question

Discuss positivist (quantitative) research strategy

Answer 1

Positivism and interpretivism are the two basic approaches to research methods in sociology.

Positivist believe that the societu shapes the individuals i.e society consists of social facts which exercise coercive control over individuals, so they prefer quantitative method that requires research to be valid, reliable and representative. The purpose of the research is to discover the laws that govern human behavior.

Positivism aim to be scientific, that is to reduce explanations to alimited number of causes. They tend to look for relationships or correlations between two or more variables. This is known as the comparitive method.

Example os positivism is Darkheims's study of suicide.