The choice of methods used by sociologists and social researchers largely depends on their theorectical preferences. Positivists for instance largely favour methods which give Quantitative data (data that can be measured)

What is Positivism?
Positivists favour a [?] approach to sociology. They believe that society is governed by "social laws" which can be discovered through scientific . "Social Laws" influence the behaviour of social actors (individuals) and are [?] to them.
Positivists therefore favour methods like questionnaires, structured interviews and official statistics because they say they give [?], reliable quantitative data.

Criticisms
1. Some say that human behaviour is influenced more by the between individuals than by external social laws. Such sociologists are referred to as Interactionist sociologists