Statistics techniques are often used in quantitative sociology, since it deals with population studies and not cases of particular individuals. Statistics provides formulas and procedures to establish direction and strength of the correlations studied among variables, within acceptable confidence limits. Statistics packages for PC’s are readily available, such as spread sheets, SPSS, STATISTICS, SAS, STATA, QUATRO PRO, etc.
Qualitative social research techniques that do not require statistical handling, since they study cases involving in-depth analysis, life histories, detailed interviews, opinion scales, speech analyses, empirical observation, and documental research. All of these allow the formulation of a conceptual body to explain and integrate a theory frame for any investigation.