2. Primary And Secondary Data

Question 1

What is primary data?

Answer 1

• primary data is information collected directly from participants by researchers for their own research aim
• this will obtain first-hand knowledge of behaviour to test a specific hypothesis

Question 2

what are possible sources of primary data?

Answer 2

• questionnaires
• experiments
• observational data

Question 3

What are two strengths of primary data?

Answer 3

• primary data is a reliable source because the researcher can replicate the procedure to check the results
• The chances that it will also be more up to date. Data gathered years previously is less likely to provide reliable answers to the questions your data needs to address

Question 4

What are two weaknesses of primary data?

Answer 4

• researchers may be subjective in what kind of data they look for, in particular data that fits the hypothesis they are trying to test
• data has to be gathered from scratch which involves finding a large enough population and in turn gaining a large volume of data - more costly and time consuming than secondary data

Question 5

What is secondary data?

Answer 5

• data that has been collected or created by someone else for their own purposes, which the researcher can recycle
• hence, secondary data is not directly gathered from p’s

Question 6

what are possible sources of secondary data?

Answer 6

• previously published research
• national statistics
• a special type of secondary data is known as a meta-analysis

Question 7

What are two strengths of secondary data?

Answer 7

• it saves time and expense that would otherwise be spent collecting data
• it can provide a larger database than an individual researcher could hope to collect

Question 8

What are two weaknesses of secondary data?

Answer 8

• the researcher cannot personally check the data so its reliability may be questioned
• the researcher may have no knowledge of how the data was collected and has no control over it. Therefore they do not know anything about its accuracy or its bounds of error

Question 9

Explain the difference between primary and secondary data?

Answer 9

Primary data refers to data that has been collected directly by the researcher from participants solely for the purpose of their investigation. However, secondary data is information that someone else has collected from people not in the study e.g. the work of other psychologists that has been published in journals or government statistics