Gathering, Processing, and Presenting data 19 Flashcards
Primary data
Primary data is collected from firsthand sources. An organisation can use techniques like Questionnaires and Interviews to collect primary data all organised and managed by the organisation. An example would be a school running a questionnaire to its own students about what food to serve in the canteen.
What is Secondary data
Secondary data is data that has been collected and generated from other sources/ organisations or for other scenarios. This can include surveys or studies run by other companies/ governments. An example could be a school using government statistics/ surveys about healthy eating or other schools menus to help decide what food to serve in its own canteen.
For data to be useful it must be reliable, this means it must be:
Complete- all data must be there so that incorrect decisions will be limited e.g. a sales revenue report with missing months.
Accurate- all data must be correct and truthful. This is easier to achieve from primary sources as you collect these when you need the data and secondary data needs to be confirmed from a trustworthy source. E.g. how long ago was the data collected in that secondary report.
Different ways of presenting data
Questionaire
Focus Group
Interview
Questionaire
Normally a series of questions, usually closed ended with check box answers. Can be online or paper based
Focus Group
A group of volunteers brought together to discuss a series of questions about a product or idea.
Measures the potential impact of a product.
Interview
An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers. Interview are normally one-to-one and face-to-face. Can be online via Zoom, TEAMS etc
Questionnaire Adv
Can target larger amounts of people
Should be less time-consuming
Responses can be easily analysed
Data can be gathered more easily
Questionnaire disadv
Low response rate compared to other methods
Questions can be misunderstood
Can be expensive to produce/send
No opportunity to clarify respondents responses
Focus Group Adv
To clarify and test pre-conceived notions and findings
Understand met and unmet needs in the group
Hear customer feedback in their own words and voices
Uncover ideas and issues that initially may nay not have been considered – but are important to the customer.
Discover the decision making process.
Focus group Disadv
Expensive to execute as a premises will need to be rented to hold the meeting and a moderator will need to be hired to organise the group and source the participants.
Dishonest answers will be common as participants may feel embarrassed to reflect their true thoughts and feelings therefore results may be incorrect.
Hard to record data as it is not possible to record on paper when many individuals are speaking at the same time as there will be too many people to keep track of. It is also too difficult to record with a tape recorder as it may only record those who are closest to it.
Interview Adv
Time saving
Less costly
Easier to collect information
In depth answers
Can be done anywhere with anyone all over the world due to technology.
Interview Disadv
Expensive as interviewers needs to be hired and paid & a premises needs to be rented to carry out an interview.
Very time consuming as each interview is carried out individually and it takes time to prepare questions for the interview.
May be bias as answers may be persuaded by interviewers’ reaction therefore data will be inaccurate.
