Lesson 12: Types of Data

Question 1

3 diff types of data

Answer 1

Nominal
Ordinal
Interval

Question 2

What is nominal data

Answer 2

Nominal (Discrete) Data
Data are in separate categories, such as grouping people according to their favourite television show, or eye colour. The data is placed in categories and a person can only be placed in one category and not another, e.g. green eyes or brown eyes.

Question 3

What is ordinal data

Answer 3

Ordinal Data (Continuous Data)
Data are ordered in some way, for example asking people to make a list of music genres in order of liking. Or data could be ordered and placed in rank order, e.g. who scored the highest to the lowest in an IQ test.

Question 4

What is interval data

Answer 4

Ordinal Data (Continuous Data)
Data are ordered in some way, for example asking people to make a list of music genres in order of liking. Or data could be ordered and placed in rank order, e.g. who scored the highest to the lowest in an IQ test.

Question 5

What is quantitative data

Answer 5

Quantitative Data
Data that represents how much, how long or how many etc. there are of something. Data is measured in numbers of quantities. This type of data is easy to analyse but may oversimply matters.
Quantitative data includes:
 Closed questions in questionnaires collect quantitative data.
 A tally of how many times a behavioural category is seen in an observation is quantitative.

Question 6

Advantages and disadvantages of quantitative data

Answer 6

Quantitative Data
Data that represents how much, how long or how many etc. there are of something. Data is measured in numbers of quantities. This type of data is easy to analyse but may oversimply matters.
Quantitative data includes:
 Closed questions in questionnaires collect quantitative data.
 A tally of how many times a behavioural category is seen in an observation is quantitative.

Question 7

What is qualitative data

Answer 7

Qualitative Data
Data that cannot be counted or quantified.
This is data in the form of information which is lengthy and has lots of detail. Interviews, observations and open ended questions can all generate qualitative data. In addition qualitative data can also be found in: books, pictures, diaries, reports and newspapers etc.
Qualitative data is normally collected on the basis on how people think or feel. For example: how do you feel about not having home study anymore?

Qualitative data includes;
 Open questions in questionnaires collect qualitative data.
 Researchers describing what they see in an observational study.

Question 8

Advantages and disadvantages of qualitative data

Answer 8

Qualitative data includes;
 Open questions in questionnaires collect qualitative data.
 Researchers describing what they see in an observational study.

Question 9

What is primary data

Answer 9

Primary Data
Primary data is information observed or collected directly from first-hand experience. In the case of psychological research it is data collected by the researcher for the study currently being undertaken. Primary data provides the exact type of data the researcher is looking for, but takes a lot of time and effort to collect.

Question 10

What is secondary data

Answer 10

Secondary Data
Secondary data is information that was collected for another purpose. The researcher could use data collected by another psychologist/researcher but for a different study. A researcher might make use of government statistics, such as mental health statistics collected by the NHS. When the desired research already exists there is no need to conduct more research, a psychologist can just use the data that has been pre collected. However, there is substantial variation in the quality and accuracy of secondary data and it can be hard for researchers to know how reliable secondary data is.

Question 11

What is meta analysis

Answer 11

This refers to the process of combining results from a number of studies on a particular topic to provide an overall view. Researchers collect and collate a wide range of previously conducted research on a specific area. Collated research is reviewed together as a collective.
For example, The Strange Situation has been conducted many times over the years and some researchers have taken the data from all these studies, put it together and analysed it. Meta-analysis allows us to view data with much more confidence and results can be generalised across much larger populations. However, meta-analysis may be prone to publication bias; the researcher may choose to leave out studies with negative or non-significant results.