Primary And Secondary Sources Of Information

Question 1

Primary data

Answer 1

Produced/ generated by the researcher themselves

Question 2

Secondary data

Answer 2

Already exists, to be analysed by the researcher

Question 3

Strengths of Primary Data

Answer 3

• know how and when the information was gathered
• design the data- gathering specifically for own purposes
• it’s up to date

Question 4

Limitations of Primary data

Answer 4

Time consuming and expensive

- difficult to access a representative sample

Question 5

Strengths of secondary data

Answer 5

Hard work has already been done

• very large samples
• sometimes free to access

Question 6

Limitations of secondary data

Answer 6

No control over data gathering

• gathered for a different purpose/ not to answer the research question
• outdated

Question 7

Examples of primary data

Answer 7

Surveys, interviews, observations, experiments

Question 8

Secondary data examples

Answer 8

Official statistics and personal/ historical documents