Research Methods : Types of Data Flashcards
Whats qualitative data?
Info concerned with describing thoughts, feeling and opinions. They’re rich in detail and may include the ‘why’ (subjective)
Advs of qualitative data?
• provides a rich insight insight + understanding of an issue
• helps explain thy why
• less reductionist
Disadvs of qualitative data
• more open to researcher bias
• harder to analyse
Whats quantitative data?
Data concerned with number and stats, and doesn’t explain the why
Advs of quantitative data
• easier to analyse + compare
• objective + scientific
• less chance of researcher bias
Disadvs of quantitative data
• the why can’t be answered
• reductionist as complex ideas reduced to numbers
Whats primary data?
Any data collected by the psychologist for their research and it’s directly relevant to their aim + hypothesis
Advs of primary data
• gathered for the study
• replicable
• taken directly from population (generalisable)
Disadvs of primary data
• researcher bias
• time + effort
• need a large sample to make it generalisable
Whats secondary data?
Any data that already exists and was originally collected for another purpose
Secondary data advs
• easier to access
• large samples may exist (Gov. data)
Secondary data Disadvs
• data may not fit with what researcher wants to find out
• may be poor quality
Nominal data
lowest level → data grouped into categories with no local order (mode)
Ordinal data
mid level → data in ranked order but values have no real meaning (subjective)
Interval data
highest level → data measured in fixed units with equal distance between points on the scale (standardised)
