Types Of Data

Question 1

Quantitive

Answer 1

• Numerical data.
  _ Usually in the form of participant scores.

Question 2

Qualitative data

Answer 2

• Expressed in words. Description, thoughts, feelings and opinions.

Question 3

Evaluation of Quantitive data

Answer 3

• Relatively simple to analyse.
• Comparisons between groups easily drawn.
• Tends to be more objective and less open to bias.
• Narrower in scope and meaning.
• Lacks ecological validity.

Question 4

Evaluation of qualitative data

Answer 4

• Rich in detail.
• Gives the participant ability to develop their thoughts and feelings.
• Greater external validity than quantitive data.
• Often difficult to analyse.
• Difficult to summarise statistically so patterns and comparisons hard to come by.
• Often subjective and open to interpretation.

Question 5

Primary data

Answer 5

• Original data that has been collected specifically for purpose of investigation by researcher.
• First hand data.
• Gathered by conducting an experiment, interview or observation.

Question 6

Secondary data

Answer 6

• Collected by someone other than the person conducting the research.
• Already exists before the psychologist begins their research.
• Often has already been subject to statically testing and therefore significance is known.
• May be located in journal articles, books or websites. Statistical info held by government, population records etc

Question 7

Evaluation of primary data

Answer 7

• Fits the job.
• Authentic data obtained from participants themselves for purpose of a particular investigation.
• Time and effort

Question 8

Evaluation of secondary data

Answer 8

• Inexpensive and easily accessed requiring minimal effort.
• May be substantial variation in quality and accuracy of secondary data.
• May be outdated or incomplete.
• Content of data may not match researcher’s needs or objectives.

Question 9

Meta-analysis

Answer 9

• Form of research using secondary data.
• Data from large number of studies, using the same research questions and methods, are combined.
• Researchers may discuss findings/ conclusions - qualitative analysis.
• May use a quantitive approach and perform statistical analysis of the combined data.
• May involve calculating the effect size which gives overall statistical measure of difference or relationship between variables across number of studies.

Question 10

Meta-analysis evaluation

Answer 10

• Allows us to view data with more confidence and results can be generalised across much larger populations.
• May be prone to publication bias. Researcher may not select all relevant studies, leaving out those with negative or non-significant results.
• Biased as it only represents some of the relevant data and incorrect conclusions are drawn.