types of data

Question 1

describe qualitative data

Answer 1

• expressed in words
• may take form of written description of thoughts, feelings & opinions of participants (or written account of what researcher observed)
• eg. transcript from interview, extract from diary, notes recorded during counselling session
• methods of data collection are those that are concerned with interpretation of language eg. from interview or unstructured observation

Question 2

describe quantitative data

Answer 2

• expressed numerically
• collection techniques often gather numerical data from individual scores from participants eg. number of words person able to recall in memory experiment
• data open to being analysed statistically & easily converted into graphs, charts etc.

Question 3

describe primary data (field research)

Answer 3

• refers to original data that’s been collected specifically for purpose of investigation by researcher
• first-hand from participants
• gathered by conducting experiment, questionnaire, interview or observation

Question 4

describe secondary data (‘desk research’)

Answer 4

• collected by someone other than researcher
• data already exists before psychologist begins research/investigation
• sometimes data has already been subject to statistical testing & thus, significance is known
• includes data in journal articles, books or websites
• statistical information held by government (eg. census), population records or employee absence records within an organisation are examples of

Question 5

AO3 - qualitative data

Answer 5

(+)
- offers researcher more richness of detail than quantitative data as much broader in scope & gives participant/respondent opportunity to fully report on thoughts, feelings & opinions on subject
- greater external validity as provides researcher with more meaningful insight into participants perspective

(-)
- difficult to analyse as doesn’t lend itself to being summarised statistically to allow patterns & comparisons within/between data to be identified
- conclusions often rely on subjective interpretations for research which may be subject to bias, particularly if researcher has preconceptions about what they’re expecting to find

Question 6

AO3 - quantitative data

Answer 6

(+)
- relatively simple to analyse, so comparisons between groups can be easily observed
- numerical data tends to be more objective & less open to bias from the researcher

(-)
- quantitative data is much narrower in meaning & detail, so may fail to represent ‘everyday life’

Question 7

AO3 - primary data

Answer 7

(+)
- fits the job as it is authentic data obtained from participants for purpose of certain investigation
eg. questionnaires/interviews can be designed so they specifically target information that the researcher requires

(-)
- producing primary data requires time & effort from the researcher
eg. conducting an experiment requires considerable planning, preparation & resources

Question 8

AO3 - secondary data

Answer 8

(+)
- secondary data may be inexpensive & easily accessed which requires minimal effort
–> when examine secondary data the researcher may find the desired information already exists & so, there is no need to conduct collection primary data

(-)
- substantial variation between quality & accuracy of secondary data compared to primary data as information may appear valuable & promising but after further investigation, may be outdated & incomplete
–> this means the data may not match the researchers needs/objectives, which reduces the validity of any conclusions

Question 9

describe meta-analysis

Answer 9

• uses secondary data
• number of studies are identified which have investigated same hypothesis/aim
• results of studies can be pooled together to produce joint conclusion
• in the case of experimental research, if independent variable has been measured the same way, a statistical analysis can be performed to calculate an effect size (DV of a meta-analysis)
  –> this gives an overall statistical measure of difference/relationship between variables across studies

Question 10

AO3 - meta-analysis

Answer 10

(+)
- allows us to create larger, more varied sample & results can then be generalised across much larger populations which increases validity

(-)
- prone to publication bias (file drawer problem) as the researcher may not select all relevant studies, and leave out studies with negative/non-significant results
–> thus, conclusions from meta-analysis will be biased as only represent some of relevant data