types of data Flashcards
What is qualitative data?
Expressed in words or non-numerical, and written using the thoughts, feelings and experiences of participants.
What is an example of qualitative data?
Notes recorded during a counselling session.
What is a strength of qualitative data?
More detailed data and gives participants the opportunity to respond with full answers.
High external validity as it can be applied to real life and is more generalisable.
What is a limitation of qualitative data?
Difficult to analyse and group information together so trends become hard to identify.
Conclusions may be subjective and reliant on the researcher bias and reduced validity.
What is quantitative data?
Data that can be counted using numbers and is expressed numerically. Can be analysed into charts and graphs.
What is an example of quantitative data?
Results from a memory experiment.
What is a strength of quanititative data?
Simple to analyse as it is numbers that can be easily put into graphs and charts.
More likely to be less objective and less chance of a bias.
What is a limitation of quantitative data?
Limited data that may not give us much information in comparison, failing to represent the real events and behaviours of people in real life.
What is primary data?
Originally collected by a researcher themselves and is collected directly from the participants who have just undergone an experiment, questionnaire or observation.
What is a strength of primary data?
Can be curated in such a way that they fit the needs of the researcher.
What is a limitation of primary data?
Requires time and effort to create and may need planning and resources.
What is secondary data?
Collected by another researcher who hasn’t initially collected the research.
What is an example of secondary data?
Previous psychology experiments - journal articles, books or websites.
What is a strength of secondary data?
Inexpensive as all the materials are readily available to the researcher with minimal effort.
What is a limitation of secondary data?
Research may not always match the needs as it may be outdated or incomplete, reducing the validity.
What is a meta-analysis?
Combines the collected data from different types of studies on the topic that they themselves are researching. Identify a joint conclusion between all the studies.
What is a strength of a meta-analysis?
Samples are more varied and can be generalised to more of the population.
What is a limitation of a meta-analysis?
May be a publication bias or the file-drawer problem as the researcher may not selected all the relevant studies.
