Week Three

Question 1

What is primary research

Answer 1

Originated by the researcher for the specific purpose of addressing the problem at hand.

e.g. Interviewing students to determine satisfaction with their Internet Service Provider

Question 2

What is secondary research

Answer 2

Data that has been collected for purposes other
than the problem at hand….which might be useful

e.g. Academic Literature Review

Question 3

What does a literature review do?

Answer 3

1) analyses the current state of knowledge

2) identifies gaps in knowledge (think of a brick wall)

Question 4

When is a literature review conducted?

Answer 4

generally prior to primary research but

for QUANTITATIVE prior to primary data
collection to guide research design

and for QUALITATIVE might be after primary data
collection
(or it could be the single source of data)

Question 5

What is the purpose of a literature review (or any secondary research)?

Answer 5

Someone else may already have looked at this
problem.

if they have, there is no point “reinventing the wheel”

you can save time and money

Question 6

Name the types of refereed journal articles

Answer 6

 Empirical (research) studies {exploratory, descriptive, explanatory}
 Conceptual papers (theory with no empirical backing)
 Case studies
 Literature reviews
 Book reviews and conference reports

Question 7

What is the structure of a qualitative journal article? (doubt this would be on the exam, but oh well)

Answer 7

1. Introduction
2. Literature review
3. Methods
4. Results
5. Discussion

Question 8

why are textbooks not as reputable as journal articles

Answer 8

Most textbooks, edited books and conference
papers are not refereed as rigorously.
i.e. not peer reviewed.

Question 9

name sources of secondary data

Answer 9

WWW, databases, bibliographies, government,

business reports…