13 - Types of Data

Question 1

Define nominal ( discrete data )

Answer 1

Data are in separate categories

Question 2

What are the two type of continuous data?

Answer 2

Ordinal and interval

Question 3

Define ordinal data

Answer 3

Data is ordered, but the difference between each item is not the same.

Question 4

Define interval data

Answer 4

Data are measured using units of equal intervals

Question 5

Define quantitative data

Answer 5

Represents how much / how long / how many there are of something.

Measured in numbers of quantities.

Easy to analyse, but may oversimplify matters.

Question 6

Define qualitative data

Answer 6

Data that can’t be counted or quantified .

Question 7

How can you turn qualitative data into quantitative data?

Answer 7

Place the data into categories and count the frequency

Question 8

Define primary data

Answer 8

Information observed/ collected directly from first - hand experience by the psychologist FOR the study currently being undertaken.

Provides the exact data required, but takes time and effort

Question 9

Define secondary data

Answer 9

Information collected for a purpose other than the current use.

Substantial variation in the quality and accuracy. Hard for researchers to know how reliable secondary data is.

Question 10

Define meta - analysis

Answer 10

Process of combing results from a number of studies on a particular topic to provide an overall view.

Allows us to view data with much more confidence and results can be generalised to larger populations.

However it is prone to publication bias : the researcher may choose to leave out studies with negative or non - significant results.