Research Methods : Types of Data Flashcards
(16 cards)
Whats qualitative data?
Info concerned with describing thoughts, feeling and opinions. They’re rich in detail and may include the ‘why’ (subjective)
Advs of qualitative data?
• provides a rich insight insight + understanding of an issue
• helps explain thy why
• less reductionist
Disadvs of qualitative data
• more open to researcher bias
• harder to analyse
Whats quantitative data?
Data concerned with number and stats, and doesn’t explain the why
Advs of quantitative data
• easier to analyse + compare
• objective + scientific
• less chance of researcher bias
Disadvs of quantitative data
• the why can’t be answered
• reductionist as complex ideas reduced to numbers
Whats primary data?
Any data collected by the psychologist for their research and it’s directly relevant to their aim + hypothesis
Advs of primary data
• gathered for the study
• replicable
• taken directly from population (generalisable)
Disadvs of primary data
• researcher bias
• time + effort
• need a large sample to make it generalisable
Whats secondary data?
Any data that already exists and was originally collected for another purpose
Secondary data advs
• easier to access
• large samples may exist (Gov. data)
Secondary data Disadvs
• data may not fit with what researcher wants to find out
• may be poor quality
Nominal data
lowest level → data grouped into categories with no local order (mode)
Ordinal data
mid level → data in ranked order but values have no real meaning (subjective)
Interval data
highest level → data measured in fixed units with equal distance between points on the scale (standardised)
Ratio data
*highest level (similar to interval) → has a true value of zero
