types of data

Question 1

what is qualitative data?

Answer 1

descriptive data in the form of words which records thoughts, emotions and experiences

Question 2

what are the strengths of qualitative data?

Answer 2

• Gather detailed data about respondents’ thoughts, feelings, experiences and emotions.
• Responses are more likely to be valid as responses aren’t restricted and the respondent can elaborate.

Question 3

what are the weaknesses of qualitative data?

Answer 3

• Harder and more time consuming to analyse compared to quantitative data because the mean can’t be calculated and it can’t be displayed on a graph, but Thematic Analysis can be used to quantify responses.
• Analysing qualitative data may suffer from bias as the interpretation is more subjective (open to interpretation) than compared to the analysis of quantitative data

Question 4

what is quantitative data?

Answer 4

• Data in the form of numbers, e.g. number of words recalled in the correct order in a memory test.
• Quantitative data can be Nominal, Ordinal or Interval level.

Question 5

what are the strengths of quantiative data?

Answer 5

• Easier to analyse in comparison to Qualitative data as measures of central tendency and dispersion can be calculated, displayed in a graph.
• Objective because numbers are not open to interpretation like words are, therefore less chance of bias when analysing

Question 6

what are the weaknesses of quantiative data?

Answer 6

• Data lacks detail and depth as it is in the form of numbers, respondents can’t develop answers as they can with qualitative.
• Low validity as respondents are restricted to numerical or preset responses which may not accurately represent their thoughts, feelings, experiences etc.

Question 7

what is primary data?

Answer 7

data (both qual. and quant.) gathered directly by the reseachers themselves from a group of participants using experiments, interviews, observations, etc.

Question 8

example of primary data in clinical psychology

Answer 8

• gottesman and shields collected primary data - personality, disorded thinking tests, they tested zygosity using blood and fingerprint testing
• rosenhan (1973) field study into mental health in institutions

Question 9

strengths of using primary data

+support with gottesman and shields

Answer 9

• researchers have control over the validity and reliability of the data, because the researchers have collected the data themselves
• G+S had control over the standardisation and objectivity of the tests, ensuring researcher bias didn’t affect the measurements
• targets the exact information which the researcher needs, so the data fits their aims and objectives

Question 10

weaknesses of using primary data

Answer 10

• more time consuming that secondary data because researchers have to gather the data themselves and may face practical issues and ethical considerations when working directly with patients who e.g. had mental health disorders

Question 11

what is secondary data?

Answer 11

data (both qual. and quant.) that has been gathered by other researchers. this can be accessed using peer-reviewed research articles from scientific journals or public-access statistics

Question 12

strengths of using secondary data

+support with g+s

Answer 12

• less time consuming than gathering primary data, researchers don’t have to physically conduct an experiment or interview etc.
  g+s looked at 392 patient records from a short-stay psychiatric hospital, able to narrow down to 62 patients who were twins with SZ. used hospital records and case history notes - questionnaires with twins and parents
• less ethical guidelines to consider. data used will be from piblished sources therefore consent doesn’t have to be directly gained from pps. and the data will be anonymous, therefore confidentiality is not broken.
  g+s were able to contact the patients and ask them to take part in their study, they kept their contact details confidential and the patients (?)

Question 13

weaknesses of using secondary data

+support with g+s

Answer 13

• W -> relying purely on secondary data means researchers have no way of knowing how reliable and valid the data is, this could mean conclusions are inaccurate if the original data is flawed.
• g+s - the hospital notes and case histories may have been interpreted with bias, meaning conclusions drawn by g+s are inaccurate
• W -> the primary data used in the secondary data may have been gathered some time ago, which means conclusions drawn now might not be valid since cultures and people change over time.