Types Of Data

Question 1

What is quantitative data?

Answer 1

Numerical data
Usually gathers numerical data in the form of individual scores from participants

Examples- self report methods, closed questions

Question 2

What is qualitative data?

Answer 2

Non numerical data
Typically in form of descriptions
Examples - self report methods, unstructured interviews , open ended questionnaires

Question 3

What is primary data?

Answer 3

Primary data - is data that is gathered directly, first-hand from the participants themselves and is collected specifically for the purpose of the investigation by the researcher. The data is specific to the aim of the study and has not been published before. For example, data collected from an interview.

Question 4

What is secondary data ?

Answer 4

Secondary data - is data that has been previously collected by a third party, someone other than the person who is conducting the research; is not specifically for the aim of the study and is then used by the researcher. It can be data that has been collected for another piece of research, which has been published before or data that already exists before the research has begun. For example, data from journal articles or government statistics.

Question 5

What is meta analysis ?

Answer 5

A meta-analysis is a statistical technique for combining the findings of several studies, which focus on the same research question and methods of research. Meta-analyses use secondary
data.

Strengths

Analysing the results from a group of studies rather than from just one study can allow more reliable conclusions to be drawn.

Weakness

The research designs in the
different studies sampled may vary considerably which means the studies are not truly comparable, this means the conclusions from a meta-analysis are not always valid.