Sunday, 2 November 2014

Primary and Secondary Research

PRIMARY RESEARCH
It has first-hand-experience data.It is unpublished and is more reliable, authentic and objective. Primary data has not been changed or altered by human beings, therefore its validity is greater than secondary data.



METHODS
Focus Groups – bring together respondents with common characteristics 
Observation - actually view respondents
Experiment - controlled variables and respondent groups.
Non-personal survey – on site, telephone, mail, fax, computer, panel
Personal interview - one-on-one survey with respondents
Official records – internal document survey research

MERIT
Degree of accuracy is quite high.
It does not require extra caution.
It depicts the data in great detail.
Primary source of data collection frequently includes definitions of various terms and units used.
For some investigations, secondary data are not available.

DEMERIT
Collection of data requires a lot of time.
Large financing required.
Primary data not successful for certain type of inquiries.
Requires a labour and skill.


SECONDARY RESEARCH
It has data that has already been collected by others. These are usually in journals, periodicals, dailies, research publications, official records etc. Secondary data may be available in the published or unpublished form. When it is not possible to collect the data by primary method, the investigator go for Secondary method.



METHODS
Unpublished Personal Records
Diaries
Letters
Government Records
Census Data/population statistics:
Health records
Educational institutes records
Public Sector Records
NGOss survey data
Other private companies records

MERIT
Use is very convenient
Saves time and finance.
In some enquiries primary data cannot be collected.
Reliable secondary data are generally available for many investigations.

DEMERIT
Very difficult to find sufficiently accurate secondary data.
Very difficult to find secondary data which exactly fulfils the need of present investigation.
Extra caution is required to use secondary data.
Not available for all types of enquiries.


1 comment:

  1. Survey analysis is often presumed to be difficult - the reality may not be so. Survey analysis in a survey research can be classified into two - quantitative and qualitative data analysis. This article tries to throw light on the basic differences between the two techniques. See more types of data primary and secondary

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