It is important for students and researchers in the social sciences and other fields to understand the function of secondary data sources. Distinguishing between primary and secondary data sources is crucial to the integrity of a particular study. The key to the distinction is who is doing the data collection and why. Primary data sources are collected by professional from research paper writing service for use in his or her own study, while secondary data sources come from elsewhere, and were originally collected with a different aim in mind. Secondary data sources can provide important background and statistical support for primary research.
What are Primary Data Sources?
Primary data sources comprise data collected by researchers during a particular study in order to answer specific questions. For instance, a social scientist interested in workplace culture might conduct oral interviews with employees at a large company.
What are Secondary Data Sources?
Secondary data sources are data sets collected by a third party, including other researchers or a government body, that are then applied by a researcher to his or her inquiry. An economist might use federal census data, for example, to track historical changes in income among working women.
What are the Advantages of Using Secondary Data Sources?
Secondary data sources can be very useful to researchers in marketing, economics, and the social sciences. First, some secondary data sources may directly pertain to the question being asked by the researcher in his or her own study. In addition, secondary data sources provide useful background information on the population being investigated. Third, secondary data sources can be used to generate hypotheses. Finally, secondary data sources may allow a researcher to examine a large data set using less time and money than primary research would demand.
What are the Potential Pitfalls of Using Secondary Data Sources?
While secondary data sources may be beneficial, they can also pose problems. Before using a secondary data source, a researcher must make sure that he or she understands its position or bias, and that the secondary source's definitions of variables match his or her own. Secondary data sources may also vary in reliability, depending on where they came from and how old they are. Finally, the parameters of data collection may make a secondary source inappropriate for use by a particular researcher. The United States census, for instance, is only collected every ten years, and thus is a poor source for an investigator wishing to track demographic changes over a smaller period of time.
Most research papers in marketing, economics, and the social sciences cite both primary and secondary data sources. Primary data sources were collected for the paper at hand; secondary sources originated elsewhere, and were collected for an unrelated study. Both types of data sources have an important role in the research process. Secondary data sources can help formulate a study's hypotheses, and familiarize researchers with the population they're investigating. Primary research, meanwhile, allows researchers to tailor data collection to their particular area of interest.
Event date & time: 26.04.2020 at 14:30
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