Full Answer
What are some examples of secondary data?
Examples of secondary data are research reports, government reports, censuses, weather reports, interviews, the Internet, reference books, organizational reports and accounting documents. Secondary data can be defined as information collected by someone other than the user. The use of secondary data helps researchers conserve resources (such as time and money) that the collection of primary ...
What is secondary data?
Secondary data is the data that have been already collected for another purpose but has some relevance to your current research needs. In other words, it has already been collected in the past by someone else, not you. And now, you can use the data. Secondary data is second-hand information. It is not used for the first time.
How to analyze secondary data?
To validate the secondary data, the researcher must determine:
- The purpose for which the data was collected
- What collection methods were used
- The specific population in the study and the validity of the sample
- The credibility of the data collector
- Any limitations of the data set
- Any political circumstances or history surrounding the data collected
What are the sources of secondary data?
What are the sources of Secondary Data?
- Govt. Publications: The Central Statistical Organization (CSO) and various state govt. ...
- International Bodies: All foreign govts and international agencies publish regular reports of international significance. ...
- Semi Govt. ...
What are the advantages of secondary data?
One of the advantages of secondary data is that they are nonreactive research (or unobtrusive research), meaning that they do not include direct contact with subjects and will not alter or influence people’s behaviors. Unlike studies requiring direct contact with people, using previously published data doesn’t require entering a population, with all the investment and potential risks inherent in that research process.
How do sociologists contribute to the discipline?
While sociologists often engage in original research studies, they also contribute knowledge to the discipline through secondary data analysis. Secondary data do not result from firsthand research collected from primary sources, but are the already completed work of other researchers. Sociologists might study works written by historians, economists, teachers, or early sociologists. They might search through periodicals, newspapers, or magazines from any period in history.
How do social scientists learn?
Social scientists also learn by analyzing the research of a variety of agencies. Governmental departments and global groups, like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics or the World Health Organization, publish studies with findings that are useful to sociologists. A public statistic like the foreclosure rate might be useful for studying the effects of the 2008 recession; a racial demographic profile might be compared with data on education funding to examine the resources accessible to different groups.
Where does secondary data come from?
As mentioned, secondary data is not limited to that from a different organization. It can also come from within an organization itself.
Why is secondary data important?
Secondary data sources are extremely useful. They allow researchers and data analysts to build large, high-quality databases that help solve business problems. By expanding their datasets with secondary data, analysts can enhance the quality and accuracy of their insights. Most secondary data comes from external organizations. However, secondary data also refers to that collected within an organization and then repurposed.
How does secondary data help you?
Secondary data can build useful relationships: Acquiring secondary data usually involves making connections with organizations and analysts in fields that share some common ground with your own. This opens the door to a cross-pollination of disciplinary knowledge. You never know what nuggets of information or additional data resources you might find by building these relationships.
How long is the data analytics course?
To learn more about data analytics, check out this free, five-day introductory data analytics short course. You can also check out these articles to learn more about the data analytics process:
Is secondary data always suited to a problem?
The data isn’t always suited to the problem at hand : While secondary data may tick many boxes concerning its relevance to a business problem, this is not always true. For instance, secondary data collection might have been in a geographical location or time period ill-suited to your analysis. Because analysts were not present when the data were initially collected, this may also limit the insights they can extract.
Can you be sure how data was collected?
You can’t be sure how the data were collected: A structured, well-ordered secondary dataset may appear to be in good shape. However, it’s not always possible to know what issues might have occurred during data collection that will impact their quality. For instance, poor response rates will provide a limited view. While issues relating to data collection are sometimes made available alongside the datasets (e.g. for government data) this isn’t always the case. You should therefore treat secondary data with a reasonable degree of caution.
Do you have to pay for secondary data?
They aren’t always free: Sometimes, it’s unavoidable—you may have to pay for access to secondary data. However, while this can be a financial burden, in reality, the cost of purchasing a secondary dataset usually far outweighs the cost of having to plan for and collect the data firsthand.
What is secondary data?
Secondary data is the data that has already been collected through primary sources and made readily available for researchers to use for their own research. It is a type of data that has already been collected in the past.
Why is secondary data important?
Secondary data makes it easy to carry out longitudinal studies without having to wait for a couple of years to draw conclusions. For example, you may want to compare the country's population according to census 5 years ago, and now.
What are the Secondary Data Collection Tools?
Popular tools used to collect secondary data include; bots, devices, libraries, etc. In order to ease the data collection process from the sources of secondary data highlighted above, researchers use these important tools which are explained below.
What is secondary data analysis?
Secondary data analysis is the process of analyzing data collected from another researcher who primarily collected this data for another purpose. Researchers leverage secondary data to save time and resources that would have been spent on primary data collection.
Why do researchers sit in the library?
A researcher might decide to sit in the library for some time to collect secondary data or borrow the materials for some time and return when done collecting the required data.
Why is secondary data not authentic?
This is a very common disadvantage with online sources due to a lack of regulatory bodies to monitor the kind of content that is being shared.
What do you need to know before collecting secondary data?
Before collecting secondary data for analysis, you need to know your statement of purpose. That is, a clear understanding of why you are collecting the data—the ultimate aim of the research work and how this data will help achieve it.
What is secondary data?
Information which has been collected previously, by someone else, other than the researcher. Secondary data can either be qualitative, such as diaries, newspapers or government reports, or quantitative, as with official statistics, such as league tables.
Why are official statistics useful?
Official statistics may be especially useful for making comparisons over time. The U.K. Census for example goes back to 1851. At a practical level, many public documents and official statistics are freely available to the researcher.
What Is Secondary Data?
- Information which has been collected previously, by someone else, other than the researcher. Secondary data can either be qualitative, such as diaries, newspapers or government reports, or quantitative, as with official statistics, such as league tables.
Strengths of Using Secondary Data in Social Research
- There is a lot of it!It is the richest vein of information available to researchers in many topic areas. Also, some large data sets might not exist if it wasn’t for the government collecting data.
- Sometimes documents and official statistics might be the only means of researching the past.
- Official statistics may be especially useful for making comparisons over time. The U.K. Cens…
- There is a lot of it!It is the richest vein of information available to researchers in many topic areas. Also, some large data sets might not exist if it wasn’t for the government collecting data.
- Sometimes documents and official statistics might be the only means of researching the past.
- Official statistics may be especially useful for making comparisons over time. The U.K. Census for example goes back to 1851.
- At a practical level, many public documents and official statistics are freely availableto the researcher.
Limitations of Using Secondary Data
- Official statistics may reflect the biases of those in power– limiting what you can find out.
- Official statistics – the way things are measured may change over time, making historical comparisons difficult(As with crime statistics, the definition of crime keeps changing.)
- Documents may lack authenticity– parts of the document might be missing because of age, and we might not even be to verify who actually wrote the document, meaning we cannot che…
- Official statistics may reflect the biases of those in power– limiting what you can find out.
- Official statistics – the way things are measured may change over time, making historical comparisons difficult(As with crime statistics, the definition of crime keeps changing.)
- Documents may lack authenticity– parts of the document might be missing because of age, and we might not even be to verify who actually wrote the document, meaning we cannot check whether its biase...
- Representativeness – documents may not be representative of the wider population–especially a problem with older documents. Many documents do not survive because they are not stored, and others det...
Signposting
- This was a brief post, for revision purposes, designed as last minute revision for the AS and A Level sociology exams. For more detailed posts on research methods, including secondary data, please see my page on research methods. For more advice on the A-level sociology exams (AQA focus) please see my exams, essays and short answer questionspage. Please click here to retur…