PRIMARY AND SECONDARY DATA

From the specification Methodology/How Science Works a. Describe what is meant by primary and secondary data in doing research. b. Evaluate the use of primary and secondary data in doing research.

Reliability and Validity When you do research, you want to make sure that you choose reliable and valid measures. Your knowledge of these two concepts is one of the most important tools you’ll have as a scientist Psychologists measure things that we cannot see, but we believe them to exist inside your head. We had better be able to support that belief. To do it, we rely on reliability and validity

Definition time Write down a definition of reliability and of validity. Give a positive example of each from a piece of research Explain why that research is reliable/valid Next do the opposite – research which lacks …………. explain why…….

From the specification Methodology/How Science Works Describe what is meant by primary and secondary data in doing research. B) Evaluate the use of primary and secondary data in doing research.

Data Sources Primary data Secondary data Data that you or your colleagues collect specifically for the purpose of answering your research question. Secondary data Existing data collected for another purpose that you employ to answer your research question.

PRIMARY Questionnaires, Observations, Content Analysis and experiments all gather data first hand Milgram (63) collected primary data when he studied obedience in a laboratory Bandura (61) looked at children copying role models

Advantages of Primary Data Unbiased – double blinds, inter-rater reliability Control – IV/DV clearly operationalised, minimize the number of missing values, and assess the reliability of your instruments. Up to date – data is collected at the time of the study

SECONDARY Transcripts, articles, surveys, research documents, meta analysis E.g. Government statistics from a census can tell us about number of females living alone Gottesman and shields (1966) Goldstein (1988) Farrington et al (2000)

Advantages of Secondary Data Cheaper - Primary data must start from the beginning, finding participants, organising materials etc Quicker - Background work has already been done Ethical -You may not need to worry about informed consent, human subjects restrictions, etc.

VALIDITY Primary data more about ‘real life’ more thought has gone into it. - IV is operationalised, study is designed for main purpose Secondary data can be subjective It is unknown how truthful the articles are, or how biased the writer/researcher is

RELIABILITY Secondary data Primary data Replication is impossible, all a researcher can do is compare one account with others and try to balance them Primary data Lots of controls, IV and DV clearly operationalised, can be repeated