1. Primary research methods
Lesson 2
Primary research methods

2. Recap
Which of the following statements are true about primary research?
Can be called desk research
Is less time consuming than secondary research
Is original
Is always numerical
Is open to bias
Is up to date
Is task specific

3. Recap
Which of the following statements are true about primary research?
Can be called desk research
Is less time consuming than secondary research
Is original
Is always numerical
Orange tickets are true
Is open to bias
Is up to date
Is task specific

4. Lesson objectives today
Identify typical primary research methods.
Consider the advantages and disadvantages of each method.
Consider the primary research process.

5. Typical primary research methods
Class discussion of typical primary research methods

6. Typical primary research methods
Questionnaire
Interviews
Observations
Class discussion of typical primary research methods

7. Planning your research.
What do you want to find out?
How will this be delivered?
What questions will you ask?
What will the responses look like?
Will there be a pilot?
How will the information be used?

8. What do you need to find out?
Use your secondary research as a starting point-
Where are the gaps? Could your primary research fill these?
What scale is the secondary research on? Is this appropriate to your study? Do you want a more local view?
What other information would `complete` your work?

9. How will this research be delivered
How will this research be delivered? Questionnaire, observation, interview?
Method
Good for….
Not so good for….
Other notes
Questionnaire
When you need to know “how many..”
When you need information about a group statistically.
Ideal for collecting numerical data
Can suffer from experimenter bias
Sample must be significant.
Can include Likert scales, open and closed questions.
Observation
When you want to observe naturally occurring behaviours in natural environments.
Gathering any more information other than what happened in that snapshot of time
Observer bias- what one person interprets one way another may see in a very different light.
Interview
Recording information from a none frequent event
Small sample size means it can be hard to generalise across a population.
Difficult to analyse data
Sample is small and may give a skew or bias view.
Experimenter bias- when participants give the answer they think the person carrying out the research wants to hear rather than their real feelings

10. What questions will you ask?
Open Questions
Closed Questions
Participants are able to respond in any way they wish
Participants are restricted in the way they can respond.
This is good because
The questions are less likely to lead participants and there is no indication of the response anticipated.
Participants can give as much detail as they wish and may open up lines of enquiry not previously considered.
It is easier to analyse data.
It is easier for the participant to respond and so they are more likely to complete the questions in full.
There is less opportunity for misinterpretation of the question
This is bad because
Data is hard to analyse.
Participants may go off on a tangent and not answer the question asked.
Participants are limited to what responses they can give and may not feel comfortable with the responses offered.

11. What questions will you ask? Will they be good yes?
Look at the questions on the students sheet- What feedback would you give the author of the questions?
How could you change the questions to be more appropriate?
Class discussion looking at how students can reword questions to make them more appropriate in primary research.

12. What will the responses look like?
Closed questions responses options.
Yes/No
Multiple choice
Likert scale
Tick box (Can select more than one option)

13. What is a pilot?
A small scale replica of the intended research to identify areas for development.

14. How will the information be presented?
Graphs, charts and images can be used to display information in an effective manner that is visually attractive and easy for the reader to interpret.
Keep graphs, charts and images to a minimum so it isn’t visual overload.
Aske yourself is it useful? What is it adding to my report? If you are not sure of the answer then do you need to include it?

15. 100% of people said that they liked sales
Class discussion is this useful or is it a blob on a page?

16. 50% of people asked said they likes sales in the 2nd quarter.
Is it still useful if you know that only 4 people were asked in total?
Class discussion how statistics can be misrepresented using graphs and charts

17. One last point to consider- Reliability, validity and bias.
Valid- Did you find out what you intended to measure?
Reliable– would you get the same/ similar if you did the research again?
Bias- inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group.

18. Over to you….
In groups of 4 you are to write a pilot questionnaire looking at one of the four topics below:
Shopping brand favourites
Sporting hero's
Social media
Social issues in the local area
With time restrictions students may be asked to write two or three questions rather than a full questionnaire

19. Task 2 Presenting data. Evaluation of pilot.
Once you have completed your pilot consider how this data would be presented, carry out some basic analysis.
Evaluation of pilot.
What information did you find out that you didn’t expect?
What information did you fail to find out that you thought you would have?
What would you change to improve this questionnaire?

20. Ready to get started? Progress check.
ACROSS 1
A type of questions where responses are left to the individual 3
Did you find out what you wanted to find out? 4
A set of questions asked to a a sample of people
DOWN 2
A small scale version of a potential study