1. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY DATA

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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…….

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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)

10. 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.

11. 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

12. 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