secondary sources of data

'With the exception of official statistics, most forms of secondary data are too subjective to be useful in sociological research.' Explain and assess this view. [25] Secondary data refers to preexisting data that has been produced by someone other than the sociologist involved in the research. Official statistics include data produced by the government or other agencies e.g. trade unions. Other forms of secondary data include life documents or historical documents such as diaries, letters, and suicide notes etc. They are certain cases when there are no alternatives to secondary data - in the case of 'before' and 'after' studies or studies conducted to analyze trends over a long period of time one cannot go back in time and therefore needs to rely on existing data. Official statistics refers to data collected by the government e.g. statistics relating to unemployment. The fact that statistics are already available to the sociologists means that the sociologist does not have to spend time or money collecting his/her own data. The data allows comparisons to be made, which the researcher would find difficult to collect personally such as in the case of cross cultural studies e.g. comparative study of crime rates in different countries. Positivists favor the use of official statistics, as they are useful for identifying correlations. In Durkheim's study of suicide (1897) he was

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  • Word count: 993
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Marketing - Primary and secondary data

Gurpreet Birdi Marketing - Unit 3 Primary and secondary data A market is any set of arrangements that allows buyers and sellers to exchange goods and sellers to exchange goods and services. This could be from anything like a street market in a small town to a large market involving internationally traded goods. Marketing is the management process that involves in identifying, anticipating and satisfying consumer requirements profitably. This means that marketing is essential to the success of a business. Its main aim is to enable businesses to meet the needs of its customers. There are some features of business marketing behaviour, these involve: Consumers are vital importance: This means that when a product has a greater chance of being successful it satisfies consumer needs. Marketing must be aimed at finding out what these needs are and making sure that products meet them. Marketing research is often used by businesses for this purpose. Marketing is a process: This process does not have a start or an end, but it is ongoing all the time. Many businesses must prepare to respond to the changes that take place. Marketing involves building relationships with the customers: Profitable businesses are often built upon good customer relations. This might involve dealing with customer complaints in a careful and considered manner. Some customers are likely to develop a

  • Word count: 7866
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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Primary and Secondary Data Collection Methods Paper

Primary and Secondary Data Collection Methods Paper MGT: 480 Business Research Applications February 26, 2003 The term "secondary research" refers to using existing sources such as published reports, articles about industry trends or census data. Secondary research is less expensive and takes less time to collect than primary research, and is used to make a preliminary assessment of your idea's viability. Primary research is typically done after secondary research and is used to gather specific and first-hand information about your idea or product. Standard tools used are focus groups, questionnaires, mail surveys and telephone interviews directed at potential customers, suppliers and even competitors. A key issue in conducting primary research is choosing an appropriate sampling method to ensure your results are statistically accurate. The dilemma presented is you work for an Internet service provider (ISP) and wish to estimate the number of people in your service area with Internet connections in their households. How would you do this using Secondary Data The first step in the process would be to gather secondary data prior to gathering primary data. Information regarding the use of at home Internet service can be pulled from the company database along with telephone records. This would give a preliminary estimate as to the total number of people with at home

  • Word count: 604
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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Assess the value of using secondary data in sociological research. (40 marks)

Assess the value of using secondary data in sociological research. (40 marks) Secondary data is data already produced often by someone who is not a sociologist, e.g. Government, Charities, Trade Unions, letters or diaries, TV programmes and e-mails. Official statistics are a source of secondary data. The government produces them. There are both hard and soft statistics. Hard statistics include birth, death and marriage rates. These are registered when they occur by law, so these statistics are entirely objective. Another type of official statistic is called soft statistics, e.g. crime statistics and unemployment figures. These might not seem as objective as they first seem. They are open to manipulation for political ends, and can be considered to have a political use. For example, the methods used to measure unemployment have been changed over 20 times, because not everyone without a job counts as unemployed, e.g. Elderly. The picture that statistics give can depend on how they were collected, and on what parts of the statistics matters - they do not always present a valid picture of society. Secondary data has both advantages and disadvantages, from issues such as practical and ethical for example, Laslett used secondary data, in the form of Parish records to study family structure. Secondary data can save time and money and they provide access to historical data that

  • Word count: 960
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Mathematical and Computer Sciences
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Access the strengths and limitations of using the secondary sources of data

Access the strengths and limitations of using the secondary sources of data? Secondary sources consist of data that have already been produced , often by people other than sociologists. The secondary sources used by sociologists may be contemporary or historical and the data available from them may be primarily qualitative or quantitative. They are invaluable to sociologists, but they have to be used with great caution. Their reliability and validity are open to questioning and often they fail to provide exactly the information required by a Sociologist. Nevertheless, like all reserch methods and sources of data those methods prefer to use, secondary sources of data too are subjected to critical judgement. And so, they also have their strengths and limitations that define heir importance or limitation of use. In order to judge whether or not the source of data to be used would give the most accurate results, depends on certain basic conceptsthat need to be kept into account which would allow the evaluation of the quality of data. these include the reliability and validity of dates. All subjuctive means of collecting data are often high in validity as they offer a very accurate picture of any social phenomenon. On the other hand, reliable data could be more inclined towards the objective approach of collecting data. In addition to this, representativeness of the data also

  • Word count: 1031
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Explain the difference between primary and secondary sources of data, with examples.

Name: Rebecca Holmes Unit 3/11 Task a: Research Methodologies Explain the difference between primary and secondary sources of data, with examples: Primary data is data, which is collected by the researcher themselves. This kind of data is new, original research information. Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened and is hands on. A primary source reflects the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer. Primary sources are first-hand information from a person who witnessed or participated in an event. Examples of primary data are: * Interviews * Questionnaires *Observations Secondary research is using information that has already been produced by other people. A secondary source is used by a person usually not present at the event and relying on primary source documents for information. Secondary sources usually analyse and interpret. Finding out about research that already exits will help form new research. Examples of secondary data: Internet Books/ Magazines Newspapers Office statistics The government statistics service The office of national statistics Centre for applied social surveys The distinctions between primary and secondary sources can be ambiguous. An individual document may be a primary source in one context and a secondary source in another. Time is a defining element. For

  • Word count: 2641
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: ICT
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The Comcrash Internet Company of Edgewater, British Columbia - Primary and Secondary Data Collection Report.

Abstract The Comcrash Internet Company of Edgewater, British Columbia, has funded a data collection research effort in the local area to obtain accurate information on the number of households that currently have internet connections in their homes. The U Bet Research Company was awarded the contract to collect, tabulate, and write a final report on their findings. These results will be used by Comcrash to develop a marketing plan to gain a sizeable percentage of the internet business in the area. Primary and Secondary Data Collection Report The U Bet Research Company will conduct research in the local area to determine the number of households with internet connections to assist the Comcrash Internet Company marketing efforts to get new subscribers and also convince present subscribers to other internet companies to join Comcrash. The research team has called a meeting to discuss the fastest, most cost effective, and accurate means to collect the information that Comcrash needs for their marketing department. The local area is divided into several small towns that are linked by secondary roads, the main profession is farming, and there is one intermediate size telephone company provider. A smaller telephone company that provides about 25% of the local residential service is their only competition. Television reception is still received through antennas and the nearest

  • Word count: 1088
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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The data was collected because I am to explore relationships in residential wards in Birmingham with my residential survey and further secondary qualitative data.

Geography AS Coursework - Data Analysis Primary data was collected on residential quality in Birmingham in 6 different wards; Erdington, Nechells, Stockland Green, Sutton Four Oaks, Sutton New Hall and Sutton Vessey. The data I collected in Sutton Four Oaks, together with the other data from the other wards it was put together in the results summary of all wards. Identification of a question or hypothesis/hypotheses The data was collected because I am to explore relationships in residential wards in Birmingham with my residential survey and further secondary qualitative data. I have drawn up the following hypothesis: * Housing quality & street quality affect the level of litter amount, vandalism levels and street safety. So the poorer the housing quality the more likelihood of vandalism and crime levels; and the better the housing quality the more cleaner the streets. * The house design & housing maintenance change with the level of average house prices in the area. So the higher the value of the property, the more people will maintain and look after their houses their homes, whereas if the value of the properties is low (more likely in a deprived area) people will be less likely to spend on their houses and to maintain them. Other variables I could consider are: - landscape quality and land use; the number of houses to amenities access; the number of people living

  • Word count: 2474
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Computer Science
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Assess the usefulness of official statistics as a source of secondary data in sociological research.

Assess the usefulness of official statistics as a source of secondary data in sociological research. Official statistics are considered useful because it is high in reliability. Emile Durkheim believed suicide statistics from European countries were sufficiently reliable to establish correlations between suicide and other 'social facts'. From the statistics, he concluded that higher level of social integration among Catholics result in lower suicide rate. It was evident that this statistical data is reliable because when he checked on differences within the population of particular countries, he found out that Bavaria, the area of Germany with the highest number of Roman Catholics, also had the lowest suicide rate. However, Atkinson has criticized the validity of suicide statistics by claiming that the commonsense theories held by coroners influence the way they categorise sudden death. For example, death by gunshot is more likely to be defined as suicide if it took place in the countryside during an organized shoot. It is possible that some suicide cases are not recorded due to the coroners wrongly assume that it is a sudden death instead of suicide. Hence, we can say that although official statistic is useful in terms of its reliability, the usefulness is flawed by its validity problem. Another usefulness of official statistics is they are high in objectivity. As claimed

  • Word count: 493
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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secondary research

Secondary Research Secondary research involves the use of data that already exists in reference books, government reports and, increasingly from sources on the internet. It can be obtained from a variety of sources such as government statistics, trade journals, commercial research reports and the media An advantage of secondary research is that it can be undertaken quickly, which means early decisions can be made. Secondary research is also very cheap form of market research. Another advantage of secondary is that it can pro vide information on the entire market including over seas customers. However, a disadvantage of secondary research is that the information may be outdated and of limited value. Also, the secondary data may not meet the precise needs of the business. Another, disadvantage of secondary research is that some business reports containing secondary data are expensive, for example £5000 per report. 'Jupiter Sports' is undertaking government statistics. So we could look at the 'Annual Abstract of Statistics' and 'Social Trends', these are the two main publications from the government and its agencies, such as the Department of Trade and industry', who produce vast amounts of detailed information. We can also undertake information from the 'Trade journals'. Trade journals contain detail information on the developments of the specific industries they cover.

  • Word count: 2247
  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Business Studies
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