AO1 - Primary and Secondary Data

• Primary data is gathered directly/first hand from the participants themselves. (1) It is specific to the aim of the study. (1) Data which is gathered by conducting an experiment, questionnaire, interview or observation would be classed as primary data
• Secondary data has previously been collected by a third party (1), not specifically for the aim of the study and then used by the researcher. (1) E.g. pre-existing data such as government statistics
• A meta-analysis is a form of research method that uses secondary data (1) as it gains data from a large number of studies, which have investigated the same research questions and method of research. It then combines this information from all the studies to make conclusions about behaviour. (1)