data analysis; kinds of data

• qualitative data is expressed in words and may take the form of a written description of the thoughts, feelings and opinions of participants. a transcript from an interview, an extract from notes recorded within a counselling session would be classed as qualitative. qualitative methods of data collection are those that are concerned with the interpretation of language e.g. an interview or unstructured observation
• quantitative data is expressed numerically. quantitative data collection techniques ussually gather numerical data in the form of individual scores from participants such as the number of words a person can recall in a memory experiment. data is open to be analysed statistically and be easily coverted into graphs etc
• one strength of qualitative data is that is offers the researcher rich detail unlike quantitative data. it is more broader in scope and gives the participant more licence to develop their thoughts and feelings on a subject. therefore, qualitative data have greater external validity as it provides the researcher with a more meaningful insight into the participant worldview
• qualitative data is usually difficult to anaylse as it is difficult to summarise statistically meaning patterns and comparisons are hard to identify. therefore, conclusions rely on the subjective interpretations of the researcher and these may be subject to bias
• a strength of quantitative data is that it is simple to analyse so comparisons can be made between groups. also, it is numerical data meaning it tend to be more objective and less open to bias. however, quantitative data is much narrower in scope meaning it may fail to represent real life
• primary data refers to original data that has been collected specifically for the purpose of the investigation by the researcher. it is data that arrives first hand from the participants themselves. data which is gathered by conducting an experiment, questionnaire, interview or observation would be classed as primary data
• secondary data is data that has been collected by someone other than the person who is conducting the research. the data already exists before the psychologist begins their research. usually the data has been subject to statistical tsting and so the significance is known. secondary data may include journal articles.
• a strength of primary data is that it fits the job. primary data is authentic data obtained from the participants themselves for the purpose of a particular investigation. questionnaires and interviews can be designed in a way that they specifically target the information that the researcher requires. however, primary data requires time and effort as conducting an experiment reqiures considerable planning and resources
• a strength of secondary data is that it is inexpensive and easily accessed which requires minimal effort. when examining secondary data the researcher may find that the desired information already exists and so there is no need to conduct primary data collection. however, there is substantial variation in the accuracy of secondary data. information may be outdated or incomplete. the content may not match the researchers aims also
• meta analysis uses secondary data. this is the process in which the data from a large number of studies, whih have involved the same research questions and methods of research. are combined. also, the researcher may simply discuss the conclusions which is qualitative analysis
• also, researchers may use quantitative approach and perform statistical analysis of the combined data from meta analysis. this may involve calculating the effect size (the DV of a meta analysis) which gives an overall statistical measure of difference between variables across a number of studies
• metal analysis allows researchers to view data with more confidence and results can be generalised across larger populations
• meta analysis however may be prone to publication bias known as the file drawer problem. the researcher may not select all relevant studies choosing to leave out those studies with negative or non significant results. therefore, the data from meta analysis will be biased because it only represents some of the relevant data and incorrect conclusions are drawn