Sources For Secondary Data

Reasearch Design Methods After we discuss what is defined as data, this time we will learn about any resources you can use for secondary data. Before we start our course, let us recall the definition of secondary data. Secondary data is type of data which are obtained from other sources, or data those are not originally purposed for the research we are doing now. We can say that the secondary data has been available before, and we can use it to complete our research. Although research generally uses primary data which is collected directly from the respondents, but some studies actually using secondary data as the main material for observation. For example, research in finance, more specifically, any research on the projected benefits of a certain stock, then we can simply use stock price data over the past few years. These data can be obtained from the stock exchanges.

In general, there are two main sources of secondary data, internal data sources and external data sources. Internal data are any data that you have gathered before, in the previous research project. The data taken from internal sources divided into two types: ready-to-use data and need -further-processing data. In other side, external data are formed in three kinds: general published data (published material), computerized databases, and data from the syndicated services. You can read secondary data classification as below:

1. Require further processing :

It is secondary data that requires further processing. For example, we want to know which brands of ours become favorite brand in the market and which brand that seem overlooked by our customers. However, we do not have that data. We only have a list of brand names and a list of sales from each brand. Therefore, we need to process further these two data to obtain data we need, i.e. data about favorite and unfavored brands.

2. Ready to use :

It is secondary data we can directly use because it fits requirements for data we are looking for.

3. Published material :

It is type of secondary data which is intentionally used for publication. There are two types of data sources we can use: government source data (such as: Statistics Bureau, Government Ministry Department Publication, etc.) and private source data (for example: stock price data which is published on the website of the company, the report data finance, etc.). These data can be used to complete statistical analysis in our research.

4. Computerized databases :

This is type of secondary data that can only be read using a computer and can be obtained either online and offline, i.e. data on the storage media such as CDs or floppy disks. Computerize database can only be shared through electronic data transfer media. There are five common computerized databases: bibliographic databases, numeric databases, full-text databases, directory databases, and special purposed databases.

5. Syndicate services :

Syndicate services are companies whose main business is providing data to the client, for example, company which engaged in the field of research or consultant firms. In term of measurement they use, there are two types of data they provide: data on household and data on institutions. Data on household is any data which are collected from household about household members behavior. However, for you who search information about certain industries, you are recommended using data on institution.