What Is Secondary Data

• Data may be described as Primary or Secondary
  
  • Primary data - collected by the researcher himself
    
  • Secondary data - collected by others to be "re-used" by the researcher
    

• What Form Does Secondary Data Take?
  

  • Qualitative Sources
    

  • Sources for Qualitative Research:
    

    • Biographies - subjective interpretation involved
      
    • Diaries - more spontaneous, less distorted by memory lapses
      
    • Memoirs - benefit/problem of hindsight
      
    • Letters - reveal interactions
      
    • Newspapers - public interest & opinion
      
    • Novels & Literature In General - eg Atkinson's tribute to usefulness of Gordon's "Dr Novels"; McLelland's study of achievement motivation in different cultures via children's stories & folktales
      
    • Handbooks, Policy Statements, Planning Documents, Reports, Historical & Official Documents (Hansard, Royal Commission reports) etc. nb Marx's use of Factory Inspectors reports in developing his theories of the labour process
      

  • Quantitative Sources
    

    • Published Statistics:
      
      • National Government Sources
        
        • Demographic (Census, Vital Statistics, Cancer Registrations)
          
        • Administrative (by-product of Government)
          
          • Collected by Govt. Depts. overseen by ONS (employment, prices, trade, finance)
            
        • Government Surveys (input to Government)
          
          • General Household Survey (GHS)
            
          • Family Expenditure Survey (FES)
            
          • Labour Force Survey (LFS)
            
          • Family Resources Survey (FRS)
            
          • Omnibus Survey
            
      • Local Government Sources
        
        • Planning Documents
          
        • Trends Documents (eg former Strathclyde Social Trends and Economic Trends)
          
      • Other Sources
        
        • Firms & Trade Associations eg Society of Motot Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT)
          
        • Market & Opinion Research eg Gallup, NOP, SCPR System 3
          
        • Trade Unions, TUC, STUC
          
        • Professional Bodies eg CIPFA (Chartered Instiute of Public Finance & Accountancy) provides a Statistical Information Service re Local Government Statistics
          
        • Political Parties
          
        • Voluntary & Charitable Bodies eg Low Pay Unit, SCF (Save the Children Fund), Rowntree Foundation
          
        • Academic & Research Institutes eg
          
          • Micro-Social Change Research Centre (MSRC) at Essex Uni
            
          • National Institute for Economic & Social Rsearch (NIESR)
            
          • Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
            
      • International Sources
        
        • EU, OECD, World Bank, IMF
          
    • Non-Published / Electronic Sources
      
      • Data Archives eg the Data Archive At Essex
        
        • Data Sub-Setting Service On Tape, Disk, Postal Or Via Janet
          
      • On-Line Access To National Computing Centres
        
        • MIMAS (Manchester Information & Associated Services)
          
        • EDINA (Edinburgh)
          
      • International Sources on Internet & Web
        

• Ways of Using Secondary Sources
  

  • Exploratory phase - getting ideas
    
  • Design Phase - definitions & sampling frames, question wording
    
  • Supplement to Main Research
    
    • - Re-Inforcement &/Or Comparison
      
  • Main Mode of Research
    
    • - Direct Data Collection Impossible
      
    • - Or Costly & Time Consuming
      

• Limitations of Secondary Data
  

  • Collected For A Different Purpose
    
  • Problem of Definitions
    
  • Problem of Comparability Over Time
    
  • Lack of Awareness of Sources of Error/Bias
    
  • Has the Data Been "Massaged"?
    
  • What Do The Statistics Really Mean?
    
    • Eg. Health, Crime, Unemployment
      
  • Limitations of Survey Data
    
    • Representativeness
      
    • Validity of Responses
      
  • Limitations of Documents
    
    • Documents "Construct" As Well As Report Social Reality
      

• How to Search & Use Secondary Sources?
  

  • Documents - Bibliographic Skills, Use of Keywords, Boolean Operators
    
  • Published Statistics
    
    • Guide to Official Statistics
      
    • Digests & Abstracts
      
    • Primary Publication
      
  • Electronic Sources
    
    • Biron
      
    • Gateways - SOSIG, BUBL
      

Comparison of postal, telephone and personal interview survey

	Postal survey	Telephone survey	Personal interview
Cost (assuming a good response rate)	Often lowest	Usually in-between	Usually highest
Ability to probe	No personal contact or observation	Some chance for gathering additional data through elaboration on questions, but no personal observation	Greatest opportunity for observation, building rapport, and additional probing
Respondent ability to complete at own convenience	Yes	Perhaps, but usually no	Perhaps, if interview time is prearranged with respondent
Interview bias	No chance	Some, perhaps due to voice inflection	Greatest chance
Ability to decide who actually responds to the questions	Least	Some	Greatest
Impersonality	Greatest	Some due to lack of face-to-face contact	Least
Complex questions	Least suitable	Somewhat suitable	More suitable
Visual aids	Little opportunity	No opportunity	Greatest opportunity
Potential negative respondent reaction	'Junk mail'	'Junk calls'	Invasion of privacy
Interviewer control over interview environment	Least	Some in selection of time to call	Greatest
Time lag between soliciting and receiving response	Greatest	Least	May be considerable if a large area involved
Suitable types of questions	Simple, mostly dichotomous (yes/no) and multiple choice	Some opportunity for open-ended questions especially if interview is recorded	Greatest opportunity for open-ended questions
Requirement for technical skills in conducting interview	Least	Medium	Greatest
Response rate	Low	Usually high	High

 

 

THE RESEARCH PROPOSAL

 

Purpose of the Research Proposal

• To present the question to be researched and its importance
  
• To discuss the research efforts of others who have worked on related questions
  
• To suggest the data necessary for solving the question
  

The Research Sponsor

All research has a sponsor in one form or another:

• In a corporate setting, management sponsors research
  
• In an academic environment, the student is responsible to the class instructor
  

What are the Benefits of the Proposal to a Researcher?

• Allows the researcher to plan and review the project's steps
  
• Serves as a guide throughout the investigation
  
• Forces time and budget estimates
  

Types of Research Proposals

• Internal
  
• External
  

Proposal Complexity

3 levels of complexity:

• The exploratory study is used for the most simple proposals
  
• The small-scale study is more complex and common in business
  
• The large-scale professional study is the most complex, costing millions of dollars
  

How to Structure the Research Proposal?

• Create proposal modules
  
• Put together various modules to tailor your proposal to the intended audience
  

Modules in a Research Proposal

• Executive Summary 1 Qualifications of Researcher
  
• Problem Statement 2 Budget
  
• Research Objectives 3 Schedule
  
• Literature Review 4 Facilities and Special Resources
  
• Importance of the Study 5 Project Management
  
• Research Design 6 Bibliography
  
• Data Analysis 7 Appendices
  
• Nature and Form of Results
  

Evaluating the Research Proposal

• Proposal must be neatly written in appropriate writing style
  
• Major topics should be easily found and logically organized
  
• Proposal must meet specific guidelines set by the sponsor
  
• Technical writing style must be clearly understood and explained
  

What to include in the Appendices?

• A glossary of concepts, constructs, and definitions
  
• Samples of the measurement instrument
  
• Other materials that reinforce the body of the proposal
  

 

 

THE DESIGN OF RESEARCH

 

MEASUREMENT!!!

Measurement

• Selecting observable empirical events
  
• Using numbers or symbols to represent aspects of the events
  
• Applying a mapping rule to connect the observation to the symbol
  

What is measured?

• Objects:
  
  • Things of ordinary experience
    
  • Some things not concrete
    
• Properties: characteristics of objects
  

Characteristics of Data

• Classification
  
• Order
  
• Distance (interval between numbers)
  
• Origin of number series
  

Scales

• There are four basic types of scales: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio.
  
• Nominal scale
  
  • It is one that allows the researcher to assign subjects to certain categories or groups.
    
  • It gives some basic, categorical, gross information.
    

Scales (cont.)

• These numbers serve as simple and convenient category labels with no intrinsic value, other than to assign respondents to one of two nonoverlapping or mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustive categories.
  
  • 200 people, 98 men (49%) and 102 women (51%).
    
• Example: it will allow computation of the numbers and percentage of respondents from 11 categories of the nationality of individuals.
  

Scales (cont.)

• Ordinal scale
  
  • It categorizes the variables in such a way as to denote differences among the various categories.
    
  • It rank-orders the categories in some meaningful way.
    
  • It provides more information than the nominal scale.
    
  • The differences in the ranking of objects, persons, or events investigated are clearly known, but we do not know their magnitude.
    

Scales (cont.)

• Interval scale
  
  • An interval scale allows us to perform certain arithmetical operations on the data collected from the respondents.
    
  • The ordinal scale to rank-order the preferences, the interval scale lets us measure the distance between any two points on the scale.
    
  • The origin, or the starting point, could be any arbitrary number.
    

Scales (cont.)

• Ratio scale
  
  • It has an absolute zero point which is a meaningful measurement point.
    
  • It is the most powerful of the four scales because it has a unique zero origin (not an arbitrary origin) and subsumes all the properties of the other three scales.
    

Scales (cont.)

• For instance
  
  • 250 pounds and 125 pounds (the ration of 2:1).
    
  • Gender: nominal scale.
    
  • Temperature: nominal scale (high/low), or ordinal scale (hot-medium-low), or the interval scale through the thermometer.
    

• Example: use of the nominal scale
  
  • Gender: male & female.
    
  • Department: production, sales, accounting, finance, personnel, R&D, and other.
    

Sources of Measurement Differences

• Respondent
  
• Situational factors
  
• Measurer or researcher
  
• Data collection instrument
  

    Validity

• Content Validity
  
• Criterion-Related Validity
  
  • Predictive
    
  • Concurrent
    
• Construct Validity
  

Reliability

• Stability
  
  • Test-retest
    

Equivalence

• Parallel forms
  

• Internal Consistency
  
  • Split-half
    
  • KR20
    
  • Cronbach's alpha
    

Practicality

• Economy
  
• Convenience
  
• Interpretability
  

 

The Business Research Process

1. Observation (Broad area of research identified)
   
2. Preliminary Data Gathering (interviewing & Literature survey)
   
3. Problem Definition (Research problem Delineated)
   
4. Theoretical framework (Variables clearly identified)
   
5. Generation of Hypothesis
   
6. Scientific research Design
   
7. Data collection, analysis, and interpretation
   
8. Deduction (hypothesis substantiated or not? Research questions answered or not?)
   
9. Report Writing
   
10. Report Presentation
    
11. Managerial Decision Making