What Is Secondary Data And What Are Sources Of Collection Of Secondary Data?

In a nutshell, secondary data is any information that was collected by someone other than the person, company, or party analyzing or using the data.  This contrasts with primary data, which is data that is collected by the person conducting the investigation or research.

The collection of secondary data helps to save time as there is a lot of quantitative data that might fall into a dense variety of categories and can therefore be used by many different companies in various industries.  Because of these collection methods the information, which would be the same or consistent among all of these parties, can be more efficiently used to analyze and reach conclusions.

Some of the most common sources of quantitative secondary data are:

Censuses

Housing records

Social security records

Electoral statistics

Some common sources of qualitative secondary data are:

Semi-structured and structured interviews

Focus groups transcripts

Field notes

Observation records

Personal research-related documentation

Obviously, in terms of quantitative secondary data, a census will circulate through a community in order to answer several questions regarding population, industrial, and social preferences or progression.  Therefore, the same data could apply to law-making, public zoning, and other community-related decisions.

In terms of qualitative secondary data, a focus group can help to determine how the average person in a community feels about a particular product or idea.  This helps industries make better decisions about what types of things consumers want and are willing to pay for.  Similarly, field notes that a scientist might take observing animals, for example, could benefit both an animal behavioral psychologist as well as a veterinarian or biologist.

There are two kinds of data used in any research. These are:

1. Primary Data
2. Secondary Data

1.Primary Data is the data that is not already available. The researcher collects is first-hand.
Methods used for the collection of Primary Data can be:

I.Questionnaires.
Ii.Interviews.
Iii.Focus Groups.
Iv.Observation.
V.others.

2.Secondary Data:

Secondary Data is data or information that is already available. This data is collected by a person or organization other than the use of the data.

Advantages of secondary data are that it is cheap and inexpensive. It is easily accessible. It is already available. It saves time and efforts. It is unobtrusive. It avoid data collection problems and it provides a basis for comparison.

Disadvantages are related to the credibility of the source who has published this info and the small nuances that may not fit into your research objectives. Another disadvantage can be that the data might be outdated. Similarly you have no control over the quality of data and you do not know how authentic the measures used for data collection have been.

Secondary Data can be collected from various sources, which include, but are not limited to:

Books, Magazines, websites, Already published reports, TV, Radio, Newspapers, Films, Journals and publications, Research papers etc.

Secondary Data can be of two types. These are:
1.Cross Sectional Data.
2.Longitudinal Data.

1.Cross Sectional Data: It is the data collected at the same time from different places
2.Longitudinal Data: It is the data collected at regular time intervals. Longitudinal Data can be further divided into two types:
I.Data collected through Panel Study.
Ii.Data collected through Repeated Design.
I hope this answer helps you. If you have any further questions, feel free to post a question.

Secondary data:
Secondary data is data that is neither collected directly by the user nor specifically for the user, often under conditions not known to the user. Examples include Government reports.
Secondary information has already been collected for some other purposes. It may be available from internal sources, or may have been collected and published by another organization. Secondary data is cheaper and more quickly available than primary data, but likely to need processing before it is useful.
For example, secondary sources of market penetration of an organization are data collected already for accountancy and operational purposes. Total industry sales may already been collected and published by some external body such as the government, trade association as secondary source of information.
A company who wants to know the users of its products may have following secondary sources:

•Published reports
•Government statistics
•Scientific and technical Abstracts
•Company's financial statements
•Banks reports
•Trade AOP's

However, besides its advantages it has certain disadvantages as follows:

•Problem of being defined differently
•More prone to error
•Copy right problem

Secondary data can be used differently such as:
•To create new ideas
•To compare two statistics
•Where direct collection of data is impossible

SECONDARY DATA  are the data  or information  which has already collected  by the prevous researcher for his or her organisation and it is not for the current research topics

In today's world correct information is the key to success. Data or information is of two types; primary data and secondary data. Primary data is information collected by the researcher or person himself where as secondary data is collected by others but utilized or used by the researcher.

Secondary data is data that has already been collected and collated by somebody for some reason other than the current study. It can be used to get a new perspective on the current study, to supplement or compare the work or to use parts of it, as another study may prove costly and time consuming e.g. the census.

Secondary data can further be divided into two parts. Qualitative data includes biographies, personal letters, diaries, records, documents, published material, computer database, policy statements, etc. Quantitative data would have market research, census, and Economic documents, planning documents or specimens. The list is endless and once the type of secondary data is identified, it becomes easy to locate the source.

Since the data has been collected for another purpose by somebody else, it may not be fully useful, the context could have changed or data could have been doctored.

You need some data and you go and collect that information; it is called primary data. When your friend needs that same data, he collects it from you to be reused, it is called secondary data, or the data collected by others to be reused called secondary data.
Secondary data can be collected from different resources, by Qualitative and by Quantitative sources.
In Qualitative source it was collected by the diaries, by memories, by newspapers etc.
In Quantities sources it was collected by published Statistics from national government sources, government surveys by general household survey etc.
The purpose of collecting secondary data is to make some changes, or to review the needs. To make solutions based on normal database management. It was also collect for editing purpose. To get some new ideas or it was also for the purpose of time saving. If you have short time and you have to complete an object secondary data in this regard is the best way to save time and complete your task.
There are some limitations on collecting secondary data: that it should be valid, or has the data been massaged? You can search the data from electronic sources, or from published statistics.

Secondary data is data about your research topic or case study you are carrying out that other people have discovered and published

Secondary data are data or information that has already been gathered and which is relevant to a problem at hand. It is often collected under conditions not known by the user. The types of secondary data include, Internal secondary data and External secondary data

Primary data is it own hand and skills and secondry data is already made you take it and use it

SECONDARY DATA  are the data  or information  which has already collected  by the prevous researcher for his or her organisation and it is not for the current research topics.