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December 17, 2014 / C H Thompson

Primary and secondary sources of data

There are two types of quantitative and qualitative sources of data – primary and secondary.

Primary data is that collected by sociologists themselves through social surveys such as structured interviews. This page examines the types of primary qualitative research.

Secondary data is data which already exists such as that found in newspapers, novels, literature, letters, diaries, police records,  school results, government reports etc. This page examines the different types of secondary research data as an overview while this page looks at secondary research data in more detail.

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