Data that is collected can be primary or secondary. Primary data is original data that researchers collect for
a specific purpose. Secondary data analysis involves an individual using the information that someone else
gathered for his or her own purposes. Secondary data is data that is not collected directly by the researcher
themselves but is relayed to them by an outside source. Secondary data and resources can be found at the
local, state, regional, federal, and international levels. Secondary data is very useful because it can be
gathered with little additional effort or expense from the researchers, and there is a wealth of it readily
available.
Secondary data is the data that has already been collected through primary sources and made readily
available for researchers to use for their own research. It is a type of data that has already been collected in
the past. A researcher may have collected the data for a particular project, then made it available to be used
by another researcher. The data may also have been collected for general use with no specific research
purpose like in the case of the national census.
Examples include government census reports, other governmental databases, and administrative data.
Sources of Secondary Data
Sources of secondary data includes books, personal sources, journal, newspaper, website, government
record etc. Secondary data are known to be readily available compared to that of primary data. It requires
very little research and need for manpower to use these sources. With the advent of electronic media and
the internet, secondary data sources have become more easily accessible.
