COLLECTION OF

SECONDARY DATA
 Secondary data means data that are already
available.
 Secondary data may either be published or
unpublished.
 Published data may be available in various
publications of foreign governments or of
international bodies, technical and trade
journals.
 The sources of unpublished data may be
diaries, letters and unpublished biographies.
 Secondary data must possess following
characteristics :-
1. Reliability of data – it can be tested by
finding ‘who collected the data?’,’what are
the sources of data?’….
2. Suitability of data – data that is suitable for 1
enquiry may not be suitable for for anoyher
enquiry. Therefore if unsuitable, they should
not be used by the researcher.
3. Adequacy of data – if the level of accuracy is
found to be inadequate for the present
enquiry, they will be considered inadequate,
and hence should not be used by the
researcher.
SELECTION OF APPROPRIATE
METHOD FOR DATA COLLECTION
The researcher must select the method
keeping in view the following factors :-
 Nature, scope and object of enquiry _ this
factor decides whether secondary data are to
be used or primary data are to be used.
 Availability of funds _ when funds at the
disposal are limited, researcher will go for
comparatively cheaper method.
 Time factor _ the time at the disposal of
researcher affects the method of data
collection to be used.
 Precision required _ precision is another
factor which is to be considered at the time of
selecting the method of data collection.