Types of Research – Task 1

Types of Research – Task 1

The understanding of the four major research types with examples like Purposes of that type of research and the methods and sources.

This research must cover;

·         Primary

·         Secondary

·         Quantitative

·         Qualitative

Primary Research

Primary research is totally new research that is carried out; it is made to specific questions.  There are numerous ways it can be carried out involving observations, surveys, analysis and interviews with individual or even group interviews.

Observations – an observation is when you take notes about the occurrences that you see; you would get insight into specific people, events and other selling points which can be useful when you are deciding what goes into a game

Surveys – surveys provide a lot less information than an interview but would be given to a lot more people, surveys provides a limited amount of information but it’s very useful for when you want to lean what a larger population thinks.

Analysis – this involves collecting and organising data based on the criteria you need for your project, this can be useful when you are going through a bunch of information you have collected and are looking for a trend or pattern in what sells

Interviews – interviews serve as one on one or group question and answer sessions these will provide a lot of information from a smaller number of people when you want to get a experts opinions, it also allows you to see someone’s facial expression while answering a question which would give you even more information without even talking.

Primary research is often used to get new information that hasn’t been recorded lately such as what is selling at that point in time. It can also be used to see if something has been effective

There are both advantages and disadvantages to primary research, the advantages are that it is very specific and you can find out any information that you want by using it a disadvantage is that it isn’t the cheapest of the research and it also takes longer because you have to perform the research yourself.

Another advantage is when you are working on a problem that may not have been addressed before or has been vaguely addressed so by doing some of your own research you are backing up your own points. Also when you are working on a topic that is new and there is a lack of available information on the topic such as when a new game comes out and you want to know what it’s like and what the best way to play it you could watch someone who has gotten the game and while watching make notes on what’s good and appealing about that game.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is information which has been researched by others that has been made available to the public to use, this can also be called “desk research”.  Secondary research includes things like reports and surveys that have been made available on the internet or in a library. Secondary research is usually used more than primary research because it is cheaper to pull off but it’s not as specific as primary would be. Secondary research is far more used than other types of research because of how easily it is to collect. A lot of different things fall under secondary research such as magazines, research you could find in a library, old sales reports, reports, press articles, previous market research projects in order to come to a conclusion, etc. It just means information already gathered by a third party even primary research that hasn’t been gathered by you counts as secondary research.

The advantages of this research are that is very easy to obtain, the amount of information you would be Able to collect in a short time is very large, the cost of the information would be either cheap or free allowing you to put money that you have to other things other advantages are that all secondary research comes from primary research and by using the information others have gathered you can narrow down your own primary research and gather more information more specific o what you want

The disadvantages of this research is that you don’t know how reliable the sources ae that you are getting the information off of, since we are getting information out of books and other things that have been taken from a while ago then we don’t know how accurate that information will be in this time another disadvantage is that we don’t always know if the information we are collecting has copyright on it which could lead to legal issues in the future

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research shows the information numerically for example by using of percentages, it all has to be presented in a way that can be counted and easily measured. everyone would be asked the same question and te answers would be recorded using numerical values e.g. 

"how often do you go to the store to still buy video games and movies"

1: Never 02: Rarely 03: Occasionally 04: Usually 05: Always 06: Never buy them

then you would record the answers using numbers such, most of the time using percentages

everyone would answer the exact same questions to ensure consistency.

Qualitative research

Qualitative research finds out opinions through open-ended questions where you are free to answer with what ever answer you desire, they are usually aimed at specific people as to get the best answers possible for the questions that you have e.g. you wont as a question about driving to someone who does not drive. 
you can have a question be both Qualitative and either primary or secondary
when you use both Qualitative a quantitative research you are able to maximise the range that your questions may reach.
if the question is far more vague then the you would pick out a sample of people. a sample would be a small part of people who will represent all the people who the question is being aimed at.
the main point of Qualitative research is that I can tell you what individuals and groups think an feel about particular media products, this is immensely important to the media industry a sit shows what will sell.

http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/food-standards-agency/market-research-and-consumer-protection/quantitative-and-qualitative-research.html#axzz3p6DFQTPs