Choosing Between Using Primary and Secondary Research Data
There are different benefits and drawbacks to using primary data and secondary data. According to GeeksforGeeks.com, primary data is “collected from beginning to end for the first time by an institution or researcher,” and secondary data is “data that has already been collected by an institution or researcher and the new researcher generates new information about the use of this already collected data.”
For example, if you want to identify the amount of Spanish-dominant households in the U.S., you’d likely access the latest census rather than conduct a survey yourself. It’s faster and cheaper. It’s factors like these and more that should help you ultimately determine the type of data to collect.
Here are some questions I would ask when choosing between collecting primary and secondary data:
- How much time do you have? If less than a couple weeks or months, you’d have rely on secondary data.
- Does the data already exist online or within my organization (maybe in another department)? If not, primary data is your answer.
- What’s your research budget?
- Will this data help you reach your goal or is it simply nice-to-have? If just nice-to-have, you may want to stick to secondary data to avoid spending significant time and money.
While there are many other helpful questions you’d want to ask yourself when deciding which type of research to invest in, these will definitely help you get started in the right direction.