Course Name- B.A. (Hons.

) Economics

Paper Name – Data Analysis

Paper No. : Skill Enhancement Course (SEC)

Module No. 2

Module Title
Primary and Secondary Data: Merits and Demerits
Academic Script
Hello dear students, welcome to the course Data Analysis. Topic for today's discussion is-
'Primary and secondary data, merits and demerits'.

Objectives of the Module:

Introduction: Data is found to be an integral part of the research problem in particular and of
statistical analysis in general. Various public and private institutes and individuals gather the
information related to research activities. Usually, data gathered by the institutes is of census
nature and hence representing the features of population, whereas individual mostly collects
the data of sample, which will furnish the information on important characteristics of the
population. So, the first hand information collected by the institute or individual serves as the
primary data for them, on the other hand, if the same information is made available for the
further research to other persons, then it is referred to as the secondary data. In the present
module, we will cover the two important sources of data namely- primary and secondary data
along with their advantages and weaknesses.

As discussed earlier, data collection is an important part of data analysis, thus researcher must
pay attention to the issues associated with the data collection part. If the information or data
gathered found to be suffering from errors then it may lead to wrong analysis and which will
further result in erroneous or improper policy decisions. Therefore, data should be collected
in a proper manner by justifying the pre-requisites of statistical analysis.

Sources of Data: Information or data can be gathered from either source i.e. primary or
secondary. Primary source of data implies the case of data, which is collected by the person
or agency that require it, while secondary source of data indicates the data which is already
existing and is gathered by someone else and used by others. Like data collected by Reserve
Bank of India on imports and exports of India will be treated as primary source for the RBI
itself, if the same data is made available to others, then it is known as secondary data for
others and the source will be considered as secondary source of data for all other users. One
important advantage of primary source of data over secondary sources is the thorough
information on the methodological aspects of data collection and compilation. Thereby, it is
always suggested to employ the primary sources of data for conducting the research studies.
This statement is justified on the following grounds as –

1. In case of secondary sources, errors may occur when copying the data from the
original source. For instance, numerical figure say 999 may be copied as 99 or 990,
simply typographical errors can occur.
2. Usually, primary source contains concepts and definitions employed while collecting
and compiling the data.
3. In case of primary source, questionnaire or schedule (whichever is used) and
elaboration of sampling method are attached with. These documents are most
important for checking the efficacy of the study.
4. Information can be gathered and presented in a detailed manner under primary source
in comparison to secondary sources.

Now we will discuss on two important types of data. On the basis of sources of data, data can
be classified into primary data and secondary data.

Primary Data: Data which is gathered by the investigator particularly for justifying the
requirements of the concerned research problem is termed as the primary data. Nature of
primary data is authentic and usually it is undertaken by government agencies, private
individuals, private agencies, research bodies, NGOs etc. For instance, data collected for the
first time by person A on the study entitled 'problems of milk vendors' will be considered as
primary data for him, as he has gathered the information for statistical analysis of his study.
Similarly, the data collected on 'census of India' by Office of Registrar General and Census
Commissioner, Government of India; data on employment and unemployment situation
collected by National Sample Survey Organisation etc. are an example of primary data. In
short, first hand or raw data is referred to as the primary data or information.

Further, it is not necessary that primary data is collected by academicians only or for
academic purposes only, rather in the present era, many companies gather information on the
image of their products in the market or simply what kind of products are demanded by the
consumers, suitable location for introduction of new product, customisation of products as
per different age groups etc. Moreover, non-governmental organisations and welfare oriented
organisations also conduct the primary data based studies in order to make assessment of the
social state of affairs so that they can intervene in the working of government programmes
and may provide some relevant suggestions or may question the working of development
programmes.

There are various ways, through which primary data can be collected like conducting the
personal or indirect oral interviews, information collected from the middlemen or
correspondents, questionnaires, schedules, offline or online surveys, focused group
discussions, by observation or by experimental methods etc. These methods will be
elaborated in the next module.

Merits of Primary Data: Some of the advantages of the primary data are-
 1. Greater reliability and precision: Since this data is gathered by the first party itself
(who intends to use it), thus it is perceived to more reliable and precise. There is no or
little doubt on the degree of accuracy of the data, hence leading to much reliable
estimates.
2. Easy control over data collection part: As we know that primary data is gathered by
the person or agency, which requires it at first hand. Thus, control can be easily
exercised over the method by which the information will be collected. Researcher can
address the particular issues related to the queries in an easy manner, so that all the
relevant facts can be recorded in the questionnaire. Moreover, moderation and
manipulation of the questions can be easily evaded in case of primary data collection.
3. Updated Data: Major advantage of primary data over secondary data is that the
primary data is up – to – date i.e. updated data. In several cases, secondary data is
outdated or not covering the recent estimates. This feature of updated data, enhances
the validity and utility of primary data.
4. Proprietary Data rights: Primary data have proprietary data rights, which makes it
confidential i.e. the information collected by the researcher under primary data, will
be kept with the researcher.

Demerits of Primary Data: Besides the advantages, primary data suffers from some
drawbacks as well like –

1. Lot of Time Consumption: Procedure of data collection involves various steps like
statement of problem, designing questionnaire, pre-testing of survey, sample
selection, collection of data, compilation of data and finally comes the step of
analysis. Execution of all these steps requires sufficient time. Thus, selection of
primary data is suggested only when the researcher has a lot of time, otherwise
secondary data is better to use in case of shortage of time.
2. Costly Affair: Alongwith more time consumption, primary data is expensive too. For
conducting primary surveys, we need human capital as well as financial resources,
which required for covering various kinds of expenses like printing cost, purchase of
software for analysing the data etc.
3. Infeasible: Sometimes it becomes problematic to conduct the primary surveys due to
infeasibility.
4. Incorrect Analysis: Data collection requires greater attention and precision on the
part of researcher. In case survey is not constructed properly or analysis of data is not
carried out by a professional/expert then it may result in blunder.

So, these are some of the merits and demerits of the primary data. Now we will confer over
secondary data, its merits and demerits.

Secondary Data: Data, which is collected by third party from published or unpublished
sources is termed as secondary data. It is not actually collected by the person, who needs it
for conducting the research studies. Like the information collected by government of India on
population is treated as primary information for the GOI, but when the same information is
used by person A for estimating the impact of population growth on food production, then it
will be considered as secondary data for person A. So, for all other users, census data will be
secondary data, except for GOI which has collected this information. In India, there are
various institutes, which collect the data at wider scale for various indicators and made
available this information to general public at minimal or zero cost.

Further, secondary data plays an important role in primary surveys as well. Usually, it is
suggested to individual researchers to check the figures from secondary data before
conducting the primary survey. In other words, one should go through the existing literature
and study what is already known and what are the untouched or left upon areas or study gaps.
Therefore, thorough study of the secondary data will help in locating the problems in data
collection, saving the time and money, assist in structuring the schedules etc.

Use of secondary data involves the compilation of data, which may be either from single
source or from various sources. Here the term compilation means assembling the data for
analysis purpose. e.g. someone wants to study the extent of multidimensional poverty in
India, for this purpose, he may use the data from various sources like National Family Health
Surveys, Institute for Human Development Surveys, Consumer Expenditure Surveys etc. So,
first task in front of researcher is to obtain the data from these sources and then compile it in
useable form, so that valuable results can be estimated.

Merits of Secondary Data

1. Convenient to Use: Since secondary data is collected by someone else, thus the
researcher need not to worry about the formulation of schedule, printing the
questionnaire, hiring the investigators, editing and tabulation of data etc. He can
simply use the existing data and can compute the statistical results.
2. Save Resources: Use of secondary data will save the money, time, efforts and other
resources required for conducting primary survey. Thereby, secondary data is cheaper
than the primary data.
3. Quick Availability: Secondary data is quickly available, as and when needed by the
researcher. For instance, ICSSR data repository provides the data on various macro
indicators in online mode, researcher just needs to make an account on their website.
Now a days, data is quickly available in the online mode, as compared to the earlier
time, when data was initially requested from the concerned institute and then institute
revert the data in CDs after verifying the details of the users.
4. Data on Wider Subjects: Sometimes, it becomes impossible for an individual to
conduct a primary survey in some specific areas like census, foodgrains production in
country etc. In such wider areas of study, secondary data is collected and furnished by
the government or semi-government agencies.
5. Covers Longer Period: Usually, surveys conducted by the government or private
institutes on the wider subjects are of continuous nature, which widens the scope of
secondary data.
6. Data collection under expert supervision: Under secondary sources of data, each
and every step related to data collection and compilation is under the expert's
 supervision. Thereby probability of errors of sampling is less in case of secondary
data.

Demerits of Secondary Data

1. Uniform size doesn't fit to all: Secondary data is collected by the concerned person
or authority according to their research requirements. So, it is not necessary that
secondary data used by third party will justify exactly the needs of the study.
2. Question of Reliability and Accuracy of data: Some degree of inaccuracy is always
attached with the use of secondary data, which may reduce the reliability of results
obtained from the secondary data.
3. Time constraint: Secondary data collected by reputed institutes is usually for regular
intervals, sometimes gaps in data collection also appears which again reduces the
efficacy of the findings. For instance, NSSO data on Consumer Expenditure Survey
was expected to be public in 2017-18 but due to technical issues this round was
withheld with the government.

Choice between Primary and Secondary data : After having the assessment of secondary
data, now the question arises is which source of data should be used while dealing with the
research. Investigator needs to be very careful while selecting among these two lines. This
choice depends on the certain aspects like –

1. Nature and scope of the research problem

These are some important factors, which will helps in deciding whether primary data is more
suitable or secondary data for conducting the research study.

Conclusion: From the whole discussion, it is clear that there are two major sources of
obtaining the information or data, which includes primary and secondary sources. Data
collected from the primary sources is known as primary data or raw data and it is usually
collected by the person or agency which requires it at first hand. On the other side, data
collected from secondary sources is known as secondary data and it is collected by other
persons or agencies and is used by others. Like data provided by NSSO, CSO, NFHS, RBI,
World Bank etc. on various social and economic indicators is treated as secondary data.
Researcher has to pay greater attention while selecting the source of data. Both of these data
types have their own advantages and limitations. Choice between primary and secondary data
relies on many aspects like nature and scope of research problem, amount of resources
available (i.e. time, money, human capital etc.), degree of accuracy needed etc.

This is all about today's lecture, thanks a lot for watching us.

Have a great time!