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Dissertation Research Methods Help!

I've been told by my university I have to use only secondary data for my dissertation and I'm so confused by how to do that, all the advice I've read says secondary data can either be analysed in isolation, or two can be combined to compare the two... but I won't to combine two data sets to see what they imply.

To simplify my issue, lets imagine I'm looking for information on how much people like chocolate cookies. I have 1 set of data saying people like chocolate, and one set that say people like cookies, and I want to use them to suggest people like chocolate cookies. Is this allowed, and if so what is the academic term for it? I hope that makes sense.

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 1

Designeddeath

Original post by bp9126

I've been told by my university I have to use secondary data for my dissertation and I'm so confused by how to do that, all the advice I've read says secondary data can either be analysed in isolation, or two can be combined to compare the two... but I won't to combine two data sets to see what they imply.

To simplify my issue, lets imagine I'm looking for information on how much people like chocolate cookies. I have 1 set of data saying people like chocolate, and one set that say people like cookies, and I want to use them to suggest people like chocolate cookies. Is this allowed, and if so what is the academic term for it? I hope that makes sense.

From what I understand, primary data is your immediate material for the dissertation. For example, if you are analyzing the number of people that like cookie and chocolate, your primary data is the cookie and chocolate. Your secondary data could be anything relating to your topic but not the analyse done by you right then. Thus, your secondary data could be a previous dissertation that is about chocolate and cookie

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 2

bp9126

Original post by Designeddeath

So are you saying by combining these two secondary data sets, I'm making them primary data?

Reply 3

Designeddeath

Original post by bp9126

So are you saying by combining these two secondary data sets, I'm making them primary data?

No, I’m saying external materials are your secondary data. Your primary data is what you decide to talk about. Like if you decide to analyse the number of people that like snickers and Oreos then, snickers and Oreos are your primary data. Any other material you use outside of snickers and Oreos will become your secondary data. Thus, a former research on snickers and Oreos is a secondary data, a past research that compares Oreos and bounty is a secondary data. If you decide to use any other material that isn’t got from your own analysis of Oreos and snickers, it becomes a secondary data.