What is data? Explain the forms of data
Answers
Answer:
Data is a set of values of subjects with respect to qualitative or quantitative variables.
Data is raw, unorganized facts that need to be processed. Data can be something simple and seemingly random and useless until it is organized.
When data is processed, organized, structured or presented in a given context so as to make it useful, it is called information.
Information, necessary for research activities are achieved in different forms.
The main forms of the information available are:
Primary data
Secondary data
Cross-sectional data
Categorical data
Time series data
Spatial data
Ordered data
Data and its types
Primary Data
Primary data is an original and unique data, which is directly collected by the researcher from a source according to his requirements.
It is the data collected by the investigator himself or herself for a specific purpose.
Data gathered by finding out first-hand the attitudes of a community towards health services, ascertaining the health needs of a community, evaluating a social program, determining the job satisfaction of the employees of an organization, and ascertaining the quality of service provided by a worker are the examples of primary data.
Secondary Data
Secondary data refers to the data which has already been collected for a certain purpose and documented somewhere else.
Data collected by someone else for some other purpose (but being utilized by the investigator for another purpose) is secondary data.
Gathering information with the use of census data to obtain information on the age-sex structure of a population, the use of hospital records to find out the morbidity and mortality patterns of a community, the use of an organization’s records to ascertain its activities, and the collection of data from sources such as articles, journals, magazines, books and periodicals to obtain historical and other types of information, are examples of secondary data.
Cross-Sectional Data
Cross-sectional data is a type of data collected by observing many subjects (such as individuals, firms, countries, or regions) at the same point of time, or without regard to differences in time.
It is the data for a single time point or single space point.
This type of data is limited in that it cannot describe changes over time or cause and effect relationships in which one variable affects the other.
Categorical Data
Categorical variables represent types of data which may be divided into groups. Examples of categorical variables are race, sex, age group, and educational level.
The data, which cannot be measured numerically, is called as the categorical data. Categorical data is qualitative in nature.
The categorical data is also known as attributes.
A data set consisting of observation on a single characteristic is a univariate data set. A univariate data set is categorical if the individual observations are categorical responses.
Example of categorical data: Intelligence, Beauty, Literacy, Unemployment