Question

what is secondary data? name some of its sources in India.

Answer 1

Secondary data refers to data that was collected by someone other than the user.[1] Common sources of secondary data for social science include censuses, information collected by government departments, organisational records and data that was originally collected for other research purposes.[2] Primary data, by contrast, are collected by the investigator conducting the research.

Secondary data analysis can save time that would otherwise be spent collecting data and, particularly in the case of quantitative data, can provide larger and higher-quality databases that would be unfeasible for any individual researcher to collect on their own. In addition, analysts of social and economic change consider secondary data essential, since it is impossible to conduct a new survey that can adequately capture past change and/or developments. However, secondary data analysis can be less useful in marketing research, as data may be outdated or inaccurate.

Answer 2

Secondary data is data that has already been collected by someone else and is open for consumption to others. Primary data is new information collected or provided by the researcher themselves.

The main examples of secondary data sources include: government records, census population numbers, survey reports, text books among other sources.