Major approaches to information gathering in management research

There are two major approaches to gathering information about a situation, person, problem or phenomenon. When you undertake a research study, in most situations, you need to collect the required information; however, sometimes the information required is already available and need only be extracted. Based upon these broad approaches to information gathering, data can be categorised as:

• primary data;
• secondary data.

Information gathered using the first approach is said to be collected from primary sources, whereas the sources used in the second approach are called secondary sources. Examples of primary sources include finding out first-hand the attitudes of a community towards health services, ascertaining the health needs of a community, evaluating a social programme, deter­mining the job satisfaction of the employees of an organisation, and ascertaining the quality of service provided by a worker are examples of information collected from primary sources. On the other hand, 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 organisation’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 all classified as secondary sources. In summary, primary sources provide first-hand information and secondary sources provide second-hand data. Figure 9.1 shows the various methods of data collection.

None of the methods of data collection provides 100 per cent accurate and reliable infor­mation. The quality of the data gathered is dependent upon a number of other factors, which we will identify as we discuss each method. Your skill as a researcher lies in your ability to take care of the factors that could affect the quality of your data. One of the main differences between experienced and amateur researchers lies in their understanding of, and ability to control, these factors. It is therefore important for a beginner to be aware of them.

Source: Kumar Ranjit (2012), Research methodology: a step-by-step guide for beginners, SAGE Publications Ltd; Third edition.