Business Research (524)

Assignment 2
(Nature of Secondary Data)
Name: Asifa Nazir
Roll Number: w583956
Submitted to: Mr. Mehtab Ali Khan











Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad
(Department of Business Administration)

Acknowledgment



First of all, I am thankful of Almighty Allah whose grace alone brings success and
accomplishment.I am very thankful to Miss Khalida Yousaf, operational chief of
Apna TV and Mr. Amin Khan, head of HRM dept. She has been very cooperative
throughout my assignment.

I am thankful to my tutor Mr. Mehtab Ali Khan and Brig. (R) M. Zubair who always
encouraged me and gave me confidence to go and work with responsibility.











Asifa Nazir
Roll No. W-583956
Introduction to the Topic
Secondary Data

Definition of Data:
A formal representation of raw material from which information is constructed via
processing or interpretation.

OR
A collection of facts, concepts or instructions in a formalized manner suitable for
communication or processing by human or automatic means.
Definition of Secondary Data:
Data collected for a purpose other than the one a forecaster may use it for; sources
may include newspapers, press releases, market research reports.

OR
Data from existing records created for other purposes (secondary sources), such as
data from report cards, membership lists, or social service agency records.


Review of Literature
Data may be described as Primary or Secondary:
Primary data - collected by the researcher himself.
Secondary data - collected by others to be "re-used" by the researcher.
In research, Secondary data is collected and possibly processed by people other than
the researcher in question. Common sources of secondary data for social science
include censuses, large surveys, and organizational records. In sociology primary
data is data you have collected yourself and secondary data is data you have
gathered from primary sources to create new research. In terms of historical
research, these two terms have different meanings. A primary source is a book or
set of archival records. A secondary source is a summary of a book or set of records.
There are two different types of sources that need to be established in order to
conduct a good analysis. The first type is a primary source which is the initial
material that is collected during the research process. Primary data is the data that
the researcher is collecting themselves using methods such as surveys, direct
observations, interviews, as well as logs(objective data sources). Primary data is a
reliable way to collect data because the researcher will know where it came from
and how it was collected and analyzed since they did it themselves. Secondary
sources on the other hand are sources that are based upon the data that was
collected from the primary source. Secondary sources take the role of analyzing,
explaining, and combining the information from the primary source with additional
information.
Secondary data analysis is commonly known as second-hand analysis. It is simply
the analysis of preexisting data in a different way or to answer a different question
than originally intended. Secondary data analysis utilizes the data that was collected
by someone else in order to further a study that you are interested in completing.
In contrast to secondary data, primary data comes from observations made by the
researchers themselves. This often creates credibility issues that do not arise with
secondary data.
Common sources of secondary data are social science surveys and data from
government agencies, including the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics and various other agencies. The data collected is most often collected via
survey research methods. Data from experimental studies may also be used.
Why use Secondary Data:
One of the main reasons of using secondary data in research is that at times we need
to expand the horizons of our views, theories, approached and knowledge growth.
Sometimes challenges of collecting first-hand data urge the use of secondary data.
Sometimes secondary data is collected before primary data because we want to find
out what is already known about a subject before we dive into our own
investigation and that because some of our questions can possibly have been
already answered by other investigators or authors. Why reinvent the wheel?

Sources of secondary data:
Sources of secondary data may be classified into:
1. Qualitative
2. Quantitative

Sources of Qualititave Secondary Data:
Biographies - subjective interpretation involved
Diaries - more spontaneous, less distorted by memory lapses
Memoirs - benefit/problem of hindsight
Letters - reveal interactions
Newspapers - public interest & opinion
Novels & Literature In General - eg Atkinson's tribute to usefulness of
Gordon's "Dr Novels"; McLelland's study of achievement motivation in
different cultures via children's stories & folktales
Handbooks, Policy Statements, Planning Documents, Reports, Historical &
Official Documents (Hansard, Royal Commission reports) etc. nb Marx's use
of Factory Inspectors reports in developing his theories of the labour process




Sources of Quantative Secondary Data:
Published Statistics:
National Government Sources
Demographic (Census, Vital Statistics, Cancer
Registrations)
Administrative (by-product of Government)
Collected by Govt. Depts. overseen by ONS
(eg. employment, prices, trade, finance)
Government Surveys (input to Government)
Local Government Sources
Planning Documents
Trends Documents
Other Sources
Firms & Trade Associations
Manufacturers & Traders
Market & Opinion Research
Trade Unions, TUC, STUC
Professional Bodies
Political Parties
Voluntary & Charitable Bodies
Academic & Research Institutes
International Sources
Non-Published / Electronic Sources
Data Archives
On-Line Access To National Computing Centres
International Sources on Internet & Web

Today, with Internet capabilities, thousands of large scale datasets are at the
click of a mouse for secondary data analyst. Globally, there are many sources
available. These sources can arrive from the data arranged by governmental and
private organizations, to data collected by any social researcher. Secondary data
analysis is a growing research tool in our modern day society






Ways of Using Secondary Sources:
o Exploratory phase - getting ideas
o Design Phase - definitions & sampling frames, question wording
o Supplement to Main Research
- Re-Inforcement &/Or Comparison
o Main Mode of Research
- Direct Data Collection Impossible
- Or Costly & Time Consuming



Flow Diagram for conducting a Data Research











Challenges to Secondary Data
Advantages:
Using secondary data can allow for the analyses of social processes in what would
otherwise be inaccessible settings. It also saves time and money since the work has
already been done to collect the data. That lets the researcher avoid problems with
the data collection process. Using someone else's data can also facilitate a
comparison with other data samples and allow multiple sets of data to be combined.
There is also the chance that other variables could be included, resulting in a more
diverse sample than would have been feasible before.
Disadvantages:
There are several things to take into consideration when using preexisting data.
Secondary data does not permit the progression from formulating a research
question to designing methods to answer that question. It is also not feasible for a
secondary data analyst to engage in the habitual process of making observations
and developing concepts. These limitations hinder the ability of the researcher to
focus on the original research question. Data quality is always a concern because it's
source may not be trusted. Even data from official records may be bad because the
data is only as good as the records themselves. There are six questions that a
secondary analyst should be able to answer about the data they wish to analyze.
1.What were the agency's or researcher's goals when collecting the data?
2.What data was collected and what is it supposed to measure?
3.When was the data collected?
4.What methods were used? Who was responsible and are they available for
questions?
5.How is the data organized?
6.What information is known about the success of that data collection? How
consistent is the data with data from other sources?




Practical Study of the Organization
Introduction


Apna Channel is a satellite channel broadcasting from Thailand, and s envisaged as a
news channel telecasting in Punjabi language, internationally footage to be in 127
countries. In Pakistan the target viewer ship of Apna is likely to be the whole
country as Punjabi language is spoken and understand in Punjab, Sindh and N.W.F.P
very largely,. The channel is also targeting the punjabi speaking communities form
the sub-continent, settled in Europe, Middle East and Gulf, Fareast, Africa and
Australia. The channel has its Head office in Karachi and 105 offices spread all over
the Pakistan Operating round the clock with dedicated and time efficient work force.









Vision

Our vision is to provide fresh, crisp and healthy entertainment along with news
updates and current affairs programs to keep the viewers updated on the national
and global happenings, with round the clock transmission, to achieve these
objectives, we have developed a core team of technicians and creative individuals
whose experience is spread over decades in their respective professional discipline.

We believe in quality and excellence as media broadcasting house focused on
creating an edge over our competition in quality programming and contents for our
viewers and advertisers in Pakistan and overseas. The channel as already acquired
significant household penetration and reaches both in urban and rural areas of
Pakistan in a very short span of time.












Data Collection

Apna TV channel is a Pakistans leading regional channel and not only they work on
Entertainment and Infotainment but also the programming of the channel relies
heavily on News and Current Affairs. The department of current affairs usually
produces programs related to the follow-ups of the important news event and also
produce research based programs related to current events. Major of the research
done by the department is through secondary sources, some of them are mentioned
below:
Script of old program of same topics
Encyclopedias
archive data from leading newspapers of Pakistan
Public Libraries
Internet
Cyber forums
Magazines
Clipping of Newspapers
Manuals of Govt. Departments
Apna Documentary, is a documentary based program produced by the current
affairs department is one program which relies heavily on the secondary research.
The researchers of the program, to avoid the tight time constraint and to avoid
reinventing the wheel, they try to find already written material on the subject,
resulting in generating the script before the significance of the topic of the
documentary expires.
If the program is intended to cater the larger target audience and broaden the
canvas of the topic, researchers do get help from the data issued by Government
department, and then to get a comparative study they get help from public libraries
and Internet sources. Also, due to evolve in internet technologies they had formed
various internet forums, from which they can interact with the audience and
exchange the ideologies on the subject.

The video archive department becomes useful, as production time lessens with the
help of already shot videos. Another important segment of Apna documentary is
that they take the views of experts on the subject resulting in managing a good
credibility on the subject. Although the disadvantages of secondary data exists in
this scenario too, but major of the working of secondary data is done in:
o Exploratory phase - getting ideas (pre-production)
o Design Phase - (Scripting)
o Conclusive Phase (Production)
As interviews
As Public opinions







Recommendations for Apna TV

Focus on primary data should be done to avoid the disadvantages of
secondary data.
Apna TV should also manage their own news archive.
The Archive department of videos should be computerized.
Manage the Govt. manuals as archive in order to do comparative studies in
future.