Research Methods

These are the four types of research methods I have learnt about. I will use each of these to gain information for my music magazine, each method has it's advantages and disadvantages. 

Primary

Primary research is collecting original primary data, it is data the research has discovered themselves. There are numerous ways this can be formed, for example questionnaires and interviews.

Secondary

Secondary research is collecting data that already exists. It can be found via experiments, the internet and previous primary researchers. 

Qualitative

Qualitative research techniques cannot be measured, a good example of this is a focus group. Data is collected by the observations from the researcher. 

Quantitative

The quantitative research technique can be measured, but it is displayed in numeric forms. Using multiple choice on a questionnaire would be an example of quantitative research because this means the answers can be measured and then put into a chart or something similar.

I am likely to collect most of my research from secondary methods, this is because to create my own music magazine I will need to analyse the typical conventions of magazines, which have already been created. Therefore I will be using previous primary research and the internet will be very helpful. Primary research could also be quite effective as I could create my own questionnaire's and use them on my target audience, this will help me to get specific answers about what readers will want to be included in my magazine. The qualitative research method would be very time consuming to gain data as I would have to hold individual interviews to observe different people's behaviour, however the quantitative research method will be useful to me as I can put the data I collect from my questionnaires into charts, this will make answers easier to obtain certain information from.