Trampoline 2 of 12: Key definitions

<This series of posts is aimed at the current RADIUS Trampoline cohort – but will be of use to anyone learning to do secondary market research. Click on the table of contents to go to the first post.>

Before we begin, we need to be clear about a couple really important definitions:

Primary Research is the sort where you do surveys, focus groups, interviews, observations, etc. to gather exactly the information you need from the right people in the right place and at the right time. 

That sort of research may, indeed, be part of your project, but my focus today is on...

Secondary Research,  which involves gathering somewhat-relevant information that other people collected in other places at other times for their own purposes, then trying to apply that information to your own goals & questions.

As you can probably guess, secondary research rarely uncovers perfect information – you will need to spend some time thinking about its relevance and reliability.  Nevertheless, it’s still an incredibly valuable process to go through.

You may get quick and cheap answers that come close enough to your needs without any need to go through conducting your own surveys, etc.!  Or (more likely), you may get close enough to some of your answers that you can spend your limited resources (time & money) focusing on doing primary research to fill in the gaps.

So... to twist an old saying: close counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and secondary research!  (Sorry.)

Ready for more?  On to >> Step ONE!  Ask good questions

– MarkB
~~~~~~~~~~
Mark Bodnar
Business & Economics Librarian
mbodnar@sfu.ca