Primary research is a type of research that uses original data meaning that when you have to find and gather
information on something but you have to do it yourself, an example of a good primary research technique would be surveys like creating a questionnaire and getting answers from people from the questions you've generated but using questionnaires can also be a mix of secondary and primary research because even though you've created the questionnaire yourself the information you get from the answers people have put in can be classed as secondary because your getting that information from a different source.Because primary research only uses original data means that getting information from the internet like Wikipedia or any other sites will not be primary research anymore as you are taking information from a source someone has already done. Using books will also classed as secondary research because your using something that someone else has wrote. Other primary research techniques you could use are focus groups because while your in a focus group you have the freedom of asking people and write down notes that you can expand later on, another good example of primary research are Phone interviews because when you're interviewing someone you ask them questions. All primary research must be for a specific purpose like any other research.
This is an example of a questionnaire that I have created with survey monkey and as you can see its very random. In a questionnaire you can have a question that is either opened or closed. Closed questions are questions that you can only choose one answer that's already been provided be it yes or no or like the first question that is shown in the example questionnaire below now an open questionnaire is the opposite instead of having to only choose from multiple answers that's already been written for you, and open question gives you the freedom to answer whatever you like but of course it has to be related to the question otherwise it wouldn't make any sense. You can see an open question below on the example questionnaire.
A questionnaire isn't the only option for primary research you can do either the questionnaire which is the easiest option for primary research, there is also the focus group option which you will have to gather people then sit around a table and ask them questions so sort of like a group interview and this is good because while you only get one sided answers in a questionnaire in a focus group you can get a lot more information while taking notes because you get to talk to them in person and while you only ask a single question and get a single answer in a questionnaire, while doing a focus group you can expand on them and you can also clarify answers you don't understand to the person it came from. The other one is a phone interview which I have mentioned before.
Advantages of primary research is that it's one of the easiest way of doing research also you get the answers that your want from the people you give your questionnaire to this means that you can trust the results that come back because its yours, also if any of the results come back wrong no body else is to be blamed except for you as you did create the questionnaire yourself.
Secondary:
Unlike primary research secondary research is the complete opposite as it uses information from other sources. There are many ways that you can do secondary research like for example using the internet to get information from sites like the popular Wikipedia but it isn't the only one out there, the internet has thousands of other sites that can give you the information you want depending on what you want to find out. Another option would be going to library and finding a book or magazine then use it to find specific information on what you want to find out a newspaper is also a good option.You can use either of these options but each of them have different purposes like for example if you wanted to find out about whats been recently happening in a celebrities life a goo choice would be to go on the internet because it basically has everything, you can also use a magazine because they are always updated. Even though the internet is easier because there are thousands of sites that have information on what you need you can't always rely on it because it could be down one day so the only options you'll have would be to use books, magazines and newspapers to find your information.
An example of secondary research are the images shown above. I acquired this this grid of information from a site called BARD which is short for Broadcasters Audience Research Board, this site displays the TV ratings and the number of figures a TV channel has. The first image above shows the top ten programmes in the TV channel ITV and the second image shows how many viewers that programme has by the thousands. This is classed as secondary research because your gathering information from a source the someone has gathered themselves.
The advantages of secondary research is that if you need information the internet is only a click away meaning its easier and you don't consume other peoples time with questionnaires and interviews, also your local newspaper gets dropped by your house everyday without having to pay for it something similar to the newspaper are books and magazines although you have to pay for them some can be cheaper than others also each book holds different specific information and libraries have them categorized in shelves so you won't have too much of a hard time looking for the right book. This takes less time than making a questionnaire because after you've finished making the questionnaire you have to find people who will do them for you but after that you also have to evaluate and put together the information you've gathered from it, so gathering information from books is not as time consuming as doing a questionnaire and it also saves paper.
The disadvantages of secondary research is that you don't know if the information that you gathered is reliable or not and the source your getting it from might be giving you false information also even though the internet has a vast source of information that you can gather your information from you don't know how old the source might be so always for the date to when it was last updated. Not everyone has internet in their homes as it is quite expensive. If you don't have internet in your house you can always go to your local library but if you don't have one you might have to take a bus to get to it or you can just walk but it would be a hassle to do so and taking the bus will just cost you money.
Quantitative research is the type of research you use to get numeric based results. For example in a questionnaire if you use closed questions it will give you number based results, closed questions in a questionnaire usually already have answers provided for you so all you have to do is to pick from those already given options which means that questions like these give you no freedom answer in your own word. Example of methods you can use to acquire quantitative data is by doing questionnaires or surveys.
The image above can be used as an example of audience research because it shows how many video game playing audience there is, also it states the range of age people play video games along with the percentage of males and females that play video games in the UK and also the social group they are placed in. Though this page is not up to date anymore so it's unreliable because over the course of 4 years there could've been drastic changes in the percentage of the gender that play video games and also the number of video game playing audience a good example of this is shown on the image below. This page was published on Thursday 18 September 2014, which means that over the course of three years the percentage of women that played video games increased by 4% as the page states.
Quantitative research is important for both the media and games industry because to create a new product they would have to find out what people want first because they can't just produce a product with taking taking what their target audience wants into account but they do this in a more statistically and numerical way which is what quantitative research is all about. They acquire quantitative data by doing surveys because by doing this it determines the numbers and percentages of what they are trying to achieve for their target audiences.
Qualitative research will most likely be used by market researchers, qualitative research is the opposite of quantitative research because if quantitative focuses on people's view numerically and statistically qualitative research focuses on people's views and opinions and how they react to a certain type of product or a topic which could be about anything like a game, a movie or a book. This can be done in many ways, the easiest option would be doing a questionnaire but the questions will have to be open questions where people can freely put their opinion in their own words, with this you can get unique and individual responses as a result. This type of research is definitely helpful in the games industry, let's say a games company released a new game or a prototype of the game they would want to hear feedback from people like what they think about the game and how to improve it. There are professionals that do this for a living called Game QA testers QA stands for Quality Assurance. Game companies also acquire results by creating forums that is solely based on that certain game. Forums can be about anything as well, forums and reviews are two types of qualitative research.
Like for example, the first image below shows a forum which has been set up for the purpose of discussing the PC requirements between two games.
Both of the images above are types of qualitative research the first image shows a forum while the second shows a review, the difference between the two is that the review is more detailed and focuses on analysing and stating the important elements of a game which in the case is a game called 'Tales of Zestiria' both of these methods are very helpful and effective to the gaming industry because forum method takes into account what people want to see in the product, what they want to happen this helps the games company to change the game based on what their target audience are asking for while the review method helps them to know what to improve technically.
Links
https://srp-uk.org/news/article/89/bss-questionnaire
http://www.peerresources.org/curriculum/interviews/
http://www.exchangemarketresearchgroupnationwide.com/about
http://opusmusic.org/?p=888
http://forcechange.com/44742/urge-magazine-to-change-healthy-definition/
http://38pitches.com/top-100-books-you-should-read-before-you-die/
http://www.bytscomputers.com/services/refurbished-computers/
http://www.iabuk.net/blog/10-uk-video-game-audience-stats
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/18/52-percent-people-playing-games-women-industry-doesnt-know
http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/tales-of-zestiria-review/1900-6416292/
http://www.gamespot.com/forums/games-discussion-1000000/fallout-4-vs-witcher-3-pc-requirements-32685760/#10
