Research methods

In our media lesson, we learnt about the different types of research methods. There are four types of research:

• Primary-research that is carried out personally
• Secondary-research that is done by other people
• Quantitative-research that is numerical
• Qualitative-research that is descriptive

Primary research methods include questionnaires, interviews, surveys, focus groups, emails, letters, textual analysis, etc. There are some advantages to doing primary research. It is quick and simple to do, easy to complete and you get direct answers. However, the disadvantages of primary research are that people can lie, they may not complete the tasks (e.g. questionnaires, emails, etc) and it is time consuming to create.

Secondary research methods include websites done by companies/industries, websites done by individuals, books and newspapers. The advantages of using this type of research is that the information will be more reliable. However, a disadvantage is that media changes rapidly, so books won't be very reliable for up to date information. Although they are good for researching media theory.

Quantitative research uses a large number of people to find patterns/trends between their answers. Methods include questionnaires and surveys.

Qualitative research uses a small number of people. It is used if you want to collect the opinions of people. Methods include interviews.