When researchers collect data for their studies, they have to start from somewhere. And that somewhere is raw data. When carrying out research, collecting raw data is inevitable, which can be either qualitative or quantitative. Raw data is important in research because it is later organised, analysed, and interpreted to determine if the research findings support the hypothesis.
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Jetzt kostenlos anmeldenWhen researchers collect data for their studies, they have to start from somewhere. And that somewhere is raw data. When carrying out research, collecting raw data is inevitable, which can be either qualitative or quantitative. Raw data is important in research because it is later organised, analysed, and interpreted to determine if the research findings support the hypothesis.
Raw data is essential in psychology research. Researchers use raw data to calculate descriptive statistics, which describe and summarise the data, helping the researcher and reader visualise the collected raw data and present it more clearly.
Raw data is data that has been collected from the researcher during research that has not yet been processed.
Raw data can be collected regardless of whether it is:
Quantitative – numerical data
Qualitative – non-numerical data
What is the difference between raw data and primary data?
Raw data is data collected during research that has not yet been processed. Primary data is data the researcher has collected themself from their experiment cited in a study. They are very similar.
There are many uses of raw data in research. Some of these include:
Organising data that can be later interpreted and analysed.
Making estimations of what the researcher can expect to find from the results.
Comparing data values between conditions/groups in experiments to identify notable differences.
Constructing tables, graphs or charts, such as;
Frequency tables, bar charts, histograms and/or pie charts.
When collecting data for research, raw data is always collected. This data needs to be organised to be later analysed and interpreted by recording the data on a table. When designing raw data recording tables, the researcher needs to keep in mind several important things:
All of the data collected needs to be somehow recorded onto the table.
The researcher needs to consider how to record the data. For example, the data may be coded or tallied. The purpose of this is to make it easier to analyse data later.
An example of coded data used in research is M for male participants and F for female participants.
Below you can see an example data table. This table summarises the favourite colours of students. The raw data is written in standard form. The standard form is data recorded by tallying the number of responses of students who identified the specific colour as their favourite colour.
Red | Orange | Yellow | Pink | Green | Purple | Total |
4 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 20 |
The researcher may use this data to convert it from standard form into decimal form. To change raw data from standard to decimal form, the researcher must divide each category's frequency by the total number of responses, as shown in the example below.
Red | Orange | Yellow | Pink | Green | Purple | Total |
4 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 20 |
4/20 = 0.2 | 2/20 = 0.1 | 1/20 = 0.05 | 6/20 = 0.3 | 2/20 = 0.1 | 5/20 = 0.25 | 1 |
Raw data may be converted from standard into decimal form when doing some calculations. For example, researchers should do this when constructing a pie chart but alter it to reflect 360°.
Researchers can also analyse raw data in their research. For example, they can use it to find the arithmetic means of the data.
The arithmetic mean (or simply the mean) is a statistic used to find the average of a dataset. To calculate the arithmetic mean, all values must be added together and divided by the number of values in the dataset.
The raw data table below shows participant responses to the question, 'Have you been experiencing more pain than last month?' after taking a drug to help relieve pain. The response was based on a 1–10 Likert scale; 1 represents less pain, and 10 represents more pain. Researchers recorded the participants' responses in the raw data table below.
The researcher wanted to measure the average responses of the two groups (drugs versus placebo). Below you can see how this can be calculated and interpreted:
Drug (experimental) group | Placebo (control) group |
1 | 7 |
1 | 5 |
3 | 6 |
5 | 5 |
2 | 8 |
2 | 8 |
1 | 4 |
3 | 6 |
2 | 6 |
The average of the experimental group is: 1 + 1 + 3 + 5 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 3 + 2 = 20. We then divide this by 9 = 2.22
The figure has been rounded down to two significant figures.
The average of the control group is: 7 + 5 + 6 + 5 + 8 + 8 + 4 + 6 + 6 = 55/ 9 = 6.11
The figure has been rounded down to two significant figures.
The results can be interpreted as, on average, the experimental group experienced less pain than the control group. Researchers can then use further statistical tests to measure the significance of these results etc.
When collecting raw data in psychology research, it is good to round the data values to two significant figures. There should not be more than two numerical values after a decimal point in data figures. Whether the figure should be rounded up or down determines these numbers. The numbers should be:
Researchers sometimes use raw data to make estimations. This is occasionally used when a psychologist wants to make a quick approximation/estimation of the data that has been collected.
Calculating something such as 487 x 9876 would be an example of using raw data to estimate, in which the researcher may calculate 500 x 10,000.
By making estimations, the researchers can roughly estimate what they can expect to find from their results.
Organising data that can be later interpreted and analysed.
Making estimations of what the researcher can expect to find from the results.
Comparing data values between conditions/groups in experiments to identify notable differences.
Constructing tables, graphs, or charts.
Raw data is data that has been collected from the researcher during research that has not yet been processed.
The raw data format depends on the variable that has been collected. For example, age would be written as a whole number, gender may be M or F, or small/ large numbers may be written in standard or decimal form.
Raw data is data collected during research that has not yet been processed. Primary data is data the researcher has collected themself from their experiment cited in a study. Raw data is a form of primary data.
There are many uses of raw data in research, e,g, for organising data that can be later interpreted and analysed, making estimations, comparing values and constructing tables, graphs or charts.
A list of all the test scores students received on the last test is an example of raw data.
What is raw data?
Raw data is the unprocessed data that is gathered in a study from participants.
What are the three components a raw data table has?
A title that describes what the table is about, labels for the different parts of the table, and any unit measurements such as millilitres (ml) and grams (g) should be put next to the labels.
What is 9,000,000 in standard from?
9 x 106.
What is 0.0005 in standard from?
5 x 10-4.
What is 6/10000 in decimal form?
0.0006.
How many significant figures does 0.367 have?
Three.
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