What is Primary Data?

What is Primary Data?

• A. Questionaries
• B. Data from a system
• C. Published statistics
• D. Collected for a specific purpose

Answer: (D)

Primary data is data you collect yourself for a specific study or purpose. It’s gathered directly to answer your particular research questions, often through methods like surveys, experiments, or observations, so you control what is measured and when it’s collected. This makes it timely and highly relevant, but it usually requires more time and cost to obtain. By contrast, data from a system or published statistics are typically secondary data—already collected for other reasons and then reused. Questionnaires are a method to gather primary data, but the data themselves are what matter for the study.

Primary data is data you collect yourself for a specific study or purpose. It’s gathered directly to answer your particular research questions, often through methods like surveys, experiments, or observations, so you control what is measured and when it’s collected. This makes it timely and highly relevant, but it usually requires more time and cost to obtain. By contrast, data from a system or published statistics are typically secondary data—already collected for other reasons and then reused. Questionnaires are a method to gather primary data, but the data themselves are what matter for the study.