Secondary Data Assignment Paper

Research and evaluation in the public and nonprofit sectors is accomplished with very limited resources. These limited resources include time, funds, knowledge, and more. These types of limitations often mean that one cannot create his or her own primary data, but instead, must use secondary data in research and evaluation projects. Secondary data are data that have been collected by another researcher at a different point in time.

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For this Discussion, review this week’s Learning Resources. Consider the types of secondary data you might need to support your Final Project. This data may consist of published data sets (such as census data), statistics produced by governmental agencies, and so on. Identify at least two different sources of data to use for your post.

Post by Day 3 a description of the types of secondary data that would be useful in evaluating the program, problem, or policy you selected for your Final Project. Explain how it would impact the evaluation of the program, problem, or policy you identified.

READINGS

• Johnson, G. (2014). Research methods for public administrators (3rd ed.). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
  • Chapter 7, “Data Collection I: Available Data and Observation” (pp. 97–111)

Review a selection of the datasets available at the following sites:

• Bureau of Labor Statistics. (n.d.). Retrieved June 7, 2014, from www.bls.gov
• United Nations. (n.d.). Official documents and bibliographic databases. Retrieved June 7, 2014, from http://www.un.org/en/databases/

Optional Resources

MEDIA

• Laureate Education (Producer). (2013c). Virtual community. [Multimedia file]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

  “Virtual Community” Transcript (PDF)