Government census figures are typically what type of data in research?

• A. Primary data
• B. Secondary data
• C. Tertiary data
• D. Experimental data

Answer: (B)

Think about how data are categorized by who collected them and for what purpose. Primary data are collected directly by the researcher for a specific study. Secondary data are data that were collected by someone else for another purpose but can be used to address a new question. Tertiary data are summaries or compilations of primary and secondary sources, like encyclopedias or textbooks. Experimental data come from controlled experiments with defined treatments.

Government census figures fit as secondary data. They’re produced by a government agency to inform policy and planning, not specifically to answer your current research question. Researchers use these existing figures for analysis rather than gathering new census data themselves. They’re not experimental data, since there’s no controlled experiment involved, and they’re not tertiary data, since they’re the original data produced by the census process rather than a summary of other sources.