Which statement about primary data is most accurate?

• A. Readily available to everyone
• B. Information from the internet
• C. Data collected from a system
• D. Collected for a specific purpose by the researcher

Answer: (D)

Primary data is data collected directly by the researcher for a specific purpose. It’s original information created through methods you design for your study—like surveys, experiments, interviews, or direct observations—so the data precisely answers the research questions and is gathered under the researcher’s control.

That’s why it’s the best fit: the data is collected for this particular purpose, not sourced from elsewhere or pre-existing records. It’s not simply information readily available to everyone, and it isn’t just information found on the internet, which is typically secondary data—data that already exists and was gathered by others for different aims. Data from a system could be primary if you are the one collecting it anew for your study, but in common usage, primary data is defined by being collected firsthand for the specific research objective.