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Methodologies for Conducting your IA

Primary Data
Primary data is data that is collected personally by the investigator.  There are many different ways of collecting primary data. Here is a partial list with resources to help you conduct each type. 

Questionnaire
You can design a questionnaire or survey to identify the way people feel about your variable. A properly designed questionnaire is time-consuming to create. Therefore, you must make sure to explain in great detail how you designed it and why you used it over another method. 

Quadrats 
Sampling using quadrats is a standard tool for used to study ecology, especially biodiversity. In order to monitor biodiversity, a series of quadrats of a set size are placed within a particular habitat. Once placed, the species within the quadrats are identified and recorded.

​Size?
Quadrat size
Quadrat area
Organisms
​10 x 10 cm
0.01 m sq.
very small organisms: lichen on tree trunks; algae; etc. 
0.5 x 0.5 cm
0.25 cm sq.
small plants: grasses, herbs, small shrubs
​slow moving/sessile animals: mussels, limpets, anemones
1.0 x 1.0 m
1.0 m sq. 
Medium size plants & large bushes
5.0 x 5.0 m
25 m sq. 
mature trees

Secondary Data 
Secondary data is data that was collected by someone other than the investigator. Using this type of data is excellent for looking at broader context or if you need information about an entire population. This type of data is acceptable for use in your IA, but try to have at least three sources of data for each variable. This will allow you to calculate the mean for the sources to prevent outliers from having too large an impact on your results. 

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