INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

Chapter 7-9:

Data Collection Methods

Interviews, Observation, Questionnaires,
and others Ethics of the Researchers and Respondents

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 Chapter 7: INTERVIEWS

• LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1) Primary and Secondary data collection methods
2) Plan, design, and carry out a personal interview
3) Plan, design, and carry out a group interview
4) Advantages and Disadvantages of interviewing

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 Introduction
• Having discussed a number of basic issues in research
design in the previous chapter, we will now turn to
primary data collection methods
• Data collection methods are a part of the research
design

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 SOURCES OF DATA
• Data can be obtained from primary or secondary
sources
• Primary data refer to information obtained firsthand by
the researcher on the variables of interest for the
specific purpose of the study
• Secondary data refer to information gathered from
sources already existing

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 PRIMARY DATA COLLECTION METHODS

• Most of the fields is largely phenomenon

• Much of the information needed to make
decisions
✓Example: decisions in the work setting has to
come from people: employees, consumers,
managers, investors, suppliers, …
• For this reason, interviews, observation, and
questionnaires are very popular in research
✓These methods allow the researcher to collect a
wide variety of different sorts of data from
human respondents

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 Primary data collection methods

• The primary data collection decision is

interrelated with the other steps in the research
process
✓Which involves the selection of the method(s) of
obtaining the information
• The choice of method(s) will depend on: the
objective(s) of the study, the research questions,
and the research strategy

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 INTERVIEWS

• A widely used method of collecting data in

research is to interview respondents TO
OBTAIN INFORMATION on an issue of interest
• An interview is a guided, purposeful
conversation between two or more people
• There are many different types of interviews
✓Individual or group interviews may be
unstructured or structured, and conducted face-
to-face, by telephone, or online

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 Unstructured interviews
• The interviewer does not enter the interview setting
with a planned sequence of questions to be asked
of the respondent
• A possible objective of an unstructured interview is
to bring some preliminary issues to the surface
✓So that the researcher can determine what factors
need further in-depth investigation

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 Unstructured interviews

• What do you like about working here?

• If you were to tell me which aspects of your job you
like and which you do not, what would they be?
• Tell me something about the reward systems in this
place?
• If you were offered a similar job elsewhere, how
willing would you be to take it and why?
• & so on

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 Structured interviews
• Structured interviews are those conducted when it is
known at the outset what information is needed
• The content can be prepared in advance, consists of:
✓An introduction: the interviewer introduces him or
herself, the purpose of the interview, permission to
record the interview, assures confidentiality, et…
✓A set of topics (usually questions) in a logical order:
first “warm-up” questions (which are easy to answer and
non-threatening) and then the main questions covering
the purpose of the interview, et…
✓Suggestions for probing questions: follow-up
questions that are used when the first answer is unclear
or incomplete, the interviewer does not fully understand
the answer, et…

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 Structured interviews

• PROBING TACTICS
✓Silence!
✓Repeating the answer!
✓“So what I hear you saying is … ”
✓“I’m not quite sure I understood, Could you …”
✓“Could you please tell me more about …”
✓“Could you give an example?”
✓“Could you go over that again?”
✓“Anything else?”

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 Training interviewers

• When several long interviews are to be conducted, it is

often not feasible for one individual to conduct all the
interviews
• A team of trained interviewers then becomes necessary

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 Training interviewers

• Interviewers have to be carefully informed about the

research and trained in:
✓How to start an interview?
✓How to proceed with the questions?
✓How to motivate respondents to answer?
✓What to look for in the answers, and how to close an
interview
✓They also need to be instructed about taking notes and
coding the interview responses.

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 Face-to-face interviews
• Advantages:
✓Adapt the questions as necessary, clarify doubts, and
ensure that the responses are properly understood
✓Pick up nonverbal cues from the respondent (e.g., knit
the brows)
✓Any discomfort, stress, or problems that the respondent
experiences can be detected

• Disadvantages:
✓Geographical limitations
✓Vast resources needed
✓High costs
✓Respondents might feel uneasy
about the anonymity of their
responses
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 Telephone interviews
• Advantages:
✓A number of different people can be reached in a
relatively short period of time
✓It would eliminate any discomfort on respondents
• Disadvantages:
✓Respondents could unilaterally terminate the
interview without warning or explanation, by hanging
up the phone.
✓Researcher will not be able to read the nonverbal
communication

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 Group interviews
• Interviews may be conducted on a
group basis:
✓The interviewer puts open questions to
a group of participants
✓The term “focus group” is used for a
particular type of group interview,
where the topic is clearly defined and
there is a focus on facilitating
discussion between participants
• Focus groups consist of eight to ten
members with a moderator leading the
discussions on a particular topic,
concept, or product

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 Chapter 8: Observation

• LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
✓Define observation
✓How observation may help to solve business
problems
✓Type of observational method for a specific study
✓The issues related to participant observation and
structured observation
✓Advantages and disadvantages of observation

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 Introduction

• Actions and behavior of employees,

consumers, investors, and the like may play an
important role in any research
• Researchers and managers be interested in:
✓The way workers carry out their jobs;
✓The impact of new manufacturing techniques on
employee activity;
✓How consumers watch commercials, use
products, or behave in waiting areas, or in how a
merchant bank trades and operates.

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 Introduction
• A useful and natural technique to collect data on
actions and behavior is observation
• Observation involves going into “the field”:
✓The factory, the supermarket, the waiting room, the
office, or the trading room
✓Watching what workers, consumers, or day traders
do, and describing, analyzing, and interpreting what
one has seen

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 Definition and purpose of observation

• Observation concerns the planned watching, recording,

analysis, and interpretation of behavior, actions, or
events

• These may be distinguished by four key dimensions:

✓(1) Control (are the observations conducted in an
artificial or in a natural setting?)
✓(2) Whether the observer is a member of the group that
is observed or not (participant versus nonparticipant
observation)
✓(3) Structure (to what extent the observation is focused,
predetermined, systematic, and quantitative in nature)

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 Controlled - uncontrolled observational studies

• A distinction can be made between observation

conducted in controlled (or artificial) and uncontrolled
(or natural) settings
• Controlled observation (or artificial) occurs when
observational research is carried out under carefully
arranged conditions
• Uncontrolled observation (or natural) is an
observational technique that makes no attempt to
control, manipulate, or influence the situation

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 Participant - nonparticipant observation

• The researcher can play one of two roles while

gathering observational data – that of a nonparticipant
or a participant observer
• Nonparticipant observation: The researcher is never
directly involved in the actions of the actors, but observes
them from outside the actors’ visual horizon
✓Example: via a mirror or a camera

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 Structured - unstructured observational studies

• Structured observational study:

the observer has a predetermined
set of categories of activities or
phenomena planned to be studied
• Unstructured observational
study: observer will record
practically everything that is
observed

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 Advantages and disadvantages of observation

• ADVANTAGES:
✓The data are generally reliable and free from
respondent
✓Directness
✓Observation allows the researcher to gather
behavioral data without asking questions
• DISADVANTAGES:
✓The observer to be physically present
✓Slow, tedious, expensive
✓Long periods => might bias the recorded data
✓Cognitive processes of individuals can’t be captured
✓Observers have to be trained in what and how to
observe, and ways to avoid observer bias

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 Chapter 9: QUESTIONNAIRES

• LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
✓Types of questionnaires
✓Design questionnaires
✓Advantages and Disadvantages of various data
collection methods in survey research
✓Advantages of multisources and multimethods of data
collection
✓Ethics in data collection

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 Introduction
• A questionnaire is a preformulated written set of
questions to which respondents record their answers,
usually within rather closely defined alternatives
• Questionnaires are generally
designed to collect large numbers
of quantitative data
• Types of questionnaires:
✓(1) Personally administered
questionnaires
✓(2) Mail questionnaires
✓(3) Electronic and online
questionnaires

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 Personally administered questionnaires

• ADVANTAGEs:
✓The main advantage of this is that the researcher
can collect all the completed responses within a
short period of time
✓Administering questionnaires to large numbers of
individuals at the same time is less expensive and
consumes less time than interviewing

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 Personally administered questionnaires

• DISADVANTAGEs:
✓The researcher may introduce a bias by explaining
questions differently to different people
✓Participants may be in fact answering different
questions

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 Mail questionnaires
• The main advantage of mail questionnaires is that a
wide geographical area can be covered in the survey.
They are mailed to the respondents, who can complete
them at their convenience, in their homes, and at their
own pace.
• However, the return rates of mail questionnaires are
typically low.
✓A 30% response rate is considered acceptable. Another
disadvantage of the mail questionnaire is that any
doubts the respondents might have cannot be clarified.

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 Electronic and online questionnaires

• The distribution of electronic or online questionnaires

is easy and fast.
✓All you have to do is to email the invitations to complete
a survey, post a link on a website or personal blog, or
use social networks
• Until recently, conducting online surveys was a time-
consuming and tedious task requiring familiarity with
web authoring programs, HTML codes, and/or scripting
programs
• Ex: Google form

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 Guidelines for questionnaire design

• Principles of wording: refer to factors as:

✓Content and purpose of the questions: subjective
feelings or objective facts
✓Language and wording of the questionnaire
✓Type and form of questions asked: open or closed
question
✓Sequencing of the questions: easy to difficult,
general to detail
✓Personal information from the respondents: age,
educational level, marital status, and income

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 Guidelines for questionnaire design
• Principles of measurement:
✓General appearance: a good introduction,
Organizing questions, giving instructions and
guidance, and good alignment, Personal data,
income
• Review of questionnaire design:
✓To minimize respondent bias and measurement
errors
• Pretesting of structured questions:
✓Pretesting involves the use of a small number of
respondents to test the appropriateness of the
questions and their comprehension

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 Multi-methods of data collection

• Because almost all data collection methods have

some bias associated with them, collecting data
through multi-methods and from multiple sources
lends rigor to research
✓Example: if the responses collected through
interviews, questionnaires, and observation are
strongly correlated with one another, then we will
have more confidence about the goodness of the
collected data

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 Ethics in data collection
• Ethics and the researcher:
✓(1) Treating the respondent's
information as absolutely
confidential
✓(2) The researcher should not
misrepresent the nature of the
study to subjects
✓(3) Personal or seemingly
intrusive information should
not be solicited
✓(4) No one should be forced to
respond to the survey

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 Ethics in data collection

• Ethics and the researcher:

✓(5). Nonparticipant-observers
should be as non-intrusive as
possible
✓(6). Subjects should never be
exposed to situations
✓(7) There should be
absolutely no
misrepresentation in reporting
the data

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 Ethics in data collection
• Ethical Behaviors of Respondents
✓(1) The subject should cooperate fully in the
tasks ahead
✓(2) The respondent also has an obligation to be
truthful and honest in the responses
oMisrepresentation or giving information,
knowing it to be untrue, should be avoided

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