Research Methodology

Methods of Data Collection

Dr. Md. Fokhray Hossain

Professor
Department of CSE
Daffodil International University
Types of data collection methods
• Primary data collection methods
• Secondary data collection methods
Type of primary data collection methods

1.Observation method
2.Interview method
3.Through questionnaires
4.Through schedules
5.Other methods
Observation Method
See what is happening Observation is Helpful when: Degree of Structure of
• traffic patterns Observations:
• need direct information
• land use patterns • Structured: determine, before
• trying to understand ongoing
the observation, precisely what
• layout of city and rural areas behavior
will be observed before the
• quality of housing • there is physical evidence, observation
products, or outputs than can • Unstructured: select the
• condition of roads be observed
method depending upon the
• conditions of buildings • need to provide alternative situation with no pre-conceived
• who goes to a health clinic when other data collection is ideas or a plan on what to
infeasible or inappropriate observe
• Semi-structured: a general
idea of what to observe but no
specific plan
Observation Method
Ways to Record Guidelines for Planning Advantages and
Information from Observations: Challenges: Observation:
Observations: Advantages:
• Have more than one observer, • Collects data on actual vs. self-
• Observation guide if feasible reported behavior or perceptions.
• Train observers so they • It is real-time vs. retrospective.
- printed form with space to
record observe the same things Challenges:

• Recording sheet or checklist • Pilot test the observation data • Observer bias
collection instrument • potentially unreliable
- Yes/no options; tallies, rating
scales • For less structured approach, • interpretation and coding challenges
have a few key questions in • sampling can be a problem
• Field notes mind
• can be labor intensive
- least structured, recorded in
• low response rates.
narrative, descriptive style
Interview Methods
Interview Methods are: Challenges of Can be of two types:
Interviews:
• Often semi-structured • Can be expensive, labor • Personal interview
intensive, and time consuming
• Used to explore complex issues • Telephone interviews
in depth • Selective hearing on the part of
the interviewer may miss
• Forgiving of mistakes: unclear
information that does not
questions can be clarified
confirm to pre-existing beliefs
during the interview and
changed for subsequent • Cultural sensitivity: e.g.,
interviews gender issues
• Can provide evaluators with
an intuitive sense of the
situation
Collection Of Data Through Questionnaires

• Excellent for asking people about:

- perceptions, opinions, ideas
• Less accurate for measuring behavior
• Sample should be representative of the whole
• Big problem with response rates
Structures for Surveys
• Structured:
• Precisely worded with a range of pre-determined responses that the
respondent can select
• Everyone asked exactly the same questions in exactly the same way, given
exactly the same choices

• Semi-structured
• Asks same general set of questions but answers to the questions are
predominantly open-ended
Structured vs. Semi-structured Surveys
Structured
• harder to develop
• easier to complete
• easier to analyze
• more efficient when working with large numbers

Semi-structured
• easier to develop: open ended questions
• more difficult to complete: burdensome for people to complete as a
self-administrated questionnaire
• harder to analyze but provide a richer source of data, interpretation
of open-ended responses subject to bias
Modes of Survey Administration

• Telephone surveys
• Self-administered questionnaires distributed by mail, e-
mail, or websites
• Administered questionnaires, common in the development
context
• In development context, often issues of language and
translation
Mail / Phone / Internet Surveys
• Literacy issues
• Consider accessibility
- reliability of postal service
- turn-around time
• Consider bias
- What population segment has telephone access? Internet
access?
Advantages and Challenges of Surveys
Advantages
Best when you want to know what people think, believe, or perceive,
only they can tell you that

Disadvantages
People may not accurately recall their behavior or may be reluctant
to reveal their behavior if it is illegal or stigmatized. What people
think they do or say they do is not always the same as what they
actually do.
Collection of data through schedules
• This method of data collection is very much like the collection of data
through questionnaire, with little difference which lies in the fact that
schedules (proforma containing a set of questions) are being filled in
by the enumerators who are specially appointed for the purpose.
• These enumerators along with schedules, go to respondents, put to
them the questions from the proforma in the order the questions are
listed and record the replies in the space meant for the same in the
proforma.
• This method of data collection is very useful in extensive enquiries
and can lead to fairly reliable results.
• It is, however, very expensive and is usually adopted in investigations
conducted by governmental agencies or by some big organizations.
 Collection Of Secondary Data
Examples of sources: Key issues for using Advantage/
existing datasets: Challenge:
• files/records
• Validity Advantages:
• computer data bases
• Reliability Often less expensive and faster
• industry or government reports than collecting the original
• Accuracy
• other reports or prior evaluations data again
• response rates
• census data and household survey
data
• data dictionaries and Challenges:
• missing data rates There may be coding errors or
• electronic mailing lists and
discussion groups other problems. Data may not
• documents (budgets, be exactly what is needed. You
organizational charts, policies may have difficulty getting
and procedures, maps, access. You have to verify
monitoring reports) validity and reliability of data.
• newspapers and television reports
Guidelines for Constructing Questionnaire/Schedule
The researcher must pay attention to the following points in constructing an appropriate and effective
questionnaire or a schedule:
• The researcher must keep in view the problem he is to study for it provides the starting point for
developing the Questionnaire/Schedule. He must be clear about the various aspects of his research
problem to be dealt with in the course of his research project.
• Appropriate form of questions depends on the nature of information sought, the sampled respondents
and the kind of analysis intended. The researcher must decide whether to use closed or open-ended
question. Questions should be simple and must be constructed with a view to their forming a logical
part of a well thought out tabulation plan. The units of enumeration should also be defined precisely so
that they can ensure accurate and full information.
• Rough draft of the Questionnaire/Schedule be prepared, giving due thought to the appropriate
sequence of putting questions. Questionnaires or schedules previously drafted (if available) may as well
be looked into at this stage.
• Researcher must invariably re-examine, and in case of need may revise the rough draft for a better one.
Technical defects must be minutely scrutinized and removed.
• Pilot study should be undertaken for pre-testing the questionnaire. The questionnaire may be edited in
the light of the results of the pilot study.
• Questionnaire must contain simple but straight forward directions for the respondents so that they may
not feel any difficulty in answering the questions.
Guidelines for Successful Interviewing
Interviewing is an art and one learns it by experience. However, the following points may be kept in view
by an interviewer for eliciting the desired information:
1. Interviewer must plan in advance and should fully know the problem under consideration. He must
choose a suitable time and place so that the interviewee may be at ease during the interview period. For
this purpose some knowledge of the daily routine of the interviewee is essential.
2. Interviewer’s approach must be friendly and informal. Initially friendly greetings in accordance with
the cultural pattern of the interviewee should be exchanged and then the purpose of the interview
should be explained.
3. All possible effort should be made to establish proper rapport with the interviewee; people are
motivated to communicate when the atmosphere is favorable.
4. Interviewer must know that ability to listen with understanding, respect and curiosity is the gateway to
communication, and hence must act accordingly during the interview. For all this, the interviewer must
be intelligent and must be a man with self-restraint and self-discipline.
5. To the extent possible there should be a free-flowing interview and the questions must be well phrased
in order to have full cooperation of the interviewee. But the interviewer must control the course of the
interview in accordance with the objective of the study.
6. In case of big enquiries, where the task of collecting information is to be accomplished by several
interviewers, there should be an interview guide to be observed by all so as to ensure reasonable
uniformity in respect of all salient points in the study.
Difference Between Survey and Experiment
The following points are noteworthy so far as difference between survey and experiment is concerned:
• Surveys are conducted in case of descriptive research studies where as experiments are a part of
experimental research studies.
• Survey-type research studies usually have larger samples because the percentage of responses generally
happens to be low, as low as 20 to 30%, especially in mailed questionnaire studies. Thus, the survey method
gathers data from a relatively large number of cases at a particular time; it is essentially cross-sectional. As
against this, experimental studies generally need small samples.
• Surveys are concerned with describing, recording, analysing and interpreting conditions that either exist or
existed. The researcher does not manipulate the variable or arrange for events to happen. Surveys are only
concerned with conditions or relationships that exist, opinions that are held, processes that are going on,
effects that are evident or trends that are developing. They are primarily concerned with the present but at
times do consider past events and influences as they relate to current conditions. Thus, in surveys, variables
that exist or have already occurred are selected and observed.
Experimental research provides a systematic and logical method for answering the question, “What will
happen if this is done when certain variables are carefully controlled or manipulated?” In fact, deliberate
manipulation is a part of the experimental method. In an experiment, the researcher measures the effects of
an experiment which he conducts intentionally.
• Surveys are usually appropriate in case of social and behavioural sciences (because many types of
behaviour that interest the researcher cannot be arranged in a realistic setting) where as experiments are
mostly an essential feature of physical and natural sciences.
• Surveys are an example of field research where as experiments generally constitute an example of
laboratory research.
Difference Between Survey and Experiment
• Surveys are concerned with hypothesis formulation and testing the analysis of the relationship between
non-manipulated variables. Experimentation provides a method of hypothesis testing. After
experimenters define a problem, they propose a hypothesis. They then test the hypothesis and confirm or
disconfirm it in the light of the controlled variable relationship that they have observed. The confirmation
or rejection is always stated in terms of probability rather than certainty. Experimentation, thus, is the
most sophisticated, exacting and powerful method for discovering and developing an organized body of
knowledge. The ultimate purpose of experimentation is to generalize the variable relationships so that
they may be applied outside the laboratory to a wider population of interest.
• Surveys may either be census or sample surveys. They may also be classified as social surveys, economic
surveys or public opinion surveys. Whatever be their type, the method of data collection happens to be
either observation, or interview or questionnaire/opinionnaire or some projective technique(s). Case
study method can as well be used. But in case of experiments, data are collected from several readings of
experiments.
• In case of surveys, research design must be rigid, must make enough provision for protection against bias
and must maximize reliability as the aim happens to be to obtain complete and accurate information.
Research design in case of experimental studies, apart reducing bias and ensuring reliability, must permit
drawing inferences about causality.
• Possible relationships between the data and the unknowns in the universe can be studied through surveys
where as experiments are meant to determine such relationships.
• Causal analysis is considered relatively more important in experiments where as in most social and
business surveys our interest lies in understanding and controlling relationships between variables and as
such correlation analysis is relatively more important in surveys.