Methods of Collecting Data

1. Direct or interview Method is s person to

person interaction between an interviewer and
interviewee.
Advantages
- Precise and Consistent answers can be
obtained by modifying or rephrasing the
question especially to illiterate respondents or to
children under study.
Disadvantages
- time, money and effort consuming and only
applicable only for small for small population
except when conducting a census.
2. Indirect or Questionnaire – is an alternative
method to interview. Written responses are
obtained by distributing questionnaires to the
respondents through mail or hand-carry.
Advantages
-Lesser time, money and effort are consumed

Disadvantages
- Many responses may not be consistent due to
poor construction of the questionnaire. The
meaning of the questions may be different from
each respondents. Inconsistent responses can
no longer be modified, thus, it reduces valid
number of responses.
3. Registration – is enforced by private
organizations or government agencies for
recording purposes.
Advantages
-Organized Data from the institution can serve
as ready references for future study or for
personal claims of people’s record.

Disadvantages
- Problem arises only when an agency doesn’t
have a Management Information System and if
the system or process of registration is not
implemented well.
4. Observation – is a scientific method of
investigation that makes possible use of
all senses to measure or obtain outcomes
or responses from the object of the study.
Advantages
- Applied to respondents that cannot be
asked or need not to speak especially when
behaviors of persons/culture of
organization/performance outcomes of
employee/students are to be considered.
Disadvantages
- Subjectivity of information sought cannot be
avoided.
5. Experimentation – is used when the objective
is to determine the cause-and-effect of a
certain phenomenon under some controlled.
Advantages
-There is objectivity of information since a
scientific method of inquiry is used.
- An equal number of respondents with relative
similar characteristics are being examined to
obtain the different effects of something
applied to the experimental group.
Disadvantages
- Difficult to find respondents with almost similar
Characteristics.
- The whole method must be repeated if the
desired outcomes is not reached.
 Presentation of Data

Data collected are useless and meaningless unless

they are properly presented for analysis and
interpretation. All statistical procedures help to
describe data. The initial steps in the descriptive
process in the organization of otherwise
disorganized information and the condensation of
otherwise unmanageable large quantities of
information.
Frequency Distribution
Frequency distribution is an arrangement of data
showing the frequency of occurrence of the different
values of the variables.
Organize data making of different types of
distribution.
Four types of Distribution:
1. Frequency
2. Percentage
3. cumulative frequency
4. cumulative percentage.
•Ungrouped frequency distribution
this kind of distribution, the scores are not arranged in
a particular order. Hence, we cannot determine how
well the respondents, say the students, performed
as a group, how varied the scores are from one
student to the next, or other features of the data.
Presenting ungrouped data can be done by
arranging the score from lowest to highest and
determining the frequency of each observation.
You can better understand the process by taking a
look at the illustrations given in the next page.
 Table 1 Raw scores on the Mental Aptitude of
50 students
76 82 78 78 79 73 65 77 87 90 81 80 80 78

65 76 79 80 82 83 88 72 76 78 78 79 79 93

88 73 84 76 90 77 82 77 80 78 83 79 78 82

81 78 80 79 80 79 65 82
18 14 13 15 14
13 18 16 16 15
20 15 17 18 16
12 13 19 18 18

score Frequency % fc C%
12 1 5 1 5
13 3 15 4 20
14 2 10 6 30
15 3 15 9 45
16 3 15 12 60
17 1 5 13 65
18 5 25 18 90
19 1 5 19 95
20 1 5 20 100

N= 20 100
Table 2 Ungrouped frequency distribution of
scores on the mental aptitude test of 50
students
X F % Fc %c
65 3 6 3 6
66 0 0 3 6
67 0 0 3 6
68 0 0 3 6
69 0 0 3 6
70 0 0 3 6
71 0 0 3 6
72 1 2 4 8
73 2 4 6 12
Grouped Distribution

1. Class intervals or Class limits. This

refers to the grouping defined by a lower
limit and an upper limit. The class interval
10 and 15 includes the numbers 10, 11, 10,
13, 14, and 15. The extreme numbers 10
and 15 are the class limits where 10 is the
lower class limit and 15 is the upper class
limit. There are also instances where the
lower class limit or the upper class limit is
not defined. Examples of such cases are
class intervals “25 and above” and “20 and
below”.
2. Class boundaries. For continuous data like test
scores, weights, height, etc, the class interval 10-
15 is supposed to start from 9.5 and ends with
15.5. These are more accurate expressions of the
class limits. The exact lower limit of 9.5 to 10.5 is
9.5 while 15.5 is the exact upper limit. Exact
limits, however, are seldom recorded. Thus, for
discrete data, class boundaries and class limits
have to distinction.
3. Class marks. The class mark is the middle or
midpoint of a class interval. It is obtained by
getting the average of the lower class limit and
the upper class limit. The class mark of the class
limit 10-15 is (10+15)/2 or 12.5.
4. Class size. The class size is the
difference between the upper class
boundary and the lower class boundary of a
class interval. For the class boundaries 9.4
and 15.5, the class size is 6 since 15.5
minus 9.5 are equal to 6. It can also be
obtained by getting the difference between
two successive lower class limits. For two
successive class limits like 10-15 and 16-21,
the lower class limits are 16 and 10. The
class size, therefore, is 16 minus 10 or 6.
5. Class frequency. Class frequency is the
number of observations belonging to a class
interval.
Construction of grouped frequency distribution
After mastering the different features of a
frequency distribution, we are now in a position to
construct a frequency distribution for a grouped data.
However, there are steps to be followed. Let us
discuss the steps using the test results in Statistics
of 50 students given in Table 6.
 Statistics test Scores of 50 Students
88 62 63 88 65
85 83 76 72 63
60 46 85 71 67
75 78 87 70 42
63 90 63 60 73
55 62 62 83 79
78 40 51 56 80
90 47 48 54 77
86 55 76 52 76
40 52 72 43 60
Steps in constructing the Grouped Frequency
Distribution for the statistics test scores.
Step 1. Determine the Range (R) of the
distribution. The range is the difference between
the highest and the lowest score,
Range = Highest Score – Lowest score
R = 90 – 40
R = 50
Step 2. Determine the class size (i) by dividing
the range by the desired number of class
intervals. Normally, the number of class intervals
is not less than 10 an not more than 20. Let us
use 10. (i = R/K), K = 10 to 20
Class size = Range divided by 10
i = 50/10
i=5
if it is not exact, round it off to the nearest whole
number.
Step 3. If the class size is 5, all the lowest class limits
must be multiples of 5. The lowest class interval must
include the lowest score while the highest class
interval must contain the highest score.
Step 4. Compute for the class marks of the class
intervals. For example, the class mark of 50-54 is
(50+54) divided by 2 = 52.
Step 5. Tally the frequencies of each interval and
sum them. Table 7 presents the completed grouped
frequency distribution.
Distribution for 50 Statistics Test Score
Class Class mark Tally marks Frequency
interval (x)
90 – 94 92 // 2
85 – 89 87 ////-/ 6
80 – 84 82 /// 3
75 – 79 77 ////-/// 8
70 – 74 72 ////- 5
65 – 69 67 // 2
60 – 64 62 ////-////- 10
55 – 59 57 /// 3
50 – 54 52 //// 4
45 – 49 47 /// 3
40 – 44 42 //// 4
Total i=5 N=50
 67 76 82 88 47 53
81 72 75 85 67 54
45 81 66 80 53 88
42 89 43 72 50 76
66 48 45 56 81 69

R = HS – LS = 89 – 42 = 47

K = 10 to 20 = 12

i = R/K = 47/12 = 3.92 = 4

Class Interval Class Mark Tally Mark Frequency
88 - 91 89.5 /// 3
84 – 87 85.5 / 1
80 – 83 81.5 ////- 5
76 – 79 77.5 // 2
72 – 75 73.5 /// 3
68 – 71 69.5 / 1
64 – 67 65.5 //// 4
60 – 63 61.5 0 0
56 – 59 57.5 / 1
52 – 55 53.5 /// 3
48 – 51 49.5 // 2
44 – 47 45.5 /// 3
40 – 43 41.5 // 2
Total i=4 N = 30
CI CM (X) F >CF <CF LB UB
65 – 69 67 5 5 60 64.5 69.5
60 – 64 62 7 12 55 59.5 64.5
55 – 59 57 4 16 48 54.5 59.5
50 – 54 52 10 26 44 49.5 54.5
45 – 49 47 5 31 34 44.5 49.5
40 – 44 42 10 41 29 39.5 44.5
35 – 39 37 4 45 19 34.5 39.5
30 – 34 32 5 50 15 29.5 34.5
25 – 29 27 3 53 10 24.5 29.5
20 – 24 22 4 57 7 19.5 24.5
15 – 19 17 3 60 3 14.5 19.5

N = 60 i=5