Finding Answers through Data

Collection
Learning Objectives:
At the end of the topic the students should be able to:
• Discuss the data collection procedures and skills using
varied instruments; and
• Discuss the data processing, organizing, and analysis.
You want to satisfy your curiosity about a certain subject matter.
The only way to do this is to link yourself with people, tings, and
other elements in your surroundings because, by nature,
research involves interdependence or interactions among people
and things on earth. The answers to your investigate acts about
the topic you are interested in come from people you get to
communicate with and from things you subject to observation.
Research is an act of gathering opinions, facts and information to
prove your point or to discover truths about your research
problem or topic.
 Data Collection Procedure and Skills using Varied Instruments
• Data Collection is an important aspect of any type of research study.
Inaccurate data collection can impact the results of a study and
ultimately lead to invalid results.
• The Quantitative data collection methods, rely on random sampling
and structured data collection instruments that fit diverse
experiences into predetermined response categories. They produce
results that are easy to summarize, compare, and generalize.
• Quantitative research is concerned with testing hypotheses derived
from theory and/or being able to estimate the size of a phenomenon
of interest. Depending on the research question, participants may
be randomly assigned to different treatments. If this is not feasible,
the researcher may collect data on participant and situational
characteristics in order to statistically control for their influence on
the dependent, or outcome, variable. If the intent is to generalize
from the research participants to a larger population, the researcher
will employ probability sampling to select participants.
Typical quantitative data gathering strategies include:
Experiments/clinical trials.
• Observing and recording well-defined events (e.g., counting the number
of patients waiting in emergency at specified times of the day).
• Obtaining relevant data from management information systems.
• Administering surveys with closed-ended questions (e.g., face-to face
and telephone interviews, questionnaires
etc). (http://www.achrn.org/quantitative_methods.htm)
Interviews
• In Quantitative research(survey research),interviews are more
structured than in Qualitative
research.(http://www.stat.ncsu.edu/info/srms/survpamphlet.html
• In a structured interview, the researcher asks a standard set of
questions and nothing more.(Leedy and Ormrod, 2001)
• Face -to -face interviews have a distinct advantage of enabling the researcher to
establish rapport with potential participants and therefor gain their cooperation.
These interviews yield highest response rates in survey research. They also allow
the researcher to clarify ambiguous answers and when appropriate, seek follow-
up information. Disadvantages include impractical when large samples are
involved time consuming and expensive.(Leedy and Ormrod, 2001)
• Telephone interviews are less time consuming and less expensive and the
researcher has ready access to anyone on the planet that has a telephone.
Disadvantages are that the response rate is not as high as the face-to- face
interview as but considerably higher than the mailed questionnaire .The sample
may be biased to the extent that people without phones are part of the population
about whom the researcher wants to draw inferences.
• Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI): is a form of personal
interviewing, but instead of completing a questionnaire, the interviewer brings
along a laptop or hand-held computer to enter the information directly into the
database. This method saves time involved in processing the data, as well as
saving the interviewer from carrying around hundreds of questionnaires.
However, this type of data collection method can be expensive to set up and
requires that interviewers have computer and typing skills.
• Questionnaires
• Paper-pencil-questionnaires can be sent to a large number of people and saves
the researcher time and money. People are more truthful while responding to the
questionnaires regarding controversial issues in particular due to the fact that
their responses are anonymous. But they also have draw backs. Majority of the
people who receive questionnaires don't return them and those who do might not
be representative of the originally selected sample.(Leedy and Ormrod, 2001)
• Web based questionnaires : A new and inevitably growing methodology is the use
of Internet based research. This would mean receiving an e-mail on which you
would click on an address that would take you to a secure web-site to fill in a
questionnaire. This type of research is often quicker and less detailed. Some
disadvantages of this method include the exclusion of people who do not have a
computer or are unable to access a computer. Also the validity of such surveys
are in question as people might be in a hurry to complete it and so might not give
accurate responses.
(http://www.statcan.ca/english/edu/power/ch2/methods/methods.htm)
• Questionnaires often make use of Checklist and rating scales. These
devices help simplify and quantify people's behaviors and attitudes.
A checklist is a list of behaviors, characteristics, or other entities that the
researcher is looking for. Either the researcher or survey participant simply
checks whether each item on the list is observed, present or true or vice
versa. A rating scale is more useful when a behavior needs to be
evaluated on a continuum. They are also known as Likert scales. (Leedy
and Ormrod, 2001)
 The Processing, Organizing and Analysis
• Raw data is unprocessed/unorganized source data, such as the data from an
eye tracker which records the coordinates and movement of the eye every
millisecond. processed/summarized/categorized data such as the output of
the mean position for a participant immediately after a stimulus was
presented.
• Raw data processing is required in most surveys and experiments. At the
individual level, data needs to be processed because there may be several
reasons why the data is an aberration.
• The raw data collected is often contains too much data to analyze it sensibly.
This is especially so for research using computers as this may produce large
amounts of data. The data needs to be organized or manipulated using
deconstruction analysis techniques.
• Acquiring data: Acquisition involves collecting or adding to the data
holdings. There are several methods of acquiring data:
1. collecting new data
2. using your own previously collected data
3. reusing someone others data
4. purchasing data
5. acquired from Internet (texts, social media, photos)
• Data processing: A series of actions or steps performed on data to verify,
organize, transform, integrate, and extract data in an appropriate output
form for subsequent use. Methods of processing must be rigorously
documented to ensure the utility and integrity of the data.
• Data Analysis involves actions and methods performed on data that help
describe facts, detect patterns, develop explanations and test hypotheses.
This includes data quality assurance, statistical data analysis, modeling,
and interpretation of results.