Chapter 5

Data Collection
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Methods
[Link] Alkhafaji 1
 Slides collected by
Dr. Salah ALkhafaji

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 The term method of data collection simply
refers to how the researcher obtains the data to
be used to answer the research questions. All
research relies on one or more method of data
collection.

 Thereare six major methods of data collection.

They are: Standardized tests, Focus groups,
Questionnaires, Interviews, Observation,
Secondary data.
 We will discuss the last four techniques or
methods, starting with the questionnaire.
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 1-Questionnaire
 A questionnaire is a data collection instrument that
is filled out by the research participants.
 It includes multiple questions and/or statements.
 You should be careful when developing a questionnaire,
and make sure that you follow the14 Principles of
Questionnaire Construction:
1. Make sure the questionnaire items match your
research objectives
2. Understand your research participants, and
remember, the participants will be filling out the
questionnaire.
Do not forget to consider the demographic and cultural
characteristics of your potential participants so that you
can make it understandable to them.
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3. Use natural and familiar language.
4. Write items that are clear, precise, and relatively
short. Remember, if the participants don’t understand
the items, your data will be invalid. Also, don\t forget
that short items are more easily understood and less
stressful than long items.
5. Do not use “leading” or “leaded” questions.
Because leading questions lead the participant to
where you want her to be. Leaded questions included
words (i.e., words that create an emotional reaction or
response by your participants). Always remember
that you do not want the participant’s response to be
the result of how you worded the question. Always
use neutral wording.
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6 Avoid double-barreled questions. Double-barreled
question is a question combines two or more issues
in a single question (e.g., Do you have a [Link]. And
work in public sector?). Answers to double-barreled
questions are ambiguous because two or more ideas
are confounded.
7 Avoid double negatives. (does the answer provided
by the participant require combining two negatives
(e.g., “I disagree that teachers should not be required
to supervise their students during library time”). If
yes, rewrite it.
8 Determine whether an open-ended or a closed
ended question is needed.
9 Use mutually exclusive (do not overlap) and
exhaustive response (all possible responses)
categories for closed-ended questions
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10 Consider the different types of response
categories available for closed-ended
questionnaire items (use numerical rating scales,
ranking, and checklists).
11 Use multiple items to measure abstract
constructs. This is required if you want your
measures to have high reliability and validity. One
approach is to use Likert Scale or any summated rating
scale..
12 Reverse the wording in some of the items to
prevent response sets (A response set is the
tendency of a participant to respond is a specific
direction to items regardless of the item content). This
helps you to ensure that participants don’t just “speed
through” the instrument, checking “yes” or “strongly
agree” for all the items. You may want to avoid reverse
wording if it creates a double negative. Also, you
should generally use reverse wording sparingly.
13 Develop a questionnaire that is easy for the
participant to use. The participant must not
get confused or lost anywhere in the
questionnaire. Make sure that the directions
are clear and that any filter questions used are
easy to follow.

14 Always pilot test your questionnaire.

You will always find some problems that you
have overlooked. The best pilot tests are with
people similar to the ones to be included in
your research study. After pilot testing your
questionnaire, revise it and pilot it again, until it
works correctly.
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 2-Interviews
 An interview is a purposeful discussion between two or
more people.
 The use of interview can help you gather valid and
reliable data that are relevant to your research questions
and objectives.
 In an interview, the interviewer asks the interviewee
questions (in-person or over the telephone or by the
Internet messenger).
 Where you have not yet formulated research questions
and objectives, an interview or interviews may help you
to achieve this.
 This fact is significant since the nature of any interview
should be consistent with your research questions and
12objectives.
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 Types of Interviews
 Interviews may be highly formalized and
structured, using standardized questions for
each respondent, or they may be informal and
unstructured conversations. In between there
are intermediate positions.
 One typology that is commonly used is thus
related to the level of formality and structure,
whereby interviews may be categorized as one
of:
1. Structured interviews;
2. Semi-structured interviews;
3. Unstructured interviews.

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 Structured interviews use questionnaire based on a
predetermined and standardized or identical set of
questions.
 You read out each question and then record the
response on a standardized schedule, usually with pre
coded answers.
 While there is social interaction between you and the
respondent, such as explanation that you will need to
provide, you should read out the questions in the same
tone of voice so that you do not indicate any bias.
 Semi-structured and unstructured interviews are non-
structured.
 In semi-structured interviews the researcher will have a
list of themes and questions to be covered, although
these may vary from interview to interview.
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 This means that you may omit some questions in
particular interviews, given the specific
organizational context that is encountered in relation
to the research topic.
 The order of questions may also be varied
depending on the flow of conversation.
 Unstructured interview are informal. You will use
these to explore in depth a general area in which
you are interested.
 There is no predetermined list of questions to work
through in this situation, although, you need to have
a clear idea about the aspects you want to explore.
 The interviewee is given the opportunity to talk
freely about events, behavior and beliefs in relation
to the topic area.
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 Interviews may be quantitative or qualitative.

Quantitative interviews:
 Are standardized (i.e., the same information is provided to
everyone).
 Use closed-ended questions.

Qualitative interviews:
 They are based on open-ended questions.
 There are three types of qualitative interviews: informal
conversation, guide approach, and standardized open-
ended interview.

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 Qualitative interviews

One to one One to many

Face to face Telephone Internet

Interviews Interviews Messenger

Focus group
Interviews

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 Types of Qualitative Interviews
1. Informal Conversational Interview.
 It is spontaneous.
 It is loosely structured (i.e., no interview protocol us
used).
2. Interview Guide Approach.
 It is more structured than the informal conversational
interview.
 It includes an interview protocol listing the open-ended
questions.
 The questions can be asked in any order by the
interviewer.
 Questions wording can be changed by the interviewer if
it is deemed
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3. Standardized Open-Ended Interview
 Open-ended questions are written on an interview
protocol, and they are asked in the exact order given
on the protocol.
 The wording of the questions cannot be changed.

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 3-Observation
 Observation is the systematic watching,
recording, description, analysis, and
interpretation of people’s behavior.

 There are two types of observation:

1. Quantitative (structured) observation, and
2. Qualitative (Participants) observation.

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 Quantitative Observation
 Quantitative observation involves standardization procedures,
and it produces quantitative data.
 Many issues must be standardize, such as:
1. Who is observed.
2. What is observed.
3. When the observations are to take place.
4. Where the observations are to take place.
5. How the observations are to take place
 Standardized instruments (e.g., checklists) are often used in
quantitative observation.
 Sampling procedures are also often used in quantitative
observation:
 Time-interval sampling (i.e., observing during time intervals, e.g.,
during the first minute of each ten minute interval).
 Event sampling (i.e., observing after an event has taken place, e.g.,
observing after teacher asks a question).

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 Qualitative Observation
 Qualitative observation is exploratory and open-ended.
 During this type of observation, the researcher takes
extensive field notes.
 Qualitative observation may take on four different roles
that make up a continuum:
1. Complete participation: the researcher becoming a
full member of the group and not informing the
participants that he is studying them.
2. Participant-as-observer: the researcher spending
extensive time “inside” and informing the participants
that he is studying them. This helps him gain trust of
the group.

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3. Observer-as-participant: the researcher spending
limited amount of time “inside” and informing them that
he is studying them. This helps researcher to focus on
his researcher role
4. Complete Observer: the researcher observing from
the “outside” and not informing that participants that he
is studying them.

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 Factors that will determine
the choice of participant
observer role
1. The purpose of the study: you should always be
guided by the appropriateness of the method for the
research questions and objectives. A research
question about developing an understanding of a
phenomenon about which the research subjects would
be naturally defensive is one that lends itself to the
complete participant role. Discovering what it is like to
be a participant on a particular training course is more
appropriate to the participant as observer role.
2. Ethical considerations: the degree to which you
reveal your identity as the researcher will be dictated
by ethical considerations.

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3. The time you have to devote to your research:
some of the researcher’s roles may be very time
consuming. If you are really to develop a rich and
deep understanding of an organizational phenomenon
it will need much careful study. A period of attachment
to the organization will often be necessary.
4. The degree to which you feel suited to participant
observation: it is clear that not everyone is suited to
participant observation. Much of relies on the building
of relationships with others. A certain amount of
personal flexibility is also needed. As the participant
observer you have to “all things to all people”. Your
own personality must be suppressed to a greater
extent. This is not something with which you may feel
comfortable.
5. Organizational access: this may present a problem
for some researchers, because gaining access to
organizations
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 5-Using Secondary Data
 Secondary data is data originally used for a different
purpose. The most commonly used secondary data are
documents and archived research data.
 Secondary data include both raw data and published
summaries.
 Most organizations collect and store a variety of data to
support their operations.
 Some of this data, in particular documents such as company
minutes, are available only from the organizations that
produce them, and so access will need to be negotiated.
Others, include government surveys such as the population
census, are widely available in both published and electronic
forms.
 For certain types of research project, such as those requiring
national or international comparisons, secondary data will
probably provide the main source to answer the research
questions and to address the objectives.
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 Documents are the most commonly used type of
secondary data, they may be divided into:
1. Personal documents, which are things written or
recorded for private purposes, such as letters, diaries,
family pictures.
2. Official documents, which are things written or
recorded for public or private organizations, such as
newspapers, annual reports, yearbooks, minutes.
 Documents in general can be written materials (i.e.,
organization’s records, reports, academic notes,
organization’s communication, etc.) or non-written
materials (videotapes, voice records, hand written
notes and reports, etc.)
 Archived research data, which is research data
collected by other researchers for other purposes, is
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another important source of secondary data.
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Advantages & disadvantages of
secondary

data
Advantages:
1. May have fewer resource requirements: for many
research questions and objectives the main advantage
of using secondary data is the enormous saving in
resources, in particular time and money.
2. Unobtrusive : if the researcher need data quickly,
secondary data may be the only available alternative.
In addition, they are likely to be higher-quality data
than could be obtained by collecting his own. Using
secondary data within organizations may also have the
advantage that, because they have already been
collected, they provide an unobtrusive measures.
3. Permanence of data: unlike data that you collect
yourself, secondary data generally provide a source of
data that is both permanent and available in a form
that ,may
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4. Longitudinal studies may be feasible: for many
research projects time constraints mean that
secondary data provide the only possibility of
undertaking longitudinal studies.
5. Can provide comparative and contextual data: often it
can be useful to compare data that you have collected
with secondary data.
6. Can result in unforeseen discoveries: reanalyzing
secondary data can also lead to unforeseen or
unexpected new discoveries. The link between
smoking and lung cancer was established through
secondary analysis of medical records that had not
been collected with the intention of exploring any such
relationship.

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 Disadvantages:
1. May be collected for a purpose that does not match your
need: data that you collect yourself will be collected with a
specific purpose in mind: to answer your research questions
and to meet your objectives. Unfortunately, secondary data
will have been collected for a specific purpose that differs
from your research questions or objectives.
2. Access may be difficult or costly: where data have been
collected foe commercial reasons, gaining access may be
difficult or costly If the reports you need are not available in
your library they can rarely be borrowed.
3. Aggregations & definitions may be unsuitable: the fact that
secondary data were collected for a particular purpose may
result in other, including ethical, problems. That is because
most of published data will be aggregated in some way.
These aggregations may not be quite so suitable for your
research
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4. No real control over data quality: care must be taken
and data sources must be evaluated carefully to be
sure of the data quality.
5. Initial purpose may affect how data are presented:
when using data that are presented as part of report
you also need to be aware of the purpose of that
repost and the impact that this will have on the way the
data are presented.

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