Methods of Data Collection

Interview
1. Interview is the verbal conversation between two people with the objective of collecting
relevant information for the purpose of research. Interviews are particularly useful for
getting the story behind a participant's experiences. The interviewer can pursue in-depth
information around the topic.
2. According to McNamara, 1999 interviews are particularly useful for getting the story
behind a participants experiences. The interviewer can also pursue in-depth information
around the topic. McNamara further stated that interviews may be useful as follow-up to
certain respondents.
Types of Interviews
There are five types of interviews. These are Personal Interview, Telephone Interview, Focus
Group Interview, Depth Interview and Progressive Techniques.
1. Personal Interview: Is a face to face two way communication between the interviewer
and the respondents. Generally the personal interview is carried out in a planned manner
and is referred to as structured interview. Example door to door interviews.
2. In a telephone interview the information is collected from the respondent by asking him
questions on the phone is called as telephone interview. The combination of telephone
and computer has made this method even more popular.
3. Focus group interview is an unstructured interview which involves a moderator leading a
discussion between a small groups of respondents on a specific topic. Focus group
interview results in many advantages including speed, security, and structure among
others.
4. Depth interview is nondirective in nature where the respondent is given freedom to
answer within the boundaries of the topic of interest.
5. Projective Techniques involve the presentation of an ambiguous, unstructured object,
activity or person that a respondent is asked to interpret and explain. In Projective
Techniques, the respondents are asked to interpret the behavior of others and this way
they indirectly reveal their own behavior in the same situation.

Advantages of Interviews

Opportunity for Feedback Interviewer can provide direct feedback to the respondent,
give clarifications and help alleviate any misconceptions or apprehensions over
confidentiality that the respondent may have in answering the interviewers questions
Probing Complex Answers Interviewers can probe if the respondents answer is too
brief or unclear. This gives interviewers some flexibility in dealing with unstructured
questions and is especially suited for handling complex questions
Length of Interview If the questionnaire is very lengthy, the personal interview is the
best technique for getting respondents to cooperate, without overtaxing their patience
Props & Visual Aids Interviewers have the opportunity of showing respondents items
such as sample products, graphs and sketches, which can aid in their answers
High Participation Interviewing respondents personally can increase the likelihood of
their participation, as many people prefer to communicate directly verbally and sharing
information and insights with interviewers
Disadvantages of Interviews

Cost Personal interviews are usually more expensive than mail, telephone and
internet surveys. Factors influencing the cost of the interview include the
respondents geographic proximity.
Lack of Anonymity Respondents are not anonymous in a personal (face-toface) interview and may be reluctant to disclose certain information to the
interviewer. Hence, considerable care must be expended by the interviewer when
dealing with sensitive questions to avoid bias effects on the respondents part
Necessity for Callbacks When a person selected for interview cannot be
reached the first time, a callback has to be scheduled which result in extra cost
and time spent.
Dishonesty Interviewers cheat to make their life easier and save time and effort.

Questionnaire
A questionnaire is a means of eliciting the feelings, beliefs, experiences, perceptions, or
attitudes of some sample of individuals. As a data collecting instrument, it could be structured or
unstructured. The questionnaire is most frequently a very concise, pre-planned set of questions
designed to yield specific information to meet a particular need for research information about a
pertinent topic. The research information is attained from respondents normally from a related
interest area.

Types of Questionnaires
Open ended questionnaire
a) Respondent is free to express his views and the ideas.
b) Used in making intensive studies of the limited number of the cases.
c) Merely an issue is raised by such a questionnaire.
d) Do not provide any structure for the respondents reply.
e) The questions and their orders are pre determined in the nature.
2. Close ended questionnaire
a) Responses are limited to the stated alternatives.
b) One of the alternatives is simply YES or NO.
c) Respondent cannot express his own judgment.
3. Mixed questionnaire
a) Questions are both close and open ended.
b) Used in field of social research.
4. Pictorial questionnaire
a) Used very rarely.
b) Pictures are used to promote the interest in answering the questions.
c) Used in studies related to the social attitudes and the pre judices in the children.

Types of Questions in a Questionnaire

Leading Questions
Questions that force your audience for a particular type of answer are known as leading
questions. In a leading question, all the answers would be equally likely. An example of a
leading question would be a question with choices such as, fair, good, great, poor, superb,
excellent etc. These questions are meant to get an opinion from the audience in limited words.
B. Importance Questions
In importance questions, the respondents are usually asked to rate the importance of a particular
issue, on a rating scale of 1 to 5. These questions can help you understand things that hold
significance to your respondents and allow you make business critical decisions.
C. Likert Questions
Likert questions can help you ascertain how strongly your respondents agree to a particular
statement. Such type of questions also help you assess how your customers feel towards a certain
issue, product or service.

D. Dichotomous Questions
These are simple questions that ask respondents to answer in a yes or no. One major drawback
with dichotomous questions is that it cannot analyze the answers between yes and no, there is no
scope for a middle perspective.
E. Bipolar Questions
Bipolar questions are the ones having two extreme answers written at the opposite ends of the
scale. The respondents are asked to mark their responses between those two.
F. Rating Scale Questions
In rating scale questions, the respondents are asked to rate a particular issue on a scale that
ranges between poor to good. Rating scale questions usually have an even number of choices, so
that respondents are not given the choice of selecting a middle option.
G. Buying Propensity Questions
Buying propensity questions try to assess the future intentions of customers and determine
respondent's buying intention. These questions ask respondents if they want to buy a particular
product, what requirements they want to be addressed, and whether they would buy such a
product in future.
Advantages of a Questionnaire
Economy - Expense and time involved in training interviewers and sending them to interview are
reduced by using questionnaires.
Uniformity of questions - Each respondent receives the same set of questions phrased in exactly
the same way. Questionnaires may, therefore, yield data more comparable than information
obtained through an interview.
Standardization - If the questions are highly structured and the conditions under which they are
answered are controlled, then the questionnaire could become standardized.
Disadvantages of Questionnaire

Respondents motivation is difficult to assess, affecting the validity of response.

Unless a random sampling of returns is obtained, those returned completed may represent
biased samples.
Length of the questionnaire.
Reputation of the sponsoring agency.
Complexity of the questions asked.

Observation
Observation is the selection and recording of behaviours of people in their environment.
Observation is useful for generating in-depth descriptions of organizations or events, for
obtaining information that is otherwise inaccessible, and for conducting research when other
methods are inadequate.
Types of Observation
Overt observations refer to the researcher being open about their intentions in the field and
ensuring all members of the social group are aware of what is happening.
Covert observations involve the researcher not informing members of the group the reason for
their presence; keeping their true intentions secret. This automatically raises ethical concerns. In
this case, the researcher may not be protected, or may not protect others, from the risk of harmespecially if they social group they are studying are a deviant group that may partake in violent
acts. Also, they will be deceiving the participants and will lack informed consent. Also, in this
type of observation there are chances that the researcher could become bias in their view and
may go native
Advantages of Overt Observation

An advantage of this type of observation is that it allows the researcher to be honest with
the participants, thus avoiding problematic ethical issues such as deception or lack of
informed consent.
It also prevents the researcher from becoming over-familiar with the participants and
going native. Therefore, aiming to keep the observation objective and free from bias.

Disadvantage of Overt Observation

A disadvantage would be that the participants understand the aims of the observer and so
there is likely to be possible observer effects (the participants changing their behaviour
acting in a way that they believe is expected by the experimenter).

Advantage of Covert Observation

An advantage of covert observation is that it allows us access to social groups that

normally would not provide consent to being involved in studies. Therefore, allowing us
to research and expand knowledge on lesser-known social groups, which in turn will
widen our Psychological understanding of the world.
This type of observation avoids problems surrounding observer-effects and so may be
considered to be higher in validity than overt observations.

Disadvantage of Covert Observation

its time-consuming and costly

it can also be dangerous

Some researchers may go native if they accept the groups culture. This term refers to the researcher
becoming a full-time member of the group, which can lead to a bias of notes

Demand Characteristics
Demand characteristics are cues provided participants, often unintentionally and inadvertently,
regarding the appropriate or desirable behaviour. A smile by the researcher when the participant
has made the sought-for response, a slight nod of the head, a minor change in vocal inflection
all or any of these actions might bias the outcome of an investigation. Demand characteristics
seriously undermine the internal and external validity of the research.

Research Ethics
Research ethics is specifically interested in the analysis of ethical issues that are raised when
people are involved as participants in research. There are three objectives in research ethics. The
first and broadest objective is to protect human participants. The second objective is to ensure
that research is conducted in a way that serves interests of individuals, groups and/or society as a
whole. Finally, the third objective is to examine specific research activities and projects for their
ethical soundness, looking at issues such as the management of risk, protection of confidentiality
and the process of informed consent.

WHAT IS A VARIABLE, AND ITS TYPES IN RESEARCH

Variable:
A variable is the characteristic or attribute of an individual, group, educational system, or the
environment that is of interest in a research study. Variables can be straightforward and easy
to measure, such as gender, age, or course of study.
Types of Variable
Independent Variable: are those that the researcher has control over. This "control" may
involve manipulating existing variables (e.g., modifying existing methods of instruction) or
introducing new variables (e.g., adopting a totally new method for some sections of a class)
in the research setting. Whatever the case may be, the researcher expects that the
independent variable(s) will have some effect on (or relationship with) the dependent
variables.
Dependent Variable: shows the effect of manipulating or introducing the independent
variables. For example, if the independent variable is the use or non-use of a new language
teaching procedure, then the dependent variable might be students' scores on a test of the
content taught using that procedure. In other words, the variation in the dependent variable
depends on the variation in the independent variable.
Control Variable: Language learning and teaching are very complex processes. It is not
possible to consider every variable in a single study. Therefore, the variables that are not
measured in a particular study must be held constant, neutralized/balanced, or eliminated, so
they will not have a biasing effect on the other variables. Variables that have been controlled
in this way are called control variables.

Longitudinal Research Design

A longitudinal design is a research study where a sample of the population is studied at
intervals to examine the effects of development. In a longitudinal design, you have a group
of people and you study something about them. Then you collect their contact information.
After a set amount of time - be it weeks, months or years - the participants are called and
asked to return. Tests are re-administered to see what changes are in the participants
Example of Longitudinal Research Design
Medical issues can also be studied effectively by using longitudinal designs for many
reasons. One big one is that there is usually some kind of progression with a disease.
Someone doesn't get HIV and then their whole life stops; they have to keep on living.
Another big reason that medical issues are easy to study is that they often require return trips
to the hospital.

Using HIV as an example, a longitudinal study could be conducted with a group of

individuals who have been newly diagnosed with the virus. You could examine several
things, such as: energy levels, social support and life outlook.
You could have your participants in every month, every six months or even every year.
While it may be a stretch in this example, some studies meet every two to five years.
However, when you have longer intervals between meetings, you have an increased chance
of losing participants.