Collecting Data
Collecting Data
Understanding Data Collection
- Appreciate the importance of data collection in analysing a situation or problem.
- Distinguish between primary data and secondary data.
- Identify primary data as data that you have gathered yourself, specifically for your research.
- Recognise secondary data as data that was collected by someone else or for some other purpose, but can be utilised for current analysis.
Data Collection Techniques
- Understand the various methods to collect data, including surveys, questionnaires, interviews, experiments and observations.
- Recognise that the choice of data collection method should reflect the nature of the research problem, goals and resources available.
- Acknowledge that for surveys, consideration must be given to the questions used, and the scale and stratification of the sample.
- Identify stratified sampling as a method where the population is divided into multiple subgroups or ‘strata’, then random samples are taken from each stratum proportional to its size.
Considerations for Good Data Collection
- Appreciate the importance of fair data collection in producing unbiased results.
- Understand how bias can be introduced in collecting data including through leading questions and non-random samples.
- Recognise that a good questionnaire should contain clear, unbiased and relevant questions which allows a wide range of responses.
- Acknowledge the importance of privacy - always ensure informed consent is obtained when collecting data and confidentiality should be maintained.
Errors and Misuse in Data Collection
- Understand the implications of errors in data collection which may lead to misleading results.
- Identify errors that may occur during the data collection process, such as response bias, non-response, inaccurate responses etc.
- Recognise response bias as a tendency of a person to answer questions on a survey untruthfully or misleadingly.
- Understand non-systematic errors which may occur due to fluctuations and inconsistencies in measuring instruments or experimental conditions.
- Be aware of misuses of data collection, e.g. intentionally misleading or distorting data to suit a specific viewpoint.
Evaluation and Interpretation of Collected Data
- Recognise the importance of evaluating data based on sample size, adequacy and relevance.
- Understand that evaluation involves critically analysing the obtained data to determine its validity, reliability and accuracy.
- Appreciate that interpreting data involves converting raw data into meaningful information.
- Understand that interpretation will be based on the statistical analysis results and involve turning abstract data into concrete and comprehensible information.