MET HO DS OF DATA

COLLE CT IO N
 METHODS OF DATA
COLLECTION
Like research design, there are many
alternative approaches to data collection,
and these approaches vary along several
dimensions.
EXISTING DATA VERSUS
ORIGINAL DATA
One of the first decisions that
investigators make with regards to
research data concerns is whether to
use existing data or to collect data
generated specifically for the study.
HISTORICAL RESEARCH
typically relies exclusively on available
data
is the systematic collection of data
relating to past occurrences
data for historical research are usually
in the form of written resources of the
past: periodicals, diaries, letters,
newspapers, minutes of meetings, legal
document, reports and so forth
HISTORICAL RESEARCH
The historical researcher usually must
evaluate the authenticity and accuracy of
historical data before analyzing them.
 Example: Widerquist(1992) studied
Florence Nightingale’s spirituality and its
influence on the development of modern
nursing through an analysis of Nightingale’s
letters, diaries, essays and journals.
SECONDARY ANALYSIS
 – the use of data gathered in the previous study to test
new hypotheses or address new research questions.
 The difference between using records and doing a
secondary analysis is that the researcher performing a
secondary analysis typically has an intact data set that
is ready to analyze, using records one has to
assemble the data set from records and considerable
coding and data manipulation are usually necessary.
 The primary advantages of using existing data are that
they are economical and time saving.
 The collection of original data is typically costly and
time concerning.
TH REE TYPES O F APPRO ACH to
DATA CO LLECTI ON

Self Report
Observation
Biophysical
Regardless of what specific approach is
used data collection methods vary along
several important dimensions.
 KEY DI MENS IONS OF
DATA COLLE CTION
ME THODS
developing a plan for data collection, the
investigator makes many important
decisions.
 KEY DIMENSIONS OF DATA
COLLECTION METHODS:
STRUCTURE
include a fixed set of questions that are
generally answered in a specified sequence
and with pre designated response options
Example: agree or disagree
in structured methods, there is little
opportunity for participants to qualify their
answers or to explain the underlying
meaning of their responses
UNSTRUCTURED
 yield data that are considerably more difficult to
analyze.
Example: Structured:
During the past week, would you say you felt stressed?
 rarely or non of the time
 some or a little of the time
 occasionally or a moderate amount of time
 most or all of the time
Example: Unstructured
How stressed or anxious have you been this past
week? Tell me about the kind of tension and stresses
you have been experiencing.
QUANTIFIABILITY
data that will be subjected to statistical
analysis must be gathered in such a
way that they can be quantified
for statistical analysis, all variables must
be quantitatively measured - even
though the variables are abstract and
intangible phenomena that represents
qualities of human, such as hope,
loneliness, pain and body image
OBTRUSIVENESS

data collection methods differ in terms

of the degree to which people are
aware of their status as study
participants
If participants are fully aware of their
role in a study, their behavior and
responses may not be normal.
OBJECTIVITY

refers to the degree to which two

independent researchers can arrive at
similar “scores” or make similar
observations regarding the concepts of
interest, that is, make judgment
regarding participants attitudes or
behavior that are not biased by
personal feelings or beliefs
MAJOR TYPES OF DATA
COLLE CTION MET HOD S
SELF REPORT METHODS

A good deal of information can be

gathered by questioning people.
Self Report data can be gathered either
by oral interview or by written
questionnaire.
UNSTRUCTURED AND SEMI-
STRUCTURED SELF-REPORT
TECHNIQUES

Unstructured or loosely structured self

report methods offer the researcher
flexibility in gathering information from
study participants.
Unstructured or semi-structured
interviews in other words tend to be
conversational and interactive in nature
TYPES OF UNSTRUCTURED
SELF REPORTS
1. Completely unstructured interview
 are used when the researcher proceeds with no
preconceived view of the specific content or flow of
the information to be gathered
 the aim of these interviews is to elucidate the
respondents perception of the world without
imposing on them any of the researchers views
 A researcher using a completely unstructured
approach may internally ask a broad question
(sometimes called a grand tour questions)
 Example: Tell me about what happened when
you first learned you had AIDS?
2. Focused interview or semi-structured
interview
 the interviewer uses a list of areas or
questions to be covered with each
respondent
 the list is referred to as a topic guide
 most widely used method of collecting
unstructured self report data
3. Focus group interview
 a group usually 5 to 15 people is
assembled for a group discussion
 the interviewer (often called a moderator)
guides the discussion according to a
written set of question or topic to be
covered.
4. Life histories
 are narrative self-disclosures about a
persons life experiences
 this approach, the researchers ask the
respondents to provide on chronologic
sequence, a narration of their ideas and
experiences regarding some terms, either
orally or in writing
 Example: some researchers have used
this approach to obtain a total life health
history
5. Critical incident technique
 is a method of gathering information about
people’s behaviors by examining specific
incidents relating to the behavior under
investigation
 the word critical means that the incident must
have a discernible impact on some outcome, it
must make either a positive or negative
contribution to the accomplishment of some
activity of interest
 the technique differs from other self report
approaches is that it focuses on something
specific about which the respondent can be
expected to testify as an expert witness
6. Diaries
 ask participants to maintain a daily log
concerning some aspect of their lives over
a specified period of time
GATHERING
UNSTRUCTURED SELF
REPORT DATA
 The purpose of gathering unstructured self report
data is to enable the researcher to construct reality
in ways that are consistent with the construction of
the people being studied.
 This goal requires the researcher to take steps to
overcome communication barriers and to enhance
the flow of meaning.
 An important issue is that the researcher and the
respondents should have a common vocabulary
In addition to being good questioners, the
researchers must be good listeners. Only by
attending carefully to what the respondent is
saying can the in-depth interviewer develop
appropriate follow-up questions.
Even when a topic guide is used, the
interviewer must not let the flow of dialogue
be bound by those questions; many
questions that appear on a topic guide are
answered spontaneously over the course of
the interview, usually out of sequence.
GATHERING
UNSTRUCTURED SELF
REPORT DATA
 Unstructured interviews are typically quite long –
sometimes lasting up to several hours.
Researchers often find that the respondents’
construction of their experience only begins to
emerge after lengthy, in-depth dialogues. The issue
of how best to record such abundant information is
difficult one. Some researchers take sketchy motes
as the interview progresses, filling in the details as
soon as practical after the interview is completed.
Many prefer tape recording the interviews for later
transcription.
STRUCTURED SELF
REPORT INSTRUMENTS
 A researcher using a structured approach
always operates with a formal written
instrument known as an interview schedule.
 The instrument or sometimes an SAQ (Self-
administered questionnaire)
 Structured instruments consist of a set of
questions (also known as items) in which the
wording of both the question and in most
cases, the response alternatives is
predetermined
QUESTION FORM

Structured instruments themselves vary in

their degree of structure through their
combination of open-ended and closed-
ended questions.
Open-ended questions

allow respondents to respond in their

own words
open-ended questions give a lot of
freedom to the respondent and
therefore, offer the possibility of
spontaneity which is attainable when a
set of responses is provided
Example: What was the biggest
problem you focused after your open
Closed-ended or fixed-
alternative questions
Offer respondents a number of
alternative replies from which the
subjects must choose the one that most
closely matches the appropriate
answer.
The alternatives may range from the
simple yes or no variety
SPECIFIC TYPES OF
CLOSED ENDED
QUESTIONS
1. Dischotomous questions – require the
respondent to make a choice between two
response alternatives such as a yes or no
or male or female
2. Multiple choice – after more than two
response alternatives
- Multiple choice questions most commonly
offer three to seven alternatives
3. Cafeteria questions – are a special type of
multiple choice questions that asks
respondents to select a response that most
closely corresponds to their view.
4. Rank order questions – ask respondents to rank target
concepts along some continuum, such as most favorable
to least favorable or most to least important
- Rank order questions can be useful but need to be
handled carefully because they are often misunderstood
by the respondents
- Rank order questions should not ask respondents to
rank more than about 10 alternatives
5. Forced-choice question – requires respondents to
choose between two alternative statements that
represent polar positions or characteristics
6. Rating questions – ask respondents to judge something
along an ordered dimension
- require labeling of the end points but sometimes
intermediary points along the scale are also labeled
7. Checklist – is often a two-dimensional
arrangement in which a series of question is listed
along as one dimension.
8. Calendar questions – used when researcher
want to obtain retrospective information about the
chronology of the different events and activities in
peoples lives
9. Visual Analogue – is a straight line, the end
anchors of which are labeled as extreme limits of
the sensation as feeling being measured
- Subjects are asked to mark a point on the line
corresponding to the amount of sensation
experienced.
INTERVIEWS VERSUS
QUESTIONS
An important decision that the researcher
must make when using a structured self-
report approach concerns the use of an
interview versus a questionnaire.
ADVANTAGES OF
QUESTIONNAIRES:
 Questionnaires are much less costly and
requires less time and energy to administer.
 Questionnaires offer the possibility of
complete anonymity, which may be crucial in
obtaining information about illegal, immoral,
or deviant behaviors or about embarrassing
characteristics.
 The absence of an interviewer ensures that
there will be no bias in the responses that
reflect the respondent’s reaction to the
interviewer rather than to the question
themselves.
ADVANTAGES OF
INTERVIEW:
 The response rate tends to be high in face-to-face
interviews. Respondents are generally more
reluctant to refuse to talk to an interviewer than to
ignore a questionnaire, especially a mailed
questionnaire. Low response rates can lead to
serious biases, because people who complete the
questionnaire or interview are rarely a random
subset of those whom the researcher intended for
inclusion in the study.
 Many people simply cannot fill out a questionnaire;
examples include young children, the blind, and
the very elderly. Interviews are feasible with most
people.
Interviews are less prone to
misinterpretation by the respondents
because the interviewer is present to
determine whether questions have been
misunderstood.
Interviewers can produce additional
information through observation. The
interviewer is in a position to observe or
judge the respondent’s level of
understanding, degree of cooperativeness,
lifestyle, and so on. These kinds of
information can be useful in interpreting
responses
Scales

– a scale is a device designed to assign

a numeric score to people to place
them on a continuum with respect to
attributes being measured.
Likert scales
 most widely used technique
 named after the psychologist Rensis Likert
 it consist of several declarative items that express a
view point on a topic
 respondents are asked to indicate the degree to
which they agree or disagree with the opinion
expressed by the statement
 The researcher would, therefore, assign a higher
score to a person agreeing with this statement than
to someone disagreeing with it.
 Because the item has five response alternatives, a
score of 5 would be given to someone strongly
agreeing, 4 to someone agreeing, and so forth.
Semantic Differential
(SD)
 respondents is asked to rate a given concept
 example: primary nursing, team nursing, on a
series of bipolar adjectives such as good or bad,
strong or weak, effective or ineffective, important or
unimportant.
 the scoring procedure for SD responses is essentially
the same as of Likert scales. Scores from 1 to 7 are
assigned to each bipolar scale response with higher
scores generally associated with the positively words
adjective.
 Scales permit researchers to efficiently quantify
subtle gradations in the strength or intensity of
individual characteristics.
CRITIQUING SELF-
REPORTS
One of the first questions a consumer must
ask about the data collection method of a
self-report study is whether the researcher
made the correct decision in obtaining the
data by means of self-report rather than by
an alternative method.
It may be difficult to perform a thorough critique of self
report methods in studies that are reported in journals
because a detailed description of the data collection
methods may not be included. What the reader can expect
is information about the following aspects of the self-report
data collection:
 The degree of structure used in the questioning
 Whether interviews or questionnaires (or variants such as a
projective method or Q-sort) were used
 Whether a composite scale was administered
 The length of time it took, on average, to collect data from each
participant
 How the instruments were administered (e.g., by telephone, in
person, by mail, and so forth)
 The response rate
 The degree of structure that the researcher
imposes on the questioning is of special
importance in assessing a data collection plan. For
example, respondents who are not very articulate
are more receptive to structured instruments with
many closed-ended questions than to questioning
that forces them to compose lengthy answers.
Other considerations include the amount of time
available; the expected size of the sample (open
ended questions and unstructured interviews are
difficult to analyze with large samples); the status
of existing information on the topic (in a new area
of inquiry, a structured approach may not be
warranted); and, most important, the nature of the
research question.
REFERENCES:

Polit, D. & Hungler, B. (1999). Nursing

research: Principles & methods.
Lippincott, Philadelphia.
Polit, D. & Hungler, B. Essentials of
nursing research methods, approach,
and utilization. 4th ed. Lippincott
Polit, D. & Beck, C.T.(2004). Nursing
research 7th ed.Philadelphia:Lippincott
 THANK YOU!!!
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