Data Collection Techniques

APPLICATION NO.:
fda15185ec0311e9aabcef68c918f3a4
NAME: SRISHTI PAL
AFFILIATION: VASANT KANYA
MAHAVIDYALAYA, BANARAS HINDU
UNIVERSITY, VARANASI
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: AcademicWriting (SWAYAM)

QUESTIONNAIRE
• A set of pre-determined questions for all the respondents
that serves as a primary research instrument in a survey
research.
• It is used to collect factual information.
• Consists of a form containing a series of questions.
• A questionnaire is a series of questions asked to
individuals to obtain statistically useful information about
a given topic.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD
QUESTIONNAIRE
• Should be concerned with specific and relevant topic
• Should be short.
• Directions and wordings should be simple and clear.
• Questions should be objective.
• Embarrassing and hypothetical questions should be
avoided.
• Should be presented in a good order.
• Should be attractive, neatly printed and clearly arranged.

TYPES OF QUESTIONNAIRE
1. Close-ended questionnaire: If you can answer a
question with only a "yes" or "no" response, then
you are answering a closed-ended type of
2. Open-ended questionnaire : Open-ended
questions are ones that require more than one
word answers. The answers could come in the
of a list, a few sentences or something longer such
as a speech, paragraph or essay.

INTERVIEW
• Interview is the verbal conversation between two people with the objective
of collecting relevant information for the purpose of research.

TYPES OF INTERVIEWS
Personal interviews: Personal interviews include :
Selection of the employees
• Promotion of the employees
• Retirement and resignation of the employees. Of
course, this type of interview is designed to obtain
information through discussion and observation
about how well the interviewer will perform on the
job.
Evaluation interviews: The interviews which take
place annually to review the progress of the
interviewee are called the evaluation interviews.
Naturally, it is occurring between superiors and
subordinates. The main objective of this interview is

 Group interview: This involves multiple candidates
and they are given a topic for discussion. They are
assessed on their conversational ability and how
satisfactorily they are able to have their own views
and make others believe in them. Here, the best
among the lot gets selected.
 Structured interview (Formal interview or guided
interview): Here in the traditional form of an
interview, the questions asked are all in a standard
format and the same is used for all the candidates.
This is to assess the ability of all the candidates
impartially.
 Unstructured interview (Informal interview or
conversational interview): This is the opposite of a
structured interview. Here the interviewer has a
definite idea in mind about the questions to be
asked, but it doesn’t follow a certain format. The

 Depth interview (In-depth interview): When you
need to ascertain everything about the interviewee
right from life history, academic qualifications, work
experiences, hobbies, and interests; you conduct the
depth interview. Here the interviewer has a clear idea
about the questions he will be asking but once the
question is asked, he allows the conversation to flow
and is more of a listener. This interview takes time
and more of a friendly approach of the interviewer
towards the interviewee.
 Telephonic interview: This interview is conducted
over the phone and its main objective is to narrow
down the probable list of candidates so that only the
most eligible ones finally get shortlisted. This is done
in the initial stages and before the personal interview.

OBSERVATION
• Observation is the recording of the behavior of the
sample. Observation is one method for collecting research
data. It involves watching a participant and recording
relevant behavior for later analysis. One example of a
study using the observational method would be when a
researcher wants to study how children manage sharing of
toys. He could observe a group of children playing in the
classroom, and record what things they say or do that
determine who gets to play with a coveted toy.
• The observation method has the advantage of providing
direct evidence of the phenomenon that is being studied.
In the example above, the researcher gets data on how
the children actually manage to share or not share. This is
more objective than other ways of collecting data like for
example, interviewing the children or their teacher.

OBSERVATION
There are different types of observation method:
 Controlled observations (usually a structured
observation): Controlled observations are likely to be
carried out in a psychology laboratory. The researcher
decides where the observation will take place, at what
time, with which participants, in what circumstances and
uses a standardized procedure.
Participants are randomly allocated to each independent
variable group. Rather than writing a detailed
of all behavior observed, it is often easier to code
according to a previously agreed scale using a behavior
schedule (i.e. conducting a structured observation).

 Naturalistic observation : Naturalistic observation is a
research method commonly used by psychologists and
other social scientists. This technique involves observing
involves studying the spontaneous behavior of
participants in natural surroundings.
The researcher simply records what they see in whatever
way they can. Compared with controlled observations it is
like the difference between studying wild animals in a zoo
and studying them in their natural habitat.
By being able to observe the flow of behavior in its own
setting studies have greater ecological validity.
Natural observations are less reliable as other variables
cannot be controlled. This makes it difficult for another
researcher to repeat the study in exactly the same way.
The researcher needs to be trained to be able to recognize
aspects of a situation that are psychologically significant
and worth further attention.

 Participant observation: Participant observation is a
variant of the above (natural observations) but here
the researcher joins in and becomes part of the
group they are studying to get a deeper insight into
their lives.
Participant observations can be either cover or overt.
Covert is where the study is carried out 'under cover'.
The researcher's real identity and purpose are kept
concealed from the group being studied. The
researcher takes a false identity and role, usually
posing as a genuine member of the group. On the
other hand, overt is where the researcher reveals his
or her true identity and purpose to the group and
asks permission to observe.

RATING SCALE
A rating scale is a measuring instrument that requires the
rater or observer to assign a rated object to categories
that have numerals assigned to them.
Rating scale is defined as a closed-ended survey
question used to represent respondent feedback in a
comparative form for specific particular
features/products/services. It is one of the most
established question types for online and offline surveys
where survey respondents are expected to rate an
attribute or feature. Rating scale is a variant of the
popular multiple-choice question which is widely used to
gather information that provides relative information
about a specific topic.

The four fundamental levels of measurement scales that are
used to capture data in the form of surveys and
questionnaires, are as follows:
Nominal Scale: 1st Level of Measurement
Nominal Scale, also called the categorical variable scale, is
defined as a scale used for labeling variables into distinct
classifications and doesn’t involve a quantitative value or
order. This scale is the simplest of the four variable
measurement scales. Calculations done on these variables
will be futile as there is no numerical value of the options.
There are cases where this scale is used for the purpose of
classification – the numbers associated with variables of
this scale are only tags for categorization or division.
Calculations done on these numbers will be futile as they
have no quantitative significance.

Ordinal Scale: 2nd Level of Measurement
Ordinal Scale is defined as a variable measurement scale
used to simply depict the order of variables and not the
difference between each of the variables. These scales
generally used to depict non-mathematical ideas such as
frequency, satisfaction, happiness, a degree of pain etc. It
is quite straightforward to remember the implementation
of this scale as ‘Ordinal’ sounds similar to ‘Order’, which
exactly the purpose of this scale.
Ordinal Scale maintains descriptional qualities along with
an intrinsic order but is void of an origin of scale and
the distance between variables can’t be calculated.
Descriptional qualities indicate tagging properties similar
to the nominal scale, in addition to which, ordinal scale
also has a relative position of variables. Origin of this
is absent due to which there is no fixed start or “true
zero”.

Interval Scale: 3rd Level of Measurement
Interval Scale is defined as a numerical scale where the
order of the variables is known as well as the difference
between these variables. Variables which have familiar,
constant and computable differences are classified using
the Interval scale. It is easy to remember the primary role
of this scale too, ‘Interval’ indicates ‘distance between two
entities’, which is what Interval scale helps in achieving.
These scales are effective as they open doors for the
statistical analysis of provided data. Mean, median or
mode can be used to calculate the central tendency in
scale. The only drawback of this scale is that there no
decided starting point or a true zero value.
Interval scale contains all the properties of ordinal scale,
addition to which, it offers a calculation of the difference
between variables. The main characteristic of this scale is
the equidistant difference between objects.

Ratio Scale: 4th Level of Measurement
Ratio Scale is defined as a variable measurement scale
that not only produces the order of variables but also
makes the difference between variables known along
information on the value of true zero. It is calculated by
assuming that the variables have an option for zero, the
difference between the two variables is the same and
there is a specific order between the options.
With the option of true zero, varied inferential and
descriptive analysis techniques can be applied to the
variables. In addition to the fact that the ratio scale does
everything that a nominal, ordinal and interval scale can
do, it can also establish the value of absolute zero. Best
examples of ratio scales are weight and height. In market
research, a ratio scale is used to calculate market share,
annual sales, the price of an upcoming product, number
of consumers etc.

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