ENGLISH RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 7
TRUONG VAN ANH
SAIGON UNIVERSITY
Chapter 7: Collecting data
Introduction
All research involves the collection and analysis of data through reading, observation, measurement, asking questions, or a combination of these or other strategies. The data may vary considerably in their characteristics. For example:
• Data may be numerical, or may consist of words, or may be a combination of the two.
• Data may be neither numbers nor words, but consist of, for example,
pictures or artefacts.
• Data may be ‘original’, in the sense that you have collected information never before collected; or may be ‘secondary’, already put together by somebody else, but reused, probably in a different way, by you.
• Data may consist of responses to a questionnaire or interview transcriptions, notes or other records of observations or experiments, documents and materials, or all of these things.
The chapter is organized around the following themes and issues:
• Applying techniques for collecting data. The different methods which you may use for your research.
• Documents. Using written, online, archived and visual materials as a basis for your research.
• Interviews. Questioning or discussing issues with your sample.
• Observations. Collecting data through watching or engaging in activities.
• Questionnaires. Gathering information through written questions.
• Mixed methodologies. Combining approaches.


Applying techniques for collecting data
Approaches and techniques
We focus on the four main techniques, or methods for producing data, which were identified: documents, interviews, observation and questionnaires.
The two research families or dichotomies– fieldwork or deskwork, and qualitative or quantitative – are related to the above four techniques.
In the field or at the desk?
Qualitative or quantitative?
[Q]uantitative research is thought to be more concerned with the deductive testing of hypotheses and theories, whereas qualitative research is more concerned with exploring a topic, and with inductively generating hypotheses and theories.
Documents
They might, for example:
• be library-based, aimed at producing a critical synopsis of an existing area of research writing;
• be computer-based, consisting largely of the analysis of previously collected data sets;
• be work-based, drawing on materials produced within an organization;
• have a policy focus, examining materials relevant to a particular set of policy decisions;
• have a historical orientation, making use of available archival and other surviving documentary evidence.


Government surveys
A full list is available from http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ which has an online
service. Comprehensive online information and links to access data are available for each data set. Searching and browsing information about data,
including user guides and documentation, is free and does not require registration. You do need to register if you wish to access raw data. The site also provides access to European databases.
Media documents
Newspapers, magazines, television and radio all have websites that can provide interesting sources of data and useful material for research analysis.
Personal documents
Internet home pages of individuals have been used very creatively for research.
These include diaries, letters, wills and photographs.
International organizations
Comparative information on other countries, and on international policies and
programmes, may be found on the websites of international organizations.
You may conclude from this both that you cannot really avoid the
use of secondary data to some extent, and that it is legitimate and interesting to base your research project entirely upon such data.
Reasons for using secondary data
1 Because collecting primary data is difficult, time-consuming and
expensive.
2 Because you can never have enough data.
3 Because it makes sense to use it if the data you want already exists in some form.
4 Because it may shed light on, or complement, the primary data you have collected.
5 Because it may confirm, modify or contradict your findings.
6 Because it allows you to focus your attention on analysis and
interpretation.
7 Because you cannot conduct a research study in isolation from what has already been done.
8 Because more data is collected than is ever used.

Interviews
For collecting the data, you should interview your friends, students, your teachers and people relevant to the topic of your research.
Alternative interview techniques
• Interviews may take place face to face or at a distance, e.g. over the telephone or by email.
• They may take place at the interviewee’s or interviewer’s home or place of work, in the street or on some other, ‘neutral’ ground.
• The interview may be tightly structured, with a set of questions requiring specific answers, or it may be very open ended, taking the form of a discussion. In the latter case, the purpose of the interviewer may be simply to facilitate the subject’s talking at length. Semistructured interviews lie between these two positions.



• Different forms of questioning may be practised during the interview. In addition to survey questioning, Dillon identified classroom, courtroom and clinical questioning, as well as the domains of personnel interviewing, criminal interrogation and journalistic interviewing (Dillon 1990).
• Prompts, such as photographs, can be useful for stimulating discussion.
• Interviews may involve just two individuals, the researcher and the interviewee, or they may be group events (often referred to as focus groups),
involving more than one subject and/or more than one interviewer.
• The interviewee may, or may not, be given advance warning of the topics or issues to be discussed. This briefing might be very detailed to allow the subject to gather together any necessary information.
• The interview may be recorded in a variety of ways. It may be taped, and possibly later transcribed by an audio-typist. The interviewer may take notes, during or after the interview, or, where there is more than one interviewer, one might take notes while the other conducted the interview.
• Interviews may be followed up in a variety of ways. A transcript could be sent to the subject for comment. Further questions might subsequently be sent to the subject in writing. A whole series of interviews could be held over a period of time, building upon each other or exploring changing views and experiences.
Pros and cons of focus groups
Pros
• The group members can challenge the researcher’s agenda. It may be a
more empowering experience for those interviewed.
• Diverse and different views may be generated. The discussion allows for an
analysis of how meanings are made, negotiated and challenged.
• It may feel a safer experience for some people who prefer to discuss issues
within a group rather than individually.
• The discussion may lead to unanticipated findings because of the ways in
which the discussion itself generates thoughts and feelings.
Cons
• How to document the data in such a way that you are sure who has
said what.
• The group dynamics may silence or exaggerate particular views.
• The economics of interviewing several people at one time may be outweighed by the higher level of organizational effort required to ensure all
can participate.
• How do you deal with issues of confidentiality?

Different ways of asking sensitive questions
About age:
• ask for year of birth
• or the year when they left school
• or how old their first child is
• or when they are due to retire
About ethnic group:
• ask them to select from a range of options
• or to write it down for you
• or ask them how they would like you to describe their ethnic group
• or make an assessment yourself
About income:
• ask them if they could afford to buy a new car or house
• or whether they would regard their income as above average, average or
below average
• or which of a number of income bands they come in

Observations
Doing participant observation research is riddled with dilemmas.
A range of different approaches are possible in observation studies:
• The events may be recorded, either at the time or subsequently, by the researcher, or they may be recorded mechanically (including through photographs).
• The observation may be structured in terms of a predetermined framework, or may be relatively open.
• The observer may also be a participant in the events being studied, or may act solely as a ‘disinterested’ observer.
These differences are analogous to those already noted for interviews. There are, of course, many other details which need to be considered before you begin your observations.

Issues in observation
1 Are the times at which you carry out your observations relevant?
2 Do you need to devise an observational schedule or determine pre-coded
categories? If so, you might like to test these out in a pilot observation
before they are finalized.
3 If the answer to the last question was negative, how are you going to
organize your data recording?
4 Is it important to you to try to record ‘everything’, or will you be much more
selective?
5 Are your age, sex, ethnicity, dress or other characteristics likely to affect
your observations?
6 How artificial is the setting? How visible are you as the observer? Does this
matter?
7 Is observation enough, or will you need to participate and/or use other
means of data collection?
8 Are there any situations to which you cannot get access but where observation may be important? How can you get ‘off the road’ or ‘backstage’?
9 If you are going to participate more directly in the events you will be
observing, how are you going to balance the demands of participation and
observation? Again, you should find some practice beneficial here.

Questionnaires
Questionnaires are one of the most widely used social research techniques. The idea of formulating precise written questions, for those whose opinions or experience you are interested in, seems such an obvious strategy for finding the answers to the issues that interest you. But, as anyone who has tried to put a questionnaire together will tell you – and then tried again to interpret the
responses – it is not as simple as it might seem.
There are a number of different ways in which questionnaires can be administered. They can be sent by post to the intended respondents, who are then expected to complete and return them themselves (preferably, if you want them to respond, using a reply-paid envelope). They can be administered over the telephone or face to face, in the latter case becoming much like a highly structured interview. They can be sent over the internet.

Hints on wording questions
• Try to avoid questions which are ambiguous or imprecise, or which assume
specialist knowledge on the part of the respondent.
• Remember that questions which ask respondents to recall events or feelings that occurred long ago may be answered with a lesser degree of
accuracy.
• Two or three simple questions are usually better than one very complex one.
• Try not to draft questions which presume a particular answer, or lead the
respondent on, but allow for all possible responses.
• Avoid too many questions which are couched in negative terms; though in
some cases, such as when you are asking a series of attitude questions, it
can be useful to mix positive and negative questions.
• Remember that hypothetical questions, beyond the experience of the
respondent, are likely to attract a less accurate response.
• Avoid questions which may be offensive, and couch sensitive questions in a
way and in a place (e.g. at the end of the questionnaire) such that they are
not likely to affect your overall response rate.
• Do not ask too many open-ended questions: they take too much time to
answer properly, and too much time to analyse.
• If asking questions in a different language, have them translated from
English, and then back-translated into English, to ensure accuracy of
translation.

Hints on questionnaire layout and presentation
• Questionnaires should be typed or printed, clearly and attractively laid out,
using a type size which is legible.
• If you are administering your questionnaires by post or email, you should
enclose a covering letter identifying yourself and describing the purposes of
your survey, and providing a contact address or telephone number.
• If you are administering your questionnaires face to face, or over the
telephone, you should introduce yourself first, give a contact address or
telephone number if requested, and be prepared to answer questions about
your survey.
• If the questions you are asking are at all sensitive, and this will be the case
for almost any questionnaire, you should start by assuring your respondents
of the confidentiality of their individual replies.
• Make sure any instructions you give on how the respondent is expected to
answer the questions are clear.

• It is usually better to keep the kind of response expected – ticking, circling
or writing in – constant.
• It is desirable that the length of the questionnaire is kept within reasonable
limits, but at the same time it is better to space questions well so that the
questionnaire does not appear cramped.
• If the questionnaire is lengthy or complicated, and you are expecting a
substantial number of replies, you should think about coding the answers in
advance on the questionnaire to speed up data input.
• Remember to thank your respondents at the end of the questionnaire, and
to invite their further comments and questions.
Mixed methodologies
It is common for researchers to use more than one method of data collection.
This is even more likely if you are carrying out your research project as part of a
group, rather than on your own. As well as collectively having more resources,
you and the other members of the group will probably also bring a range of
skills and interests to the project, and may effectively agree to ‘carve up’ the
work between you.

Eleven ways to combine qualitative and quantitative research
1 Logic of triangulation. The findings from one type of study can be
checked against the findings deriving from the other type. For example,
the results of a qualitative investigation might be checked against a
quantitative study.
2 Qualitative research facilitates quantitative research. Qualitative
research may: help to provide background information on context and
subjects; act as a source of hypotheses; and aid scale construction.
3 Quantitative research facilitates qualitative research. Usually, this
means quantitative research helping with the choice of subjects for a
qualitative investigation.
4 Quantitative and qualitative research are combined in order to provide
a general picture. Quantitative research may be employed to plug the
gaps in a qualitative study that arise because, for example, the
researcher cannot be in more than one place at any one time. Alternatively, it may be that not all issues are amenable solely to a quantitative investigation or solely to a qualitative one.
5 Structure and process. Quantitative research is especially efficient at
getting at the ‘structural’ features of social life, while qualitative studies
are usually stronger in terms of ‘processual’ aspects.

6 Researchers’ and subjects’ perspectives. Quantitative research is
usually driven by the researcher’s concerns, whereas qualitative
research takes the subject’s perspective as the point of departure.
7 Problem of generality. The addition of some quantitative evidence may
help generalizability.
8 Qualitative research may facilitate the interpretation of relationships
between variables. Quantitative research readily allows the researcher to
establish relationships among variables, but is often weak when it comes
to exploring the reasons for those relationships. A qualitative study can
be used to help explain the factors underlying the broad relationships.
9 Relationship between macro and micro levels. Employing both quantitative and qualitative research may provide a means of bridging the
macro–micro gulf. Quantitative research can often tap large-scale, structural features of social life, while qualitative research tends to address
small-scale behavioural aspects.
10 Stage in the research process. Quantitative and qualitative research may
be appropriate to different stages of a longitudinal study.
11 Hybrids. When qualitative research is conducted within a quasiexperimental (i.e. quantitative) research design.
(Source: Adapted from Punch 2005: 241–2)

Summary
Having read this chapter, you should:
• better understand the different ways in which the use of documents, interviews, observations and questionnaires could contribute to your research project;
• be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of these different techniques for collecting data;
• appreciate when and why it might make sense to combine qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection.
Exercises
7.1 How will, or might, you use secondary data in your research project? What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing so?
7.2 You are facilitating a focus group discussion. How do you deal with the following: (a) two members of the group begin an argument; (b) one member of the group dominates the conversation; (c) a few members of the group get up to help themselves to refreshments, and begin a conversation in a corner of the room; (d) the group runs out of steam after 15 minutes, and seems to have exhausted their thoughts on the topic; (e) one member of the group never speaks.
7.3 In a face-to-face interview, how would you ask a stranger about their age, ethnic group, marital status, sexuality, income, social class and educational level? What could you do to help ensure the accuracy of their response?







GOOD LUCK!