This document discusses data collection methods for research. It states that data is essential for making business decisions and can come from records, observations, measurements or interviews. It then describes surveys as a method to gather information through questionnaires administered to a sample of the population. The document outlines different types of surveys, including census surveys which collect all population data and sample surveys which collect a representative sample. It also describes various personal interview techniques used in surveys, such as door-to-door interviews, mall intercepts, and computer-assisted interviews.

2. Introduction
 Data are the foundation of any research, based upon the
evaluation of data all business decision are made.
 Data are the facts or numbers that can be collected through
records, observations, measurements and interviews.
 Availability of right data/information is very important for
making right decision.
 The task of data collection begins once the research problem
and the research design/plan have been ascertained.
 While collecting the data/information, we might be collecting
both facts and opinions.
 For example, suppose we want to study about a company, we
need the information like (i) background information (ii)
policies and structural aspects (iii) perceptions, attitudes and
behavioral response of the staff members of the company.

3.  Background information, policies, rules and structural aspects
of the company can be obtained from the available records and
documents.
 Similarly, assets, loan, bad-debt, interest rates etc. can also be
obtained from the company’s records.
 Hence most of these data are in the form of facts (including
quantitative data).
 But, the perceptions or attitude towards the company in
relation to working environment of the employee’s can be
obtained by talking with them or through administering
questionnaire, which are in the form of opinion.

4. What is Survey?
 Survey is a method of gathering information from the
respondents for any pre-determined research objective.
 In most of the scientific research, information is obtained
from the representative sample of the population by
administering the questionnaire to the respondents.
 The information may include the demographic and socio-
economic characteristics, and also it may pertains the
attitudinal aspects, intentions, and awareness of the
respondents participating in survey.
 Survey may also covers overall assessment of a respondent
about any object and his/her favorableness or un-
favorableness opinion about it.

5.  Survey has become common in today’s world. Survey is of
two types viz. (i) Census Survey and (ii) Sample Survey
Census Survey:
 The total count of all units of the population for a certain
characteristic is termed as census survey i.e. it is a
complete enumeration.
 This type of survey or inquiry involves a great deal of time,
money and manpower.
 As it involves lot of resources, it is very difficult to conduct,
particularly when the inquiry is large in scale.
 Truly speaking, this method is practically beyond the reach
of ordinary researchers. Even the government adopts this
method in very rare cases e.g. population census
conducted once in a decade, agricultural census and
manufacturing establishment etc.

6. Sample Survey:
 When only a part of the population is selected and enumerated,
then it is called sample enumeration or sample survey.
 It is possible to obtain sufficiently accurate results by studying
only a part of total population and as such there is no utility of
census survey.
 A sample survey will usually be less expensive than a census
survey and the desired information will be obtained in less time.
 This does not imply that economy is the consideration in
conducting a sample survey. It is most important that a degree of
accuracy of results is also maintained.
 Occasionally, the technique of sample survey is applied to verify
the results obtained from a census survey.
 It has been well established fact that in many situations a well
conducted sample survey can provide much more precise results
than from census survey.

7.  The relative advantage of sample surveys over census
surveys are:
 It reduces cost, manpower and time of survey.
 It enables to get results with greater speed.
 It provides greater accuracy of results.
Classification of Survey Method
 On the basis of the mode of administration, there are
several method of survey method viz. personal interview,
telephone interview etc.
1. Personal Interview
 Personal interview is a face to face interpersonal conversation.

8.  In this method, the interviewer contacts personally and asks
the respondent seeking answers pertinent to the research
problem.
 Personal interviews can be classified into six categories:
door-to-door interview, mall intercept interview, office
interview, self administered questionnaire, omnibus survey,
and computer assisted interviews.
(a) Door-to-door interview:
 This is the technique of gathering information from the
respondents at their home in person and seeks a face to
face interview.
 This method is ideal as it allows the respondents to
provide answers in a comfortable home environment.


9.  But in some circumstances, the respondents might not
participate, as they might be busy at their work place
and their require much time.
(b) Mall Intercept Interviews:
 In this interview technique, a respondent who actually is
a visitor to a shopping mall is intercepted by the
interviewer for obtaining responses.
The interviewer stationed at the entrance of the
shopping mall invite the respondents to participate in
a structured interview.
The major advantage of this technique is cost-efficient.
A researcher can also use efficiently a big respondent
pool available at different mall location.

10.  This technique is very easy to execute. But the major
disadvantages of the technique is getting very low responses
from the respondents. Because they come to the mall for
shopping and not for answering the questions.
(c) Office Interviews
 In this technique, an interviewer visit the organization and
conducts an interview at the work place of the respondents.
 This type of interview is conducted when the research
objective is to obtain the consumer attitude of any
industrial product or service.
 Probably this technique will be able to generate accurate
responses than home interview technique for such kind of
objective.

11.  Office interviews are usually conducted after taking prior
appointment from the interviewer.
 In an organization, various categories of employees can
provide a variety of information. A researcher can focus on
these different categories of employees to generate the
responses in accordance to the specific research objective.
(d) Self Administered Questionnaire
 In this method, no interviewer is involved. A series of
questions are presented to the respondents without the
intervention of the interviewer.
 Self administered questionnaire are generally used in hotels. It
consists of series of questions to the respondents to ask about
their services.

12.  In the absence of interviewer makes this interview
technique bias free from the view point of the research.
 On the other hand, personal clarification to some of the
questions by the interviewer is completely missing. So
answer to some of the misunderstood questions might be
affected.
(e) Omnibus Surveys
 Omnibus survey is that type of survey which is conducted
in a regular schedule with personal interviews where a
series of questions are provided by the survey-conducting
company.
 The schedule may be weekly, fortnightly, monthly,
quarterly, six monthly, yearly, or any other specific time
interval decided by the survey-conducting company.

13.  The questionnaire consists of series of questions on some diverse
research topics particularly in marketing research, the set of
question might be provided by different clients.
 As a form of continuous marketing research, such surveys are
conducted at regular intervals and covers a range of topics. There
are several advantages of this survey technique over other
techniques of survey, because it is cost effective as it is shared by
the clients.
 Second advantage of omnibus surveys is that the procedure of
conducting the survey-conducting company facilitates to collect
a variety of data based on the need of the researcher.
 For example, the need of data for before and after study can be
easily fulfilled through omnibus survey technique as
respondents can be easily tracked. However, there might be
respondent’s unwillingness to answer because of monotony and
boredom.

14. (f) Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing(CAPI) Technique
 CAPI technique has become increasingly popular for
collecting the data for large scaled household survey.
 This is a type of personal interview technique where the inputs
are directly administered using laptop rather than using paper
questionnaire.
 In this method, interviewer carry laptop from which questions
are read out and responses of the questions are entered directly,
which is then transmitted to centre via modem.
 This technique reduces the time for data collection as well as
time for coding and analysis.
 This method is considered to be one of the most influential
developments in survey now a day.

15. 2. Telephone Interview
 Easy access to telephone facility have changed the survey
techniques in the field of business research.
 This method is suitable when there are only few questions, but
large number of respondents over a wide geographical area and
time available for interview is very short.
 In this method, the interviewer ask the series of questions
to the respondent and record the responses on the paper.

16. Evaluation Criteria for Survey Method
 As there are various types of surveys, a researcher often
faces a dilemma as to which method of survey should be
adopted.
 It become important for the researcher to evaluate all the
survey methods on the basis of pre-established objective
and some pre-established criteria.
 An evaluation of the survey methods can be done on the
basis of cost, time, speed of data collection, coverage area,
quantity of data, control over fieldwork etc.
Some other Qualitative Survey Methods:
 Despite the various methods of collecting the
data/information, there are some other supplementary
qualitative methods, which are as follows:

17.  For example, to know the preference of the customers’,
instead of asking consumers about what brand they buy or
what television program they view, the researcher can
simply observe what product are bought and what programs
are watched.
 Very few of the “one-shut” research projects done in
marketing are of this type.
Classification of Observation Methods
 Observation method can broadly be classified into five
categories as given below:
i. Personal Observation:
 In this method, an observer actually watches the event (or
subject) behavior and makes a record of it as it happens
in front of him.

18.  This type of observation is extremely useful when the
subjects are small or one-shut project. However, the
perception of the observer might be deviated by his
knowledge.
 Anyway, personal observation is a practical and useful
technique to collect data/information, specifically in cases
where other means of data collection are seemingly not
advantageous.
ii. Mechanical Observation
 This involves the observation of behavior of the events (or
respondents) through a mechanical device. The device may
be a video camera, a voice recorder, eye-movement
recorder, and other such devices.

19.  Now a days, there are many mechanical devices available to
record the behavior of the subjects.
 This method is specially important when a researcher has
to make continuous observation or when a researcher feels
that the human observation will not solve the research
purpose.
 For example, a camera can record the actions of a
respondent better than any human being.
 In addition, the camera has a capacity of observing
behavior of the subjects for long time as compared with the
human observer.
 In some cases, human observation is not possible.

20. For example, when a researcher, in particular will like
to measure the emotional reaction of an individual,
the human observation is neither feasible nor
practical. In such case, an instrument commonly
known as eye-movement recorder is used.
This instrument has the capacity of measuring eye
movement at a rate of 30 readings per second with
respect to any stimuli.
iii. Audits
Audit involves examination of particular records or
inventory analysis of the items under investigation.

21. In audit analysis, the researchers personally collect the
data and usually make the count of the items under
investigation.
This technique is usually performed by an auditor
personally without using mechanical device.
Now a days some mechanical devices are also used to
make an audit.
For example, modern libraries use bar-coded books
and a laser gun to count the number of books in the
library.

22. iv. Content Analysis
 This is a kind of technique used to objectively and
systematically make inferences about the intentions,
attitudes, and values of individuals by identifying
specified characteristics in textual messages.
 It examines the contents of textual messages
systematically as an indirect observation and analysis.
 Business researchers generally examine the content of
message in print advertisement and electronic
advertisement, content analysis for the print articles, and
so on.
v. Physical Trace Analysis
 Physical trace analysis involves collection of data through
physical trace of the subjects in terms of understanding
their past behavior.

23.  For example, a researcher can count the number of
soft drinks consumed in an annual function of a
college to understand the inclination of youth for a
particular brand.
 Physical trace analysis is an indirect method of
observing the behavior with the outcome of a
behavior.
 In some cases, physical trace analysis is very useful.
 For example, the popularity of a website can be
analyzed by counting the number of times the users
have visited the site.

24. Observation Method:
 Observation method is the process of recognizing and noting people,
objects and occurrences rather than asking for information.
 This method provides a reliable and valid account of what happened.
The observation method can be considered to be an indispensable
primary source method, which may be used as a supplement to other
methods.
 Observation also involves listening, reading, smelling and touching,
which can provide an insights into behavioral characteristic and
related issues.
 For example, knowing the preference of the customers’, instead of
asking consumers about what brand they buy or what television
program they view, the researcher can observe what product are
bought and what programs are watched.

25.  This method is least expensive for collecting behavioral data.
 Very few of the “one-shut” research projects done in marketing
are of this type- perhaps no more than 1% of the marketing
research are performing such type of research.
 However, the advantage of this method put researchers into
first hand contact with ‘reality).
 Gathering data by using other means is time consuming and
expensive.
 In studies with limited fund and time, in which there might be
possible to observe only small portion of the sampling units
(individuals or goods) and just by observing the researcher may
draw the conclusion

26. Advantages of Observation Techniques
 The most advantage of the observation methods is the collection of
data on the basis of only observing rather than using other expensive
surveys or by using a measurement scale.
 Observation also eliminates recall error as it is immediately recorded
at the place of observation.
 Observations also allow an observer to collect data from the group of
subjects who are not able to provide written or verbal information.
 Observation method is least expensive and put researchers into first
hand contact with ‘reality’.
 In case of limited fund and time, observation method might be very
useful, particularly for for tiny behavioral and marketing researches.

27. Limitations of Observation Techniques
 The major limitation of the observation is its inability to
measure attitude or intentions of the subjects
 Another limitation of the observation method is subjective
i.e. a same observation may have different observations by
different observers.
 In some cases, personal monitoring by the researcher is
required. Observers often feel fatigue from this long
continuous observation, and this results in a biased result

28. Focus Group Discussion:
 Focus group interviews or exploratory group sessions are a
qualitative research technique frequently utilized in social science
and business research.
 A focus group meeting is a discussion in which a small group of
informants comprising of six to twelve people are together at one
place to discuss the topic of interest.
 The discussion will be guided by a facilitator or moderator, talk
freely and spontaneously in the topic considered important to the
investigation.
 The participants are chosen from a target group whose opinions and
ideas are of interest to the research.
 Usually more than one group session is needed to assure good
coverage. Sessions can be conducted with various sub-groups within
the target population.
 The focus group meeting is usually tape recorded, although an
observer (recorder) also takes notes on the discussion.

29.  An open conversation takes place in which each participant has
the opportunity to speak, ask questions of the other
participants, and respond to the comments of others, including
the facilitator.
 Interaction among the participants is stimulated by the
discussion of various themes relevant to the research.
 The facilitator (or moderator) guides the sessions so that all
subjects of interest are covered.
 He/she attempts to let the group carry out the conversation by
itself, intervening only to introduce topics of importance that
may not come up spontaneously; to move on when it was
exhausted; or to bring the discussion back to the area of interest
when it has wandered into irrelevant areas.

30. Participatory Method: This is a technique of collecting the
information through discussion with the group of people, from
whom the necessary information is to be obtained.
 In this method, the researcher acts as a member of the group.
 This method is a field base activity which carries out interactive
and exploratory studies with concern people.
 The aim of this method is to observe the group, learn from the
group and attempt to understand their activities, experience and
expertise.
 For example, in agricultural extension program, most often this
method is adopted. The researcher learns from the concerned
people with a attitude of respect for their knowledge, experience.
 He/she should have a willingness to regard them as equal partner
in the process of economic and sociological development.
 The attitude of behaving equally should be maintained to all
people such as young, old, women and also the poor and
unprivileged, wealthy and influential.

31.  In participatory method, we the outsider must sit at
the same level as the concerned group of people and
show the normal courtesy and respect, thus
reinforcing the participatory nature of the
relationship.
 In course of discussion, usually all the people of the
group sit together in one place and as a participatory
tool, some sort of diagram will be drawn on the ground
or in a big piece of paper and all can take part in the
discussion.