Data Collection Methods

1. Introduction

A variety of methods and techniques are available for collecting the specific information required for
a study. The researcher needs to be cognizant of the resources available for the study and the level
of accuracy required. The sources of data could either be primary or secondary in nature

2. Classification of Data

The sources of data are broadly classified into primary and secondary.

Primary data: The researcher identifies the needs for the primary data. The primary data generates
the first time, is problem or project specific and is gathered with the specific purposes. The
genuineness and the pertinence is logically high. The resource implications of and the monetary
involvement are quite high. At occasions a researcher might not possess the resources or the time
or both to proceed with primary data. In such cases the researcher may search for other thrifty and
genuine options data so that the study may be carried further.

Secondary data: The information which is not topic or research specific and is gathered and
documented by some other researcher or research agency is known as secondary data. This
information is maintained and given publicly in a format with an explicitly defined structure, is
accessible soon and managed. Secondly, in many cases, if it not a data product, it is not very
economical to collect. For example, the data to track consumer preferences is readily available for
the researcher to use and draw quick conclusions. If compared to the original research specific data,
secondary data can be thrifty and collected in less time. Also the information collected is contextual.
The primary and original data for one researcher may be secondary and historical for some other
researcher.

Procedure for Primary Data Collection The primary data collection procedure involves a number of
steps: 1. Planning the study 2. Modes of data collection 3. Sample Selection 4. Editing the primary
data
Planning the study

As the extent of quality of conclusion attained from statistical data depends upon the attribute of
collected information, it is of great significance that a standard investigation process is established to
assure that the data is representative and unbiased. This needs a high level of skill and also certain
precautionary measures may have to be adopted.

5.2 Modes of Primary data collection Three commonly utilized methods for gathering of primary
data are:  Observation of subjects  Experimentation  Administration of Questionnaire
Observation

The researcher or the persons hired by him collect the information by observing the work process.
For example, the researcher may go a service station, pose as a customer and observe. What is the
best location in super market in the shelf? This method eliminates the response bias. The
observation can be applied to investigate techniques of selling, movements and responses of
customers etc. But the customer’s/ consumers’ mental state, motives for buying decisions, their
product images are not laid open to view. The information regarding their income and education is
not evident. It is also time-taking for the researcher to wait for specific sections to occur.

Experimentation

Many of the important decisions facing the marketing executive cannot be resolved by secondary
research by observing or by surveying the attitudes of customers or experts. Experimental method
may be used in many circumstances like opting the best method for training and remuneration plan
for salesmen, the appropriate shelf arrangement for displaying a product, determining the
effectiveness of a point-of-purchase display, the most effective media. In a marketing experiment
the experimental units may be consumers, stores, sales territories, etc. Variables, which the
researcher can control, which can be studied are price, packaging, display, sales incentive plan,
flavor, color, shape etc. The results of a marketing experiment will be in the form of sales, attitudes
or behavior.

Questionnaire

Survey method involves direct interview of the potential consumers. The interviewer contacts the
consumers and asks the extent to which they would be ready to buy a product at different prices
Consumers’ survey may either be the complete enumeration, sample survey or end-use of the
product. In the population survey, each and every consumer of the product are enquired to lay bare
their plans of purchasing the product in the future. The surveys of consumes’ plans can also provide
helpful data for demand forecasting Unlike the complete enumeration method, under the sample
survey method, only a few potential consumers from the relevant market selected through an
appropriate sampling method, are interviewed. The survey may be conducted either through direct-
interview or mailed questionnaire to the sample consumers. Even the most carefully designed
surveys that are not able to forecast accurate consumer demand. In certain cases, the information
with the respondents is not sufficient to decide if they would procure a product. Sometimes the
response may reflect a desire either consciously or unconsciously in order to get approval the
surveyor. Due to these restrictions, the results of consumer surveys are not ever relied upon for
forecasts purposes.

Limitations of Primary Data Collection

The primary data collection suffers from a number of limitations.

1. This primary data collection needs great skills in the interviewer as the respondents maynot
be willing to furnish information. Therefore, the interviewer has to assure respondents that
the information will remain confidential.
 2. The lack of knowledge, memory or inability to find out their motives may be the possible
reasons for the inability of the respondents to provide information
3. There are also semantic difficulties due to which respondents are unable to provide exact
information. It is often difficult to articulate a question in such a manner that it
communicates accurately the same sense to all respondents. Similarly two different words of
a single question may often produce different results. However, these limitations can be
managed to a limited extent by cautious phrasing of questions, deploying specially trained
investigators and careful interpretation by a clear recognition of the limitations of the data
and an understanding of what exactly the data represent.

Types of study through Primary Data

Different types of studies may be conducted through the collection of primary data. Some important
types of studies are discussed below:

Structured Study
If a car manufacturer wanted to know how many own a car, what is the make of it, when
they purchased the car, the respondents would be asked a number of questions in a
particular sequence.
Do you have a car? Yes/No (if yes )

What s the make of it? Make__________

When did you purchase it? Date_____________
This constitutes an example of structured and non disguised study.

Non-Structured Study
 The marketing personnel want to understand the reasons people buy or refuse to buy their
products more than anything else. Reasons for their buying a product can be categorized as:
 Reasons for individual’s own purposes or attitudes.
 Reasons for outside influences such as advertising
 Those reasons based on characteristics of product itself
This approach is still far from being satisfactory. Many will not report base or socially
unacceptable motives. To overpower these difficulties, psychoanalysts have developed
several techniques

Projective Technique
In project technique a respondent is asked to explain an ambiguous situation posed to him.
A projection shows the personality and attitudes of the respondents in the situation
described. Several projective techniques are used, but word-association, sentence-
completion and storytelling are widely used techniques. In word-companionship a series of
words is told one at a time to the respondent. After each word, the respondent states the
thing that emerges in his mind. The sentence-completion needs the respondent to complete
a portion of the sentence. In story telling the respondent visualizes a picture or reads a
description and asked to tell a story about it. Depth Interview The interviewer makes an
attempt to get the respondent to talk openly on subject of interest instead of approaching
the respondent with a questionnaire. The interviewer hopes the respondent to be at ease
and then encourages him to tell the ideas he has concerning the subject. If an idea of
interest passes over quickly, the interviewer may examine for detailed information. For
example, he may make a comment, ’that is interesting. What is the reason you feel this
way?’ This inspires confidence in the respondent for more discussion of the idea. Various
probes can be used as needed to get the respondent explain in more detail about an idea. In
an interview of this kind, a formal questionnaire is not used but the interviewer has an
outline in his mind. If the respondent shows no particular interest in the subject, the
interviewer adds questions addressing these topics. The objective of these interviews is to
get deep insight into the reasons for specific decisions.

Major Steps in Conducting a Survey Conducting a survey involves the following steps:
Determining the objectives of research
The objectives of research should be described in specific terms. Surveys in particular can
take different direction. Objective should be developed in written form in a clear and
informational manner, if possible, to prevent that all kind of questions are not asked.
Methods of Data Collection
A number of methods are in use for collection of data such as questionnaire, telephone
enquiry, mail questionnaire, personal interview, panel research, group interview technique
and special survey method. Each of these methods has its own advantages and
disadvantages.

Construction of a Questionnaire
A usual form of questionnaire is designed when data is to be collected by asking questions to
people in possession of the needed data. The questionnaire is a set of questions asked from
respondents and provides the space to record the responses. Each question is Wording of
the each question should be accurate and the questions are arranged in a particular
sequence.

Methods for Secondary Data Collection

There are various sources of secondary data.
Secondary data may be both published and unpublished data:
Publications of the governments at every level
Publications of international organization and their subsidiaries
Trade associations’ technical journals and publications
Newspapers, magazines and books Business and industrial reports and publications
Reports of research scholars, universities, economists in different fields
9.1 Unpublished Data- The sources of unpublished data may consist of unpublished
biographies of celebrities, diaries written by distinguished persons, letters, and
autobiographies also may serve the purposes of research scholars, trade associations, labor
offices and various other organizations.

9.2 Secondary Data –Internal Useful secondary information is also available from
organization’s internal records or published records. At occasions this information may be
sufficient enough to furnish the desired outcome. However, this initial information is helpful
in formulating the overall research strategy. Therefore, this information must be used before
anticipation of further research. For a manufacturing industry the internal records
maintained in a proper manner can assist in a big way even for formulating companies’
strategies.

9.2.1 Company records This would entail all the data about the inception, the owners and
the mission and vision statements, infrastructure and other details including the process,
manufacturing and sales, as well as a historical timeline of the events. Policy documents,
minutes of meetings and legal papers would come under this head. The access to some part
of this data might be available on the public demand. However, there might be certain
documents like corporate plans for the next year which might not be available.

9.2.2 Employee records

All details regarding the employees would be part of employee records. This would include
all the demographic information, as well as all the performance and discipline data available
with reference to the individual. Performance appraisal records, satisfaction/dissatisfaction
data as well as the exit interview data would also be available in the organization’s annals.
Sometimes, the decision maker can review the impact of certain policy change, through
performance data. Also, attrition and absenteeism data could serve as indicators for primary
research. For a service firm, employee records are more significant s people here are a part
of the delivery process.

9.4 Sales Data

This is an extremely valuable source and can be the most important part of the data
collection process for a market research study. This data can be on different forms:

9.5 Financial records and sales report

These reveal total sales made against projected sales data, total sales by units, comparative
sales, performance across quarters, across regions, product categories, as well as
subsequent to different sales promotion activities. Financial records in terms of sales,
expenses, sales revenue, sales overhead costs and profits are some of the most important
output data recorded by an organization that are of critical importance as there are the
dependent variables in most cases in a research for which the decision maker tries to
establish the causation.

9.6 Salespersons’ call records

This is a document to be prepared and updated every day by each individual salesperson.
This can reveal very rich information about the potential customer, classification of the
customer in terms of product requirement, company product purchase, as well as the
popular products, the products that are hard to sell, information sought by the customer,
customer’s usage pattern and the demand analysis. The reports can also provide a vital lead
to a product’s redesign or new product development. The data is also critical for creating job
descriptions and building incentives into the system for monitoring the sales force. The
information needed and the presentation and negotiation required also help in designing
more customized training and development initiatives.

9.3 Secondary Data –External

Statistics and governments reports, publications of advertising and research agencies, trade
and association directories are major external sources of data. Other major sources of
secondary data include different statistical organization, army establishment and national
accounts organizations.

10 Evaluation of Secondary Data

Even though the data collected through other sources is valuable and critical to the research
that one is undertaking, there must be certain quality checks that a researcher sometime
must undertake. Thus, a set of evaluative measures can be employed before one decides to
use it for the present study:
10.1 Methodology Check The first evaluative criterion is the process or design used to collect
the data so that in case there has been an element of skewed respondent selection or bias,
one can detect it here. The verification one needs to attempt is for the sampling
considerations, methodology of data and analytical tools used and subsequent reporting and
interpretation of results. The sampling consideration has to be done in terms of the defining
criteria; the sampling frame; the respondent selection; response rate and the quality of data
recording. Methodology of data has to be carried out in terms of quality of instrument
design and nature of field work. This is critical as one might find that the variables measured
are not required by the current study.

10.2 Accuracy Check

The researcher must determine whether the data is accurate enough for the present study.
If the study has been conducted and the findings compiled by a reputed source, the
reliability of using it as a base for further research is higher. In case information is from an
unreliable source, the research would do well to collect similar data from multiple sources
and then collate the findings. A related problem that might occur is when different studies
/sources report country findings. In such a case, a short pilot study, supported by an expert
opinion survey would help achieve the right perspective. This is knows as cross-check
verification.

Summary
A variety of methods and techniques are available for collecting the specific information
required for a study. The researcher needs to be cognizant of the resources available for the
study and the level of accuracy required. The sources of data could either be primary or
secondary in nature. The primary data is generated the first time, is problem or project
specific and is gathered with the specific purposes. The information which is not topic or
research specific and is gathered and documented by some other researcher or research
agency is known as secondary data. The primary data collection procedure involves a
number of steps including planning the study, determining the modes of data collection,
selection of sample and editing the primary data. The primary data collection suffers from a
number of limitations. Different types of studies may be conducted through the collection of
primary data. Some important types of studies structured study, non-structured study,
projective technique and depth interview. Conducting a survey involves the steps such as
determining the objectives of research, methods of data collection and the construction of a
questionnaire. Secondary data may be both published and unpublished data. Various
sources of secondary data may be divided into internal and external sources. Internal
sources of secondary data include company records, employee records, sales data, financial
records and sales report, salespersons’ call records. Statistics and governments reports,
publications of advertising and research agencies, trade and association directories are
major external sources of data. Other major sources of secondary data include different
statistical organization, army establishment and national accounts organizations. Even
though the data collected through other sources is valuable and critical to the research that
one is undertaking, there must be certain quality checks that a researcher sometime must
undertake. Thus, a set of evaluative measures can be employed before one decides to use it
for the present study. These checks include methodology check and accuracy check.