Data Collection Methodology and Analysis - Literature Review Example

These are the different methodologies the researchers are going to gather the required data for the study. As seen from the research design the study is to be conducted as a quantitative approach hence the data collection methods should be in line with the approach. The data that is collected needs to be in a position to be analyzed and provide sufficient information to help us understand the research questions. For the data collection, the two methods that will be used will be sampling and interview. Different samples of the participants from the hospital will be picked for the study, and then interviews will be conducted by the researchers so as to get more information from the participants. For the interviews, the researchers will come up with a panel which will be responsible for formulation the questions to be asked during the interview by the interviewer. There are different types of interviews, and for the appropriate research, the researchers will develop structured interviews so as to be able to collect consistent data from the different participants (Creswell, 2013). The data collection method will help the researcher to physically observe the participant while conducting the interview and be able to examine the interviewee attitude, an emotional state among other different noticeable things on the participant. The main reason for the use of this data collection method is due to the detailed data collected from the practice. The information collected via this approach is considered more in-depth as compared to a number of the other data collection methodologies. The questions will be set in different forms so as to ensure sufficient data is retrieved during the data collection process. The samples will be the participants in the interviews as well, but their consent to participate in the interviews will be required.

The data collection point will be at the hospital where the researchers will be expected to go to see the participants in the interview. This will make it much convenient for the patients. By meeting the patient at their comfort zone makes them participate more vibrantly to the different questions the researchers may be willing to ask them in order to inquire different data that they may want to get from the patients (Creswell, 2013). Due to the nature of the research observing the patients behavious among other different data collection approaches, the research will take a while before it is concluded. The more time it consumes the more accurate the data collected will be since the researchers will be able to interact with many more of the participants hence the data collected will be detailed as compared to conducting the data collecting period over a short duration of time and end up with little data hence leading to insufficient data for the research (Creswell, 2013). To ensure that the information provided by the participants the researchers will be certain that both the participants are involved in a particular set of interviews so as to ensure that the data provided by the individuals is more accurate.

Choosing the right data collection method is key in any research since this is the success of the study hence this is such an important role in the entire study. The participants should be Enlighted on the research and its purpose so as to get their full support and also crat a bond with the researchers they interact with. For quantitative approach, this data is responsible for the decisions made in the next step which is analysis, hence the need to ensure that the data collected is relevant as per the research.

Data analysis

This is the next step in the research after data has been collected and it involves the analysis the collected data deleting of the redundant data as well as the less relevant data and remaining with the significant data as per the study. The researchers should have by now set aside a team of qualified researchers who will participate in the analysis of the data. Quantitative data analysis is useful in evaluating of data since it provides quantifiable and easy to understand results at the end of the analysis (Field, 2015). The data in quantifiable approach can be analyzed in different ways. Before the researchers begin their analysis, it is important for them to identify the level of measure associated with the quantitative data. This influences the type of analysis they researchers will use, and there are four levels of measurements; normal, ordinal, interval and ratio. The normal data measurement the data has no logical, a good example is male or female where there is no basic order associated to with the male or female. And for each category it is assigned an attribute value (Male = 0, female = 1)

The other measurement is the ordinal data, and in this the data has a logical order, but the differences between the values are not constant for example t-shirt size (small, medium, large, extra-large)Interval data, on the other hand, the data is continuously and has a logical order, data has a standardized difference between values but no natural zero and a good example is Fahrenheit, and the final data is ration data where the data is continuous, well ordered, with a standardized difference between the values as well as a natural zero (Field, 2015). After the researchers have picked the level of measurement for the research they can begin now using some of the quantitative data analysis procedures which will be covered below (Treiman, 2014).

For the analysis, the best procedure for the researchers to apply will be data tabulation where first they will do is to tabulate the data collected for the different variables in the dataset. In this process, the researchers will get the comprehensive picture of what the data looks like, and this will assist the researchers in identifying any patterns within the data. And the best way to do this is by the construction of percentiles and frequency distributions (Treiman, 2014). The frequency distribution is an organized tabulation of the individuals or scores allocated in each category for the collected data. It helps the researcher to determine if the scores are high or low if the scores are correctly entered, how many scores are in each category and how are the scores spread out. On the other hand, the percent distribution displays the proportion of participants in the research who are represented by each category (Treiman, 2014). There are the other different procedures to carry out the analysis such as the descriptive data, data disaggregation as well as the moderate and advanced analytical methods. The analysis process is also an important part of the entire research since it is responsible for the different decisions the researchers will come up with from the study in relation to the research questions.

References

Creswell, J. W. (2013). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Sage publications.

Field, T. (2015). The benefits and limitations of quantitative data collection to the literature review data collection.

Treiman, D. J. (2014). Quantitative data analysis: Doing social research to test ideas. John Wiley & Sons.