Data Collection Methods

Term Paper # 100833

Research Designs

An analysis of different methods of data collection and their appropriateness for specific research questions.

3,607 words () | 11 sources | APA | 2007 India

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses different approaches to collecting data for research purposes. It also attempts to evaluate whether these approaches are suitable to answer the stated research question, "do murderers choose the method of killing a victim according to their personality traits?." The paper establishes the differences between qualitative and quantitative research and then introduces the most common forms of data collection methods (interviews, focus groups, case studies, observations, documentary sources, questionnaires and experiments). The paper contains a bibliography, as well as a list of sources used.

Table of Contents:
Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research
Interviews
Focus Groups
Case Studies
Observations
Documentary sources
Questionnaires
Experiments
Conclusions

From the Paper:

"Regarding the present research question, questionnaires are a suitable approach to determine murderers' personality traits. Already existing personality questionnaires, such as the Big Five Marker (Goldberg, 1992), the NEO-PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and the Big Five Inventory (John, Donahue & Kentle, 1991) could be used to determine the prisoners' personality traits, which show high reliability and validity rates. Generally, questionnaires seem to be appropriate because it allows for a large sample size. Furthermore, getting permission to post questionnaires to prisoners might be easier than getting the permission to administer questionnaires by hand or conduct interviews and focus groups in a prison setting. And not to forget the fact that sending out questionnaires is less time consuming and more cost effective than the other above mentioned data collection procedures."

Sample of Sources Used:

Coolican, H. (2004) Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology, 3rd edition. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Costa, P.T., Jr. and McCrae, R.R. (1992) Revised NEO Personality Inventory Professional Manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Creswell, J.W. (2003) Research Design - Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, 2nd edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Drew, C.J., Hardman, M.L. and Hart, A.W. (1996) Designing and Conducting Research - Inquiry in Education and Social Science, 2nd edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Finnegan, R. (2006) Using Documents. In In R. Sapsford and V. Jupp (eds) Data Collection and Analysis (pp.138-152), 2nd edition. London: Sage Publications.