According to Howard and Sharp (1983:177) a thesis must display:

• "evidence of an original investigation OR the testing of ideas"
• "competence in independent work OR experimentation."

The "ORs" are to allow for the different approach in different disciplines (my emphasis).

Certainly I would agree with a viewpoint that all scientific research contains inter alia, the elements of controlled collection of data, their scientific analysis and conclusions based on the results only.

It's a possible. But there are other cases to be conseidered.

With my best regards!

Adel

According to Howard and Sharp (1983:177) a thesis must display:

• "evidence of an original investigation OR the testing of ideas"
• "competence in independent work OR experimentation."

The "ORs" are to allow for the different approach in different disciplines (my emphasis).

Certainly I would agree with a viewpoint that all scientific research contains inter alia, the elements of controlled collection of data, their scientific analysis and conclusions based on the results only.

Science is based on a "'testable hypothesis". The hypothesis is tested by collecting data. When enough data is collected (sample size), statistical analyses can be carried out (data analysis). That interpretations of the data can be made, and potential conclusions drawn. Ideally, the methods will be based on randomized controlled trials, if possible.

Dennis

Dennis Mazur

Dear Dr. Kennedy,

Many researches are performed just as a case basis.

Researches on ancient history, carbon dating of fossils, effect of some medicine on an individual person and many others are there.

A section is kept in many journals for such reports (case report/ short communication/ drug watch etc.).

Thanks.

At least in my case.

I agree with Nada

I base my work on evidence, other's analysis, and put it through my own rigorous analysis. But in the end, combining as it does historical information, philosophical understanding, comparison with other intepretations, and with a side-long glance at my own cultiural imperatives,I cannot completely prove what I assert.

In your research proposal, you will also discuss how you will conduct an analysis of your data. By the time you get to the analysis of your data, most of the really difficult work has been done. It's much more difficult to define the research problem, develop and implement a sampling plan, develop a design structure, and determine your measures. If you have done this work well, the analysis of the data is usually a fairly straightforward affair.

Before you look at the various ways of analyzing and discussing data, you need to review the differences between qualitative research/quantitative research and qualitative data/quantitative data.

Why do I have to analyze data?

The purpose of analyzing data is to obtain usable and useful information. The analysis, regardless of whether the data is qualitative or quantitative, may:

describe and summarize the data.

identify relationships between variables.

compare variables.

identify the difference between variables.

forecast outcomes.

Earlier, you distinguished between qualitative and quantitative research. It is highly unlikely that your research will be purely one or the other – it will probably be a mixture of the two approaches.

For example, you may have decided to ethnographic research, which is qualitative. In your first step, you may have taken a small sample (normally associated with qualitative research) but then conducted a structured interview or used a questionnaire (normally associated with quantitative research) to determine people’s attitudes to a particular phenomenon (qualitative research). It is therefore likely that your mixed approach will take a qualitative approach some of the time, and a quantitative approach at others depending on the needs of your investigation.

A source of confusion for many people is the belief that qualitative research generates just qualitative data (text, words, opinions, etc) and that quantitative research generates just quantitative data (numbers). Sometimes this is the case, but both types of data can be generated by each approach. For instance, a questionnaire (quantitative research) will often gather factual information like age, salary, length of service (quantitative data) – but may also collect opinions and attitudes (qualitative data).

When it comes to data analysis, some believe that statistical techniques are only applicable for quantitative data. This is not so. There are many statistical techniques that can be applied to qualitative data, such as ratings scales, that has been generated by a quantitative research approach. Even if a qualitative study uses no quantitative data, there are many ways of analyzing qualitative data. For example, having conducted an interview, transcription and organization of data are the first stages of analysis. This would then be continued by systematically analyzing the transcripts, grouping together comments on similar themes and attempting to interpret them, and draw conclusions.

I think so, this is the general situation (especially in applied scientific subjects), but each case has its own.

A useful way to defuse the situation is to regard documents as one form of data.

Dear Dr. Kulvir Singh,

Please explain your views, as I can't follow it.

@ Adriana Santos-Caballero: Please be a proper ResearchGater and admit to citing Trochim. Thanks. You can easily edit your comment above.

The traditional way is to make a decision based on data, analysis, and conclusion. But in some cases there is no data to make analysis and conclusion. Decision making may in some cases be based on assessments by experts who, based on their experience to assess criteria and alternatives, and proposing a solution. These methods of making a decision use mathematical way to verify the results.

Sorry for my oversight!

The source is:

One thought on “Data Collection Methods”

Julia Cole

I agree with dr Adriana

For me this is the strategy.

Research is the collection, analyzing and interpreting of data to bring out the truth hidden a particular phenomenon. So the answer is Yes.

There are different types of research. They include

Basic Research

Systematic study directed toward fuller scientific knowledge of the subject studied, without specific application in mind.

Applied Research

Systematic study directed toward gaining fuller technical knowledge to meet a recognized need.

Development

Growth and advancement of prototypes and processes directed toward the production of useful materials, devices, systems, or methods.

Demonstration

Activities designed to test whether a technology or method does, in fact, work.

Thus, it depend.

Scientific research seeks for answers to identified problems that in many cases are only found through the collection and analysis of relevant data while drawing valid conclusions.

Hello Shibabrata Pattanayak,

As we all know, data collection and their analysis present an important part of any research; however, a typical research comprises several stages and several steps in each stage. The conclusions are the final stage/step of any research. It presents a summary of the salient contributions, and outcomes of the research. Therefore, my answer to the question is no. Perhaps the confusion comes from the abstracted view of the research. The following mind map and its explanation are wonderful, but they target limited stages/steps of a typical research.

https://www.mindmeister.com/39583892/research-tools-by-nader-ale-ebrahim

Lots told !!! I guess theory /hypothesis is proved by design of experiments that gives data for analysis as a proof of principle .

I have little bit reservations with the word "all" the researches. We definitely can say that most of the researches. If we use the world "all", what about the "conceptual papers which propose just ideas and does not contain any data collection"?

Not in all cases. Sometimes you might need to develop algorithms and probably frameworks and all these may not necessarily require data analysis

Not at all, there are numerous epistemological paradigms (Guba 1990)where conclusions are not possible. I think also of numerous methodologies where conclusions are not a necessary aspect of research. Arts-based practice as research for example may well offer a provocation rather than a conclusion.

My research is based on collection and analysis of data

However I donot feel that if their is a case history of survey details or results of a campaign over the years,they may be published provided they have a real thing to be shared with .

I agree with Brena and all others who stated that research does not necessarily only comprise collection, analysis, interpretation and recommendations. This is because certain disciplines have there peculiarities which require that they investigate on some issues without performing experiments while some other disciplines depend heavily on experiments. Researchers in history and chemistry for example, need not be guided by the same protocols.

This appears to revolve around the term ‘scientific’ and its application to the process of knowledge generation. Scientific means different things in different contexts, and should also be used to indicate rigour and trust in the research. The terms data, analysis and concluding suggest a particular paradigm, but some research is of course more inductive and, as has been suggested, indicates a different approach to knowledge generation to that linked with the term scientific. Research should maintain rigour and trust in the process.

Dear Dr. Kulvir Singh,

I want to request you to read two articles from my RG account in detail.

1. A comparative study of extract of succulent leaves of living plant with methanolic and aqueous extract of Berleria lupulina Lindl. against pathogenic microbes by disc diffusion and spectrophotometry.

2. A study on comparative anti microbial and wound healing efficacy of solvent extracts and succulent leaf extract of Mikania scandens (L) Willd.

These are full articles published in open access journals.

Thanks.

There are some studies that can be done through action research.

Each of the research should go through scientific process involving data collection, analysis and then conclusion after discussions

Collection of data and its analysis can be a methodological reductionism. There are other resources from the reason and the good faith that can be considered too.

I'm not sure about 'good faith', but I certainly I agree reasoning plays a part. For example the choice of analytic framework is an act of judgement and reasoning linked with the research questions and context. I would have thought this more or less acceptable, depending on the domain and the extent to which research communities adopt a consensus view of knowledge.

I should have asked, Mariano, it would be interesting to know - what examples you might give of resources that come from ‘good faith’?

This question is a bit difficult to answer with certainly, because the question itself asks if "all the researches are based on collection and analysis of data and then coming to a conclusion", but then the accompanying description says "all the researches should be based on scientifically collection of data, their scientific analysis and conclusion", thus adding the term "scientific" to the overall set of ideas to be considered. In this respect I think Adrian Twissell has identified an important point of possible confusion for our colleagues, because not all research is scientific in nature. Perhaps this is what the question is actually trying to tease out? That is, whether or not all research should be scientific in nature? Could this please be clarified? Thanking you!

I agree with Panfeng Zhang on the value of action research as opposed to collecting data for analysis and conclusion. Mariano Ruiz Espejo also mentioned something nobody had mentioned before: good faith. If research is based only on collecting and analyzing data to come to a conclusion it can be done by a computer rather than a human, who is trying in good faith to find out what makes something work over something else. Is it possible there might be a vital and pressing need to find a solution? Action research is getting your hands dirty as many times as necessary to dig up every bit of information before coming to a conclusion even if that conclusion is but a hypothesis.