Irfan Ahmed, PhD

“You don’t have to eat the whole ox to know that the meat is tough.” Samuel Johnson Data collecting instruments The choice of data collection instrument is crucial to the success of the survey. When determining an appropriate data collection method, many factors need to be taken into account, including complexity or sensitivity of the topic, response rate required, time or money available for the survey and the population that is to be targeted. Some of the most common data collection methods are described in the following sections. 1.          Interviewer enumerated surveys Interviewer enumerated surveys involve a trained interviewer going to the potential respondent, asking the questions and recording the responses. The advantages of using this methodology are: _ provides better data quality _ special questioning techniques can be used _ greater rapport established with the respondent _ allows more complex issues to be included _ produces ...