Business Research - Some Primary Collection Data Tools

Business Research

Some primary collection data tools that can be used to collect data for our research will consist of questionnaires, interviews, documents, and records.

Questionnaires are forms filled in by participants alone. They can be either given to the participant by hand or sent to them by mail. Some of the questions may stem from organization budgets, demographic characteristics, environmental, and enrollment systems used by the company. The questions will be in multiple-choice format. Participants who have a high level of literacy should answer the questionnaires to limit inaccurate results due to misinterpretation. Questionnaires should be very short and precise to keep the participant engaged and focus. Data gathered through questionnaires is not a direct measurement and most likely will be subjected to a few errors.

Open-ended interviews will be conducted, which consists of talking to the respondents and taking notes (Thibodeaux, 2014). The information gathered in the interview must be interpreted and dissected during the actual interview. An open-ended interview focuses upon respondents’ thoughts, feelings, experiences, knowledge, and preferences (Thibodeaux, 2014). The two types of open-ended interviews are semi-restrictive and structured. Semi-restrictive is when the interviewer goes by a broad outline of the topics being addressed. Depending on the respondent’s answers will determine what questions will be asked next (Thibodeaux, 2014). Structure interviews are interviews that used the exact same criteria for each interview. This includes using the exact same question and topics. This approach requires the questions be unbiased to get accurate results.

Documents and records can be a primary source of data. The types of documents that can use can consist of financial records, environmental reports, and newsletters. Using the information contained in these documents and records