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Data Collection
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What is Data Collection?

Data collection is the systematic process of gathering information to answer research questions, test hypotheses, or evaluate outcomes. It appears across a wide range of disciplines, including social science, public health, business, and education, making it a foundational topic in methods-oriented courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. What makes it academically interesting is that the choice of collection method directly shapes the quality and meaning of findings, meaning researchers must justify their approach as carefully as they design their analysis. Students are frequently asked to examine not just what data is gathered but how the process is structured, standardized, and reported.

The papers archived under this topic reflect several distinct approaches. Many focus on methodology itself, comparing qualitative and quantitative methods and weighing the strengths of surveys, coding schemes, and classification systems. Others apply data collection principles to specific contexts, such as public health crisis response, business analysis, or acculturation research among college populations. Some papers address evaluation research and the way research questions determine which collection instruments are appropriate, while others critically examine common problems researchers and institutions encounter when gathering information in real-world settings.

A strong essay on data collection should open with a clearly scoped thesis that connects a specific method to a defined research purpose rather than surveying all possible methods in general terms. Evidence typically carries the most weight when it demonstrates how methodological choices affect the validity and reliability of findings. The most common pitfall is treating data collection as a neutral, mechanical step; examiners expect students to engage critically with the assumptions built into any collection instrument or procedure.

1,352 papers
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Paper Undergraduate
Customer relationship management implementation at GIBCA Group Companies
The modern day society evolves at a rapid pace, and this pace is generally set by the field of information technology and communications, which impacts all aspects of the daily life.
Paper Undergraduate
Police intelligence and modern crime-fighting approaches in law enforcement
Since the professional era of policing, the traditional role of the police officer in the United States has primarily been that of crime fighter. Law enforcement officers detect and arrest offenders to keep the public…
Paper Undergraduate
Mixed methods approach to youth leadership development in rural and inner city communities
While experts agree that leadership training is essential for youth development, and particularly for at-risk youth, there is still some disagreement on the best forms and focuses of such leadership training. One thing is clear, early training will in fact have a decidedly different impact on youth than later training. This paper will explain and defend the chosen research methodology to best explore this subject.
Paper Undergraduate
System replacement decision at Fargus Benevolent Fund
An overview of analytics, business intelligence and the development of effective strategies for getting the most out of IT systems has been defined in this analysis. Also included is extensive coverage of the areas of change management and massive change to IT and organizational structures. There is also coverage of change management theories and practice as well as it relates to information technologies.
Paper Undergraduate
Qualitative and quantitative approaches to frame analysis
Frame analysis attempts to clarify social phenomena in terms of the everyday use of schemes or frames. These are symbolic-interpretive constructs which people use to make their social actuality meaningful. Such frames or constructs comprise beliefs, images or symbols shared by people in their society. The amount of such frames accessible to people to make sense of their surroundings is limited by the particular society in which they live.
Paper Undergraduate
Feminist perspectives on gender bias in consumer research
Bristor, J.M. & Fischer, E. (1993). Feminist thought: Implications for consumer research. The journal of consumer research,19(4), 518-536.
Essay Doctorate
How shielding children from failure affects their self-perception and resilience
The manner in which people view themselves has been shown to be an important predictor of their behavior, achievement, and physical and psychological health. There has been a growing trend in recent years to promote a…
Paper Undergraduate
Organizational change management and managing workplace transitions
Change is one of the aspects of human life that are certainly going to take place at some point in time. Change interferes with people's social life, emotional life, and professional life.
Essay Doctorate
Early identification of reading problems in middle-grade elementary students
Critique of Spence, Deborah L, et al, Identifying Children in Middle Childhood Who are at Risk for Reading Problems: New evidence and to analyze and access an appropriate tool for reading in elementary students using a response to intervention model, School Psychology Review 2010, Volume 39, No.2 , pp258-276 • The term paper assignment for this class requires you to select a scientific article published in a journal selected from a list of approved journals, and then critique the research methods used in that article using what you learned in this course. It is also OK in your critique to mention things about the methodology that were done right. Also, while I don't expect you to become an expert in the subject of your chosen article, I do expect you to look at the scientific literature on that subject—and one way to do that would be to read some of the studies the authors' of your chosen article cite—and incorporate information from that literature in your paper where appropriate. • The list of approved journals from which the article you critique may be selected is as follows: American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, International Journal of Aging & Human Development, Social Problem, Sociological Perspectives, Sociological Quarterly, of Sociology of Education. • If you want to use an article from a different journal than these, you will have to show me the article you select so that I can approve it. In that case please do NOT email me a copy of the article. Instead, print it out and show it to me before or after class or during office hours. The article must be from a scholarly scientific journal (not a magazine, etc.) and it must be a research article (not an opinion piece, etc.). I do not have to see or approve the article in advance if it is in one of the approved journals. • The article you select must be quantitative in nature, in other words it must present numbers and statistics. Also, make sure what you have selected is an actual research article (a good indicator of that is if the article has an abstract at the beginning of it). • To locate the articles published in those journals online, follow these steps. Go to Blackboard for the course, click on the USF Libraries tab, the select "All USF Libraries", then click on "E Journals by Title", then type in the name of one of the approved journals, then select a year for the journal, then select one of the electronic sources for articles in that journal (JSTOR, Ebcohost, etc.). The procedure may vary a little from what I have said here, so use common sense as you point and click through it. If you have any problems, one of the librarians on the first floor of the main USF library can help you, or call Academic Computing Help at 974-1222. • Once you pull up the pdf of the article you want to use, a good idea is to download it to your computer's desktop (or better yet a memory stick or other external storage device in case your computer crashes). Or you could just print it out, since you will have to attach a printed copy of the article to your term paper when you turn it in. • Your paper must be typed, and you must staple a copy of the article you critiqued to the back of it. In other words, your paper will go on top, with the article underneath it and stapled to it. Do NOT turn the paper in in a plastic binder or in any form other than stapled. Make sure both your name and your U number are on your typed paper. • The best tip I can give for doing the paper is just to take the basic points made in class and in the readings, and then see if the article violated any of those things or did them right. For example, in class we said you need to have a probability sample in order to test for statistical significance. So if the article you picked doesn't have a probability sample but they ran significance tests anyway, that would be a critique. As another example, in class we said that a research study should include all possible variables that could affect the outcome variable. So if you can think of explanatory variables the authors didn't include, that would be another critique. On the other hand, if your chosen article did these things right, then you could compliment the authors for that. In other words just make a list of the points about statistics we made in class and/or were mentioned in the book, and then take that list and see if your article did those things right. Remember also to take a look at some of the other studies on that topic and incorporate information from those into your paper where appropriate. • When you critique the methods the authors used, it would be a plus if you could also suggest alternatives that would have been better. For instance if the authors did an experiment and they try to generalize from that to the society in general, you could mention that we learned in class that experiments are typically weak on generalizability and you could suggest that the authors might have been better off using a survey (if the advantages of a survey would in fact outweight those of an experiment for that particular topic). • When you critique or praise methodology, be specific and say why the methods are good or incorrect. For example, don't just say "the authors shouldn't have use tests of statistical significance", instead give the reason (for example "the authors shouldn't have used tests of statistical significance because they have a nonprobability sample and we learned in class that you need to have a probability sample to properly do significance tests."). • For the format of the term paper as well as an example of how to do it, see the term paper example I have posted in the Course Documents section of Blackboard. The article my example paper critiques is also in the Course Documents section. The format you should use for your paper is to state the page, column, and paragraph number for each comment you want to make, and then briefly make the comment just like I did in my example. Notice in the example paper that I critiqued the methods when the authors were wrong, I complimented them when they did something well, and I discussed their study in light of what other studies on that topic show. I don't necessarily expect your paper to be as detailed as mine (after all I've been doing this for years) but at least it will give you an idea of how to do the assignment.
Essay Doctorate
Functional behavior assessment and intervention recommendations for Greg Smith
This is a brief BIP and FBA for a fictional child with behavioral problems. The FBA although brief shows the background of the child, how he responds to stress and what can be done to solve the child's behavioral problems. The BIP is also very brief and deals with ways to reinforce the solution and what to do when behavioral problems present themselves.