Regardless of the subject grade and research topic you have chosen, the basic requirement and process for all remains the same, that is, “research.” The research itself means searching a searched content and this implies some proven fact along with some practical figures that reflect the authenticity and reliability of the study. These facts and figures that are required to prove the fundamentals of the study are known as “data.”
These data are collected according to the demand of the research topic and its study conducted. Also, your collection techniques vary along with the topic in detail, for example if your topic is like “Changing the era of HR policies”, the data demanded would be subjective and therefore your technique is dependent on the themselves. Whereas if the topic is like “Causes of performance appraisal”, then the requested data would be objective and in terms of figures showing different parameters, reasons and factors affecting the performance appraisal of different numbers of employees. So, let’s take a broader look at the different data collection techniques that provide a reliable foundation for your research:
• Primary technique – Here, the data collected by the first-hand source directly is known as primary data. Self-analysis is a subclassification of primary data collection: as understood; here you get auto-response for a series of questions or a study. For example, in-depth personal interviews and questionnaires are self-analyzing data collection techniques, but their limitation lies in the fact that self-responses can sometimes be biased or even confusing. On the other hand, the advantage lies in most of the up-to-date data, as it is collected directly from the source.
• Secondary technique – In this technique, data is collected from previously collected resources and is called secondary data. Data is collected from articles, newsletters, annual reports, journals, published articles, government and non-government documents, and case studies. The limitation of these is that they may not be updated or may be manipulated since they are not collected by the researcher himself.
Secondary data is easy to collect as it is pre-collected and preferred when time is short, while primary data is difficult to accumulate. Therefore, if the researcher wants to update reliable and factual data, he should prefer the primary source of collection. But, these data collection techniques vary according to the problem generated in the thesis. Therefore, review the demands of your thesis first before engaging in data collection.