WHAT ARE THE SOURCES OF DATA COLLECTION IN RESEARCH:

Like any research, educational research is also based on data. Research cannot be imagined without acquisition of material. For this purpose, the consensus uses different means. The choice of these sources depends on the nature of the research itself. That is, what is the nature of our research and what are its hypotheses. Sometimes the researcher uses a single source to collect many types of information and sometimes he uses several sources to collect the same type of information. Therefore, the research student should know which means or instrument to use to obtain the required material, when to use questionnaire and when to test and when to obtain material with the help of inventory. Sometimes, several sources have to be used simultaneously to obtain research material, for example, in the causes of falling educational standards of children, observational tests and interviews and questionnaires can be used for parents.

Sources of acquisition materials are discussed in detail below:

Questionnaire:

Questionnaire has a special importance in the field of research. In order to obtain the desired content, information and opinions about events, situations, moods and attitudes are obtained through questionnaires. The questionnaire has to be prepared with great skill. If the questionnaire is flawed, the content obtained through it will also be flawed. The questionnaire should contain questions that can be answered clearly and usefully. Unnecessary and pointless questions should be avoided. At the beginning of the questionnaire, the necessary instructions for the respondent should also be written.

While preparing the questionnaire, the objectives and assumptions of the research should be kept in front. Each of your questions should be directly or indirectly useful in confirming or disproving a hypothesis. Questions measuring behavior should be indirect.

You can also go to the concerned persons to do the survey yourself, in this way you will be able to make them aware of the nature and objectives of your research and explain many questions on the spot. In your personal presence, the respondent will write the answers to the questionnaire responsibly and none of your questionnaires will be due to the negligence and negligence of the respondents, but in this way, if the respondents are too many If so, there may be considerable time and space differences between each meeting separately. If your respondents are school students or people who can be in one place as a group, then give them the questionnaires as a group and have them write their answers on the spot. If the respondents live far away or it is not possible to gather them in a group, send them the questionnaires by post and send a return letter with a return address in which you request to them that the Questionnaire should be sent back.

Forms of Questionnaire:

There are two main types of questionnaires in terms of possible answers.

(1) Closed Form.

(2) Open Form.

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( Closed Form:

In the closed form questionnaire, possible answers are given in front of each questionnaire. The respondent's task is simply to express his opinion or information by ticking one or more of them.

A Few samples:

1. In which level you have studied guidance and counseling subject?

2. How old were you when you joined the job?

3. Should there be a guidance and counseling center in school?

In the open-ended questionnaire, the possible answers are not given in front of the question, but the respondent has the freedom to write any answer. This form of questioning is suitable for the more educated and less educated groups.

Closed-ended questionnaires are better for small groups.

A few samples:

What do you think are the causes of educational degradation?

(1)

(2)

(3)

(ii) What are your tips for getting started in academic guidance and counseling?

(1)

(2)

(3)

If the answer is likely to be long, instructions should be written in the questionnaire. A separate paper should also be used for

1.2- Opinion or attitude (Opinionaire):

Opinion poll is actually a type of questionnaire in that the questions are made in such a way that the answers of the respondent can express the attitude or opinion of the respondent about a particular event, person or institution. The opinion paper would have differed from the general questionnaire.

It is said that no incidental information or facts are sought in the survey, but the respondents' thoughts and reactions are ascertained. Material is easily obtained from a large sample through a survey. In addition to Gallup, there are many organizations that use polls to find out public opinion, but such organizations limit their research due to the time period, and their results are appropriate to the extent of public return, but they have research purposes in this situation.

Sample Opinion Letter:

Do you think the present government has served the people?

(a(a) A little bit

(b) A lot

Will the country develop more with the restoration of democracy?

(a)No

(b) Yes

How do you think naughty children should be treated?

(a) Severe punishment should be given

(b) Love should be explained

Observation:

In general, through questionnaires, surveys and interviews, the research tries to obtain material that is either related to the past of the respondent or to situations and feelings that cannot be observed, but if Materials of the type that can be obtained through observation are the most preferred in research because the material obtained through it is pure and direct knowledge if such material is obtained through questionnaires or interviews. For example, if you want to get material about behavior of a student in classroom, you will get this material through the following question. So the student will mix fabrication and lies in it.

Q. Do you do mischief in the classroom?

But if you secretly observe his behavior in the classroom directly, this material will be real pure and true. Observation can be direct or indirect. Observation should be done in such a way that the person being observed does not notice it, otherwise he will start putting artificial coating on his movements and actions. For this purpose, observation can be done through a window opening or through a glass installed in the window of the room in which the observer cannot see the person. Such a glass is called one way vision.

Checklist and Schedule:

In order to facilitate in noting material,checklist and schedule are used. According to the nature of research different equipments are divided into categories. Now, a blank space is left for the team in which the observer writes his observation or adds a ✅ .

Time Sampling for the observation:

In order to observe the activities of a student in certain units of time, you do not observe them for a long period of time. We observe this in the period of study. Behavioural Diaries and Anecdotal Records Sometimes the scope of a student's research is so wide that only a few events or places in his life cannot provide the required material for him. The daily events of life are a series of incidents of his action and behavior. Behavioural diaries and incident records are prepared for this purpose.

Interview:

Sometimes the content cannot be accurately captured through the questionnaire, illiterate or less literate people do not answer in writing and sometimes even some educated people do not write clearly in response to the questionnaires, due to which many questionnaires are incomplete.

To remove these flaws, the help of interview is taken. It has the following special advantages: All types of respondents get the desired content, such as children, uneducated politicians, etc.

A face-to-face meeting also answers many personal questions that the respondent does not want to answer in writing. To go deeper into an issue, a new question needs to be asked based on the respondent's answer, which is only possible in an interview

A respondent's mannerisms, gestures, and facial expressions sometimes convey material that is not possible to capture through questionnaires. A major flaw in interviewing is that the interviewer's own interpretation of the respondent's perceptions and responses is conditioned by the interviewer's own circumstances.

Mood is closely related to religion, sect and beliefs. Therefore, the content of the researcher may be different if the person interviewing an ideological person Similarly, in the case of multiple interviews, interviewer fatigue and bored.

There are different types of interview on different basis:

There are two types of interviews depending on the number of interviewees.

(A) Individual Interview:

In individual interviews, one person is interviewed at a time, so that person can freely and fully express his or her conscience and each question can be answered by the researcher.

(B) Group Interview:

In this, many people are interviewed at the same time, for example, in the case of debate, many people are invited to express their views on the problem at the same time.

A good example of this is the series of some newspapers.

One of the disadvantages of group interviewing is that some of the participants do not get a chance to speak on many questions due to the fixed nature of the interview.

There are also two types of interviews in terms of structure.

(A) Structured Interview:

In such an interview, the questions are prepared and set in advance and each respondent is asked the same questions are done in a manner and order and the list of the choices is also pre-made. The questions and order of such an interview are not predetermined, but questions are asked to the respondent according to the opportunity and solution. The questions are tailored to the context so that the interviewee can better express his or her intentions and the interviewer can use many angles and approaches to achieve his or her goals. A successful interview is a dynamic interpersonal experience that is carefully planned to achieve a specific goal. An interviewer should be skilled in creating a friendly atmosphere, encouraging responses, directing responses towards the target and eliciting the desired responses.

(B) Unstructured Interview:

The interviewer should take notes along with the responses or use a tape recorder to include the respondent's expressions, emotions and other movements as appropriate in his material.

Inventory:

Through the inventory, information is obtained about individuals' interests, personality traits, social behavior, study habits and other such factors. In this, like a test, the student is not asked to do a task to the best of his ability, but he is only made a list of his interests or someone's attributes or selected from a check list. Marks have to be done.

The inventory is sometimes not reliable because people in it provide wrong information to make a good impression on themselves, for example, if you ask the people of the profession in relation to the choice of a profession, every person must mark the spirit of service.

Sample;

What are your reasons for choosing the teaching profession?

(a) The spirit of service

(b) High position of teachers in the society.

Test:

The use of experiments to obtain material in educational research is one of the oldest and most common. The effectiveness of education has been associated with tests since ancient times. In Islamic history, at the end of the year in madrasas, the teacher himself would take an oral test of his student as if it were an oral test. Gradually came the era of written tests, these tests were usually (Achievement Test). Gradually, tendency tests and mental ability tests were also included in them. The test mainly measures the child's abilities.