| Data
Source |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
Existing Data |
- Low cost
- Relatively rapid
- Unobtrusive
- Can be highly accurate
- Give you a broad idea of the scope of the problem
- Put local data in context
- Data may have already been analyzed
- Data reports may have already been written
|
- Local data may be difficult to access
- National data may not reflect your community or target
population
- May not be organized in ways useful for your purposes
(e.g., the age ranges may not be useful)
- May provide an incomplete picture of what is going on
|
Surveys |
- Can be highly accurate, reliable, and valid
- Allows comparisons with other/larger populations when
items come from existing instruments
- Easily generates quantitative data
- Can be implemented with minimal training
- It is likely that surveys are familiar to both respondents
and people to whom data will be presented
|
- Relatively high cost
- Relatively slow to design, implement, and analyze
- Accuracy highly dependent on sample
- May be low response rates
- Little opoportunity to explore issues in depth
- Results in quantitative information that can be difficult
for people to understand
|
Focus groups |
- Low cost
- Rapid data collection
- Participants define what is important
- Can explore issues in depth
- Provides opportunities to clarify responses through probes
- Can provide compelling narratives that lay people can
understand
|
- Can be time-consuming to assemble group
- Produces limited quantitative data
- Requires carefully trained facilitator(s)
- Less control over process than with individual interviews
- Difficult to collect confidential information
- May be difficult to summarize findings
|
Key Informant Interviews |
- Relatively inexpensive
- Respondents can define what is important
- Rapid data collection
- Can explore issues in depth
- Opportunity to clarify responses through probes
- Source of leads to other data sources and other key informants
- Can be used to circumvent cultural barriers that may
make other forms of data collection difficult
- Provides narrative information that can be compelling
and easy for lay people to understand
|
- Can be time-consuming to set up interviews with busy
informants
- Requires interviewing skills
- Less accurate than other research methods
- Produces limited quantitative data
- Can cause confidentiality problems
|
