Data Collection Problems and Resolutions

Participant Withdrawal. Occasionally you may have participants indicate that they want to stop and do not want to continue in your study. This is most common with special populations, such as the elderly and ill.

What to do? First, I suggest asking if a break might help (and if you can recognize the need for one early, all the better). Second, as frustrating as it may be, you should just thank them for coming and let them go.

Incomplete data. Thus far I have been addressing in-person research concerns, but one that is very common with online data collection is participants skipping questions. Some standardized surveys are invalid if questions are skipped.

What to do? In person, you can do a quick check to see if any data is missing. Online is trickier. Most survey programs (like survey monkey) allow the option for requiring answers to the questions. There are some positives and negatives to consider with this. The positive is that your data will be complete, with no missing responses. The negative is some people will quit the survey if they can’t skip responses.

Inappropriate disclosure. In interviews, you may have someone tell you things that are inappropriate, such scenarios include child or abuse, and disclosing medical or education information.

What to do? As soon as you realize where they are going, stop them. Say that this is information you should not be told and move on with the study. The exception, is if you are a mandated reporter (check the laws in your state, some states say that everyone is a mandated reporter for child or elder abuse), in this case you are ethically required to report the incident to the appropriate authorities. I suggest first consulting with your committee and the IRB. Your status as a mandated reporter must be disclosed in the consent form. Such disclosures are unusual, but you need to be prepared in case they do happen.

Whenever you run into something unexpected, know that you can contact your methodologist and/ or the IRB for help. Next time, we will finish the quarter with a reflection of how far you have come. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu