Recursos Tecnicos

Contents

• Introduction

• Data Collection as an end in itself

o Establishing the parameters of a system

o Establishing benchmark data

o Data Collection as part of broader strategy

 Propaganda

 Belief justification

 Market research

 Decision support

 'Objective' research

• The conduct of research

Introduction

How often have you heard someone say 'the fact is…' or 'the facts speak for themselves'? We have an almost religious belief in the importance of facts as immutable, independent, objective pieces of information that tell us something 'real' about the world around us.

Our fascination with 'facts' is persistent and universal. They seem to offer continual reassurance: whatever the foibles of human opinion, some things at least are beyond argument. We all know that up is up, left is left, and the sun rises in the east.

The people who are most consumed by the search for facts - at least in the popular view - are scientists. To most people, science is about the search for 'truth' - which is largely equated with the accumulation of data. This magical material can be organised into useful pieces (facts) from which laws can be constructed. As the aim of science (so the argument goes) is to find the 'laws of nature', everything the scientist measures is data, and every piece of data is potentially important. In its extreme form, this approach sees science as the process of collecting (and sifting, organising and summarising) masses of data. In this scenario data have particular and special significance.

The problem with this view is that it is almost totally wrong. It is true that some scientists collect data (usually resulting from experiments) but many never handle data in the conventional sense. Few, if any, scientists see the accumulation of data as worthwhile in its own right. Most scientists know that data are only useful in the right context; data out of context are at best unhelpful, at worst misleading. Good scientists in particular have an instinct for knowing which data are useful and relevant, and which are not.

Nor does science progress (if indeed science can be said to progress) by the mere accumulation of facts. The popular image of the scientist has not caught up with modern thinking about how science is conducted. Society's conception of scientific method is quite different from that accepted as appropriate (and preferable) by those who study the process of science. In their analysis there is a right way to do science and a wrong way - and the science of popular conception is the wrong way. When you understand the distinction between these approaches, you will see more clearly what role data play in these methods.

Of course, scientists in the traditional fields (physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and so on) are not the only people who collect data. The modern world - complex, industrialised, bureaucratic - thrives on data of all kinds. We are numbered, analysed and surveyed throughout our lives, and the results are stored and analysed. We have in some senses become a part of the statistics that largely define modern society.

But who actually collects data? All governments do, for reasons both laudable and questionable. Without up-to-date and comprehensive data about the characteristics of the population no government can plan and build the facilities and resources we have come to expect. Commercial organisations collect data to improve their economic prospects by offering the goods or services that potential customers seem to want. Researchers collect data to further their understanding of the workings of our social and economic systems. Physical scientists collect data to further their understanding of how the world functions.

The process of collecting data takes two forms: gathering data that already been collected by someone else (probably for a different purpose), and creating 'new' data. The latter is a matter of some philosophic importance, and we will also return to it shortly.

Data Collection as an end in itself

What motivates people to go through the often complex and costly process of collecting data? Apart from simply collecting information to satisfy a fascination with so-called trivia, two main reasons for collecting data without an immediate and specific purpose are:

• to establish the parameters of a system

• to establish benchmark data

Establishing the parameters of a system

When we investigate natural and social systems we often start with no clear idea of how the system functions. In particular, we may have no strong impression of how the properties of the components of the system may vary. If we are studying river flows, for example, we may have no idea of the likely range of values to be expected in a particular system. We can get some idea from studies of rivers in similar environments, but this may not really be transferable due to some peculiarity in this location. In this case we need to carry out preliminary studies whose results will define the parameters of the system. These parameters will be concerned with the probable extremes of the data we expect to find in the 'real' study, and the likely variability of the data. This knowledge may have a direct impact on the way in which we collect data during the major part of the study.

Establishing benchmark data

If we pursue the example of river flow studies, we can also illustrate the way in which data are sometimes collected to establish benchmarks. Regular monitoring of river levels, even if this is not part of a specific study, will help to build a picture of the general behaviour of the system. This will provide valuable comparisons and context when we study the system in more detail. Establishing benchmark data on flow patterns will indicate how 'typical' the data collected are for a particular time period; they will also reveal long-term changes in the system.

Data Collection as part of broader strategy

Most data are collected for a specific purpose, as part of a broader strategy. We may be surveying how people would react to a political proposition, or the likely sales for a new product. We may be investigating the effect of airborne pollution on vegetation systems, or measuring the mass of a newly-discovered atomic particle. The following are some of the main reasons why people collect data:

Propaganda

Some data are collected for what we might call propaganda purposes: to convince other people of the rightness of your view, or a group to which you belong. Most propaganda that involves real data is based on processing and presenting raw data in a way that suits

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