Data Collection and Organization: Need for Data Handling

Data collection, data organisation, and data analysis are all steps in the process of making data valuable. Individual pieces of data, or data about a certain system, are referred to as data. Data also includes the number of students in your class. Gathering data, documenting it, and then presenting it in a way that others can understand and use it is an important component of working with statistics. Statistics are useful because they allow us to evaluate what has happened in the past in order to anticipate and plan for what is likely to happen in the future. This is referred to as data handling.

Key Terms: Data organisation, Data Collection, Data analysis, Dot plot, frequency, database, Handling

---

Data Handling

[Click Here for Sample Questions]

The surface of the sun has a temperature of 5000?. So, how does this information assist you? This information is essential when we consider 5000? and realise that the sun's surface is quite hot! When the data that the sun's temperature is 5000? leads to the knowledge that the sun is extremely hot, it becomes information. The interpretation and comprehension of data is known as information.

Data Processing

Raw Data is what we deal with on a daily basis; this type of data has no meaning on its own. In our class, we have a set of numbered students. The data here is the marks that we receive. We can all see that our grades don't mean much to anyone except us, right? If we wanted to know how our class did on the test, we couldn't rely on our data alone. We can only use the data once it has been organised and processed.

Read More:

---

Data Handling Cycle

[Click Here for Sample Questions]

The data handling procedure is depicted in the diagram below. 

Data handling cycle

We depict the data-handling process as a cycle because, once we've summarised, depicted, and analysed the results, we may be left with additional topics to investigate. Then we'll have to repeat the process.

Read More:

---

Ways of Collecting Data

[Click Here for Sample Questions]

Data collection, or gathering facts and numbers, is the preliminary stage in every statistical procedure (the data). The type of data we collect is influenced by our research. The diagram depicts four data collection methods.

Methods of Data Collection

Observation and measurement: Observation and measurement require looking at something that happens in real time and then recording and monitoring it. Observing the number of cars going through our school's gate every hour is an example of observation. Estimating the masses of all the kids in our class is an example of measurement.

Interview: An interview is typically performed between two people. One of the participants is the interviewer, and the other is the interviewee or respondent. Interviews are used when we have the chance to speak with respondents in person. We could, for example, interview people leaving a business to see if they were satisfied with how the store's personnel treated them. Data-gathering interviews include job and parent-teacher interviews, although the data is used differently than statistical data.

Questionnaire: A questionnaire is a set of questions that is presented to a group of people to complete. A questionnaire is effective for obtaining data from a large number of individuals since it may be circulated and collected later without the requirement for an interviewer. When you want to ask a wide number of individuals what they think about a given subject, this is the ideal way to collect data. A brief explanation of your study's purpose should be included in the questionnaire. For a nationwide population census, such as the one held in Nigeria in 2012, a unique type of questionnaire is utilised.

Database: A database is a systematic collection of data that has already been organised and provided by someone else. Databases can be preserved on a computer or the internet, or they might be provided via books, newspapers, or magazines.

Read More: Data Set

---

Organization of the Data

[Click Here for Sample Questions]

We all know that data must be presented in a contextual and ordered manner at all times. Let's take a look at an example: we must have observed the old yellow pages. They were these massive books that contained the name and phone number of every citizen of a given city. Thousands of people's names and phone numbers were in that book. So, if we go to a city we've never been to before and want to meet one of our friends who lives there, all we have to do is look through the yellow pages and discover his name and phone number.

Data Organisation

We'll need to have a lot of numbers from a lot of people to make such a book. The receiving of numbers is the simple part. If we send a group of individuals around town asking for people's phone numbers, we'll have a lot of information in no time. For this data to be valuable, it must be organised in such a way that it can be searched fast. The names on the yellow pages are alphabetized, so we can simply find what we're looking for, much like we would in a dictionary. That would make it easier to find people's names.

Also Read:

---

Things to Remember

• Individual pieces of information, or data about a certain system, are referred to as data. 
• Data collection, or gathering facts and numbers, is the preliminary stage in every statistical procedure (the data). 
• Interviews are used when we have the chance to speak with respondents in person.
• A questionnaire is effective for obtaining data from a large number of individuals since it may be circulated and collected later without the requirement for an interviewer.
• A database is a systematic collection of data that has already been organised and provided by someone else. 

Also Read:

---