Consider your current or past human services job or fieldwork placement site. What kinds of data have been available to you? How reliable and valid is the data? What are some specific resea

Introduction

Data is one of the most important tools for human services professionals. It helps us understand where we’re at and where we need to go. And if you’ve ever wondered about data collection practices in your fieldwork or job placement site, this guide will help you get started on exploring those questions!

What kinds of data have been available to you?

When you have a human services job or fieldwork placement site, what kinds of data have been available to you? If you are working with a database, are there any specific types of information that are missing from the database and could help your research questions? (e.g., demographic data)

If the agency does not have an existing database, how would you collect this kind of information? (Ask them what their current methods for collecting such information are.)

How reliable and valid is the data?

Reliability and validity are two different things.

Reliability is the extent to which a study or measurement procedure produces consistent results. How reliable is the data? Are there any serious problems with reliability, such as if you can’t trust what they say because they don’t appear in their own study reports? Or if they only mention one part of your work experience but not another part that could be equally important for understanding your career path and goals (e.g., did you say that you were working at a shelter? Did anyone check how long ago that was?)

What are some specific research questions you could explore with that data? (identify at least 3)

To do this, you will need to think about the data collection methods and analysis methods that are used. What kinds of questions do they ask? How often do they collect the information? How large is the sample size? These are important questions because they will help you understand what kind of information is available, how reliable and valid it is, and whether there are any changes that could be made in order to improve your own research opportunities.

Can you suggest some changes in the way the agency collects data that would enhance their research opportunities?

It’s important to ask yourself if the agency collects enough data. Are they collecting all of the relevant information? How reliable is it? What are some specific research questions you could explore with that data? Can you suggest some changes in the way the agency collects data that would enhance their research opportunities?

Some things about Data

Data is a collection of facts, numbers, or information. It can be collected in many different ways by humans and machines. For example:

Data can be collected by a person directly from the people they talk to (such as through interviews) or through observation of behavior (such as watching how people interact with each other).

Data can also be generated automatically through computer programs that analyze large amounts of data from various sources (like weather reports).

Conclusion

We’ve only touched on some of the ways that data can be used for research purposes, but it’s clear that there are many more possibilities. Data can be collected from a variety of sources including surveys, interviews, focus groups and other qualitative methods as well as quantitative data such as surveys or administrative records. The key to successful analysis is making sure that your context is understood before analyzing any information (this means doing some ethnographic work), but this also allows researchers to understand how they might use different types of data in their analysis.