SLIDE 1. What do we mean by collecting data?

Essentially, collecting data means putting your design for collecting information
into operation. You’ve decided how you’re going to get information – whether
by direct observation, interviews, surveys, experiments and testing, or other
methods – and now you and/or other observers have to implement your
plan. There’s a bit more to collecting data, however. If you are conducting
observations, for example, you’ll have to define what you’re observing and
arrange to make observations at the right times, so you actually observe what
you need to. You’ll have to record the observations in appropriate ways and
organize them so they’re optimally useful.
Recording and organizing data may take different forms, depending on the kind of
information you’re collecting. The way you collect your data should relate to how
you’re planning to analyze and use it. Regardless of what method you decide to
use, recording should be done concurrent with data collection if possible, or soon
afterwards, so that nothing gets lost and memory doesn’t fade.
SLIDE 2. Some of the things you might do with the information you collect
include:
1.Gathering together information from all sources and observations
EXPLANATION
Relying on multiple sources allows you to cross-check information,
ensuring that your claims are accurate and credible. This is crucial in
avoiding misinformation.
By gathering information, organizations and individuals can better
understand the environment in which they operate, identify potential
risks, develop strategies, and make informed decisions. Additionally,
information gathering can help to inform public policy and create public
awareness on important topics.

SLIDE 3. Some of the things you might do with the information you collect
include:
2. Making photocopies of all recording forms, records, audio or video
recordings, and any other collected materials, to guard against loss,
accidental erasure, or other problems where they can be arranged and/or
worked on in various ways

 SLIDE 3. EXPLANATION
Maintaining and providing access to records over time that displays
features for ensuring authentic, reliable, complete and usable records that
function as evidence of business transactions. A systematic approach to
the creation, maintenance, use and disposition of records.

SLIDE 4. Some of the things you might do with the information you collect
include:
3. Performing any mathematical or similar operations needed to get
quantitative information ready for analysis.
 EXPLANATION
These might, for instance, include entering numerical observations into a
chart, table, or spreadsheet, or figuring the mean (average), median
(midpoint), and/or mode (most frequently occurring) of a set of numbers.
It helps you summarize and interpret numerical results from close-ended
questions to understand what is happening. This is an approach that
collects and evaluates measurable and verifiable data in order to evaluate
performance, make better decisions, and predict trends.

SLIDE 5. Some of the things you might do with the information you collect
include:
4. Transcribing (making an exact, word-for-word text version of) the
contents of audio or video recordings.

EXPLANATION
Transcribed audio and visual content (in the form of video captions,
subtitles and full transcriptions) make it available to people who may
struggle to hear. Indeed, in many countries it is a legal requirement to
transcribe all public audio and visual material.
SLIDE 6. Some of the things you might do with the information you collect
include:
5. Coding data and Organizing data in ways that make them easier to work
with.
 SLIDE 6. EXPLANATION
In translating data, particularly qualitative data that isn’t expressed in
numbers, into a form that allows it to be processed by a specific
software program or subjected to statistical analysis).
So how are we going to do this one? Well, it will depend on a
particular research design and for evaluation questions. We might
group observations by the indicator of success they relate to, by
individuals or groups of participants, by time, by activity, etc. You
might also want to group observations in several different ways, so
that you can study interactions among different variables.
SLIDE 7. What do we mean by analyzing data?
Data Analysis is the process of systematically applying statistical and/or logical
techniques to describe and illustrate, condense and recap, and evaluate data. It is
converting it into information useful for decision-making by users. Data is
collected and analyzed to answer questions, test hypotheses, or disprove theories.
EXPLANATION
So after collecting the necessarily data, this is how we do the next process which
is an Analyzing information involves examining it in ways that reveal the
relationships, patterns, trends, etc. that can be found within it. That may mean
subjecting it to statistical operations that can tell you not only what kinds of
relationships seem to exist among variables, but also to what level you can trust
the answers you’re getting.
It may mean comparing your information to that from other groups (a control
or comparison group, statewide figures, etc.), to help draw some conclusions
from the data. The point, in terms of your evaluation, is to get an accurate
assessment in order to better understand your work and its effects on those
you’re concerned with, or in order to better understand the overall situation. So
this is were we can make decisions on a particular problem or an investigations.
SLIDE 8. Two kinds of Data
There are two kinds of data you’re going to work with, although not all
evaluations will necessarily include both. Quantitative data refer to the
information that is collected as, or can be translated into, numbers, which can
then be displayed and analyzed mathematically. Qualitative data are collected as
descriptions, anecdotes, opinions, quotes, interpretations, etc., and are generally
either not able to be reduced to numbers, or are considered more valuable or
informative if left as narratives. As you might expect, quantitative and qualitative
information needs to be analyzed differently.
SLIDE 8. EXPLANATION
Quantitative data
Data can also be collected in forms other than numbers, and turned into
quantitative data for analysis. Researchers can count the number of times an
event is documented in interviews or records, for instance, or assign numbers to
the levels of intensity of an observed event or behavior. For instance,
community initiatives often want to document the amount and intensity of
environmental changes they bring about – the new programs and policies that
result from their efforts. Whether or not this kind of translation is necessary or
useful depends on the nature of what you’re observing and on the kinds of
questions your evaluation is meant to answer.
Qualitative data
Unlike numbers or “hard data,” qualitative information tends to be “soft,”
meaning it can’t always be reduced to something definite. That is in some ways
a weakness, but it’s also a strength. A number may tell you how well a student
did on a test; the look on her face after seeing her grade, however, may tell you
even more about the effect of that result on her. That look can’t be translated to
a number, nor can a teacher’s knowledge of that student’s history, progress, and
experience, all of which go into the teacher’s interpretation of that look. And
that interpretation may be far more valuable in helping that student succeed
than knowing her grade or numerical score on the test.
SLIDE 9. EXPLANATION
Quantitative data is usually subjected to statistical procedures such as calculating
the mean or average number of times an event or behavior occurs (per day,
month, year). These operations, because numbers are “hard” data and not
interpretation, can give definitive, or nearly definitive, answers to different
questions. Various kinds of quantitative analysis can indicate changes in a
dependent variable related to – frequency, duration, timing (when particular
things happen), intensity, level, etc. They can allow you to compare those changes
to one another, to changes in another variable, or to changes in another
population. They might be able to tell you, at a particular degree of reliability,
whether those changes are likely to have been caused by your intervention or
program, or by another factor, known or unknown. And they can identify
relationships among different variables, which may or may not mean that one
causes another.
Qualitative data can sometimes tell you things that quantitative data can’t. It
may reveal why certain methods are working or not working, whether part of
what you’re doing conflicts with participants’ culture, what participants see as
important, etc. It may also show you patterns – in behavior, physical or social
environment, or other factors – that the numbers in your quantitative data don’t,
and occasionally even identify variables that researchers weren’t aware of.
SLIDE 10. What is the most important function of a performance measurement?
Performance measures provide the necessary data and information to make
informed decisions. Performance measures provide a snapshot of current
performance capabilities and track whether actual performance is getting better,
staying the same or getting worse over time.
EXPLANATION
Well, it is essential to support and strengthen other management and decision-
making processes analyzing and interpreting the data you’ve collected brings
you, in a sense, back to the beginning. You can use the information you’ve
gained to adjust and improve your intervention, evaluate it again, and use that
information to adjust and improve it further, for as long as it runs. You have to
keep up the process to ensure that you’re doing the best work you can and
encouraging changes in individuals, systems, and policies that make for a better
and healthier community. You have to become a cultural detective to
understand your initiative, and, in some ways, every evaluation.

LAST SLIDE. In Summary

The heart of evaluation in Collecting and analyzing data for tracking performance
over time is gathering information about the program or intervention you’re
evaluating and analyzing it to determine what it tells you about the effectiveness
of what you’re doing, as well as about how you can maintain and improve that
effectiveness.
Once you’ve gained the knowledge that your information provides, it’s time to
start the process again. Use what you’ve learned to continue to evaluate what
you do by collecting and analyzing data, and continually improve your program.