To obtain comprehensive information on how nursing students describe the quality of their practice upon deployment; interviews and questionnaires were used. In questionnaires, I used both close-ended and open-ended questionnaires. The closed questions offered information for easy analysis, while the open items offered detailed information on individual questions. Using questionnaires help in assessing a large number of nursing students quickly. Through this, one efficiently generates data which can be easily analyzed. Another strength of the questionnaires is that the questions can be mailed to the students. A researcher can thus mail the questions, and the respondent has time to offer answers.
Questionnaires have several weaknesses. One, incase individuals are mailed the questionnaires they can opt to answer them or not. Individuals are likely to ignore. Other individuals might find it hard, to tell the truth, especially when it comes to sensitive matters. Some individuals might not clearly understand the question; thus they answer how they understand. With this information, the research might be flawed.
Use of interviews is another data research method. In this case, the interviews were face to face. One of the greatest strength of the interview is that it offers detailed data; thus complex issues are not oversimplified but elaborated effectively. One of the things I noted is that for casual and unstructured interviews, openness is highly encouraged. Some of the weaknesses are that interviews are expensive and time-consuming. Interviews require the researcher to take time with each of the interviewees, and at times the interviewee might fail to open up effectively.
I can ensure my choice of data collection aligns with the research questions but first determining the type of data I wish to collect by analyzing the questions.