The effective data collection methods are crucial in providing the insights for well-researched decisions. Understanding the best type of data and collection method will help in getting the most useful and relevant results. Below are some the data collection methods and its use and the appropriate research approach:

Surveys: Surveys are used for collecting the data from the target audience and gathering insights into their preferences, opinions, choices, and feedback related to research study questions. Using software for survey provides wide range of question types which can be multiple choice, single answer, open ended, etc, providing freedom to create different forms of questions. Survey can be used qualitative, quantitative or mix methods based the type of questions related to the research study (Mazhar et al., 2021).

Interviews: Interviews is an interaction between the researcher and the participants. It can be conducted in person, over the phone, or video conferencing. Interviews can be structured semi-structured, or even unstructured based on the research method. It is too time-consuming and tedious process of repeating the interview with many participants. Data collection through interview is used in qualitative research method to get a descriptive or experiences from the participants (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016).

Focus Groups: Focus group being a small group of people, around 8-10 members, enters into discussion on the areas of the research problem, thus each participant in the focus group provides his or her insights. Focus group helps in gathering information directly from the users, where they share their feelings, opinions or emotions rather than statistics. A moderator or the researcher will be regulating the discussions among the group members in the focus group and at the end of the discussion, the group arrives at a consensus. Focus groups are used in the qualitative research methods (Taherdoost, 2021).

Questionnaire: A questionnaire is a form of set of questions being open-ended or closed-ended allowing the respondents to answer based on their knowledge and experiences with the research problem. The questionnaire is also a part of the survey but end goal might vary. Questionnaires are usually used in market research, social and health sciences. Questionnaire can be used in both quantitative and qualitative research, which is based on the type of questions being used in the questionnaire (Mazhar et al., 2021)..

Observation: Observation method focuses on examining the things and collecting data from them. It might include observing the individuals, animals or group of people in their natural settings and environment. This provides the opportunity for the research to be on the reality of the lived experiences being observed by researcher themselves rather listening to the participants view (Busetto et al., 2020). With observation. the subjects being observed can ensure that results are more accurate. Observations are used in qualitative studies to provide a descriptive study about the participants on their natural settings.

Secondary data collection methods: Secondary data are the data that is being used in the past. The researcher can access the secondary data from the internal and external sources to gain insights. The secondary data includes the organization reports, magazines, literatures, journals, internet, financial statement, mission and vision, etc, which can help the research to get more insights into the data on the research topic.

When is it appropriate to use each of these methods, and under which research approach is the most appropriate? Why? Please provide scholar articles within the last five years to support answer.