Your doctoral thesis is your original work that is built on a large amount of data you have collected, whether it be qualitative or quantitative. The current times where technology has made it possible to connect to not just thousands but millions of people sitting at your desk, things couldn’t perhaps be easier and better for doctiral scholars. If you so need to collect data for your thesis online, you may follow some of these tips:
Create survey: there are a lot of survey generators online. Even if they appear very basic, they would get the work done for you. There are many professional alternatives as we. If you are seeking a modern interface, customisation of the colour palette, transalation for respondents from varied backgrounds or access for the respondents of the survey on their phones, the internet can help you in ways simpler than you can imagine.
Creating a focus group: If your search is for a more qualitative set of data, you would then need a focus group which means a lot of people at the same place at the same time. It becomes complex to check and know the availability of each one through mails and ohone calls.. The internet offers the option of doodle whichis a simple tool to let ou schedule a time as per everyones availability and convenience. One good trick here is to offer incentives to those respond. Small token of incentives such a discount coupons for a retailer or food joint can ensure a very high quality of incentives.
Reaching the audience: Getting your survey in front of your audience can be a very big challenge but the internet can help you to identify your respondents with the most narrowed of demongraphics. Social networking sites such as Facebook can be very helpful in getting responses from people who suit your demographic or any other specifications that you have given.
Getting help from influencers: Influencers are people on internet such as twitter users or bloggers who are read/followed by a large number of people. Requesting them to help you by sharing your surbey on their twitter handle or blog can be very useful in generating the desired responses in a short span of time. You could use social aggregators and key phrases on twitter to know who are the popular influencers whom you could approach.