Data Collection Paper

Literacy and unemployment are issues that affect countries throughout the world. Whether one issue influences another is the topic in need of research. One critical step in the research of literacy and unemployment is data collection. Reviewing and analyzing four articles with direct application to the research topic begins the data collection process with secondary sources. Another form of data is primary sources collected through sampling design and surveys. The research is not complete without displaying the data in tabular and graphical formats and identifying any ethical concerns in data collection. Performing the data collection steps correctly will move the research project forward to an accurate conclusion.

In Human Capital Attainment and Female Labor Force Participation--The Kerala Puzzle by Mitra and Singh (2006), the authors focus on literacy and unemployment of women in India. The report began by focusing on the importance of improving the education and literacy of India's women, but the purpose of the report was to explain a phenomenon in unemployment in Kerala. The state of Kerala has not only the highest literacy rate among women but also the highest unemployment rate. In order to demonstrate the importance of increasing education and literacy, Mitra and Singh sought to explain why Kerala had such a high rate of unemployment for educated people. The report suggests that social and cultural norms along with limited educational opportunities, rather than a lack of literacy, prevent women from obtaining meaningful employment. The primary research used for this report was the Census of India and the National Sample Survey Organization.

In Literacy Today, Marshall (2008) examines the claims of England's Reading Recovery to decrease crime and unemployment by increasing literacy. Reading Recovery claims that people with low literacy have lower paying jobs, are unemployed, or are depending on government assistance. These claims are not disputed, but Marshall high lights claims from Reading Reform Foundation that Reading Recovery is manipulating their improvement results. Reading Recovery is attempting to justify their high cost by showing excellent reading improvements and employment results. Reading Reform Foundation says the results are not valid because they do not include dismissed or failed students, and no controls exist for how they collect data.

In Literacy and Unemployment, The NWT Literacy Council (2008) discuss how unemployed people have a lower average literacy score than employed people. The article cites

the International Adult Literacy and Skills Survey as proof of the correlation between literacy and unemployment in Canada. The survey had five literacy skill levels ranging from level one in which people have difficulty with material, to level five in which people can understand complex material. The article went on to list the reasons why low literacy and unemployment are related and the effects on poverty. To conclude, the article listed several suggestions for improving literacy and decreasing unemployment.

Article Application

The research topic is the relationship of literacy and unemployment across the world. Each peer-reviewed article applies to the affects of literacy on unemployment, and each article comes from a different country. The articles provide surveys, research, and statistics for comparison as well as insight into each country's view of literacy. All four articles contain valuable information on literacy and unemployment in multiple countries and therefore directly apply to the research topic.

Variables and Hypotheses

1. Does literacy have an effect or impact on life? interval

A. People with college degrees or higher will live longer lives than those with high school diploma or less education.

N. People with college degrees or higher will not live longer lives that those with high school diploma or less education.

Independent variables- education

Dependent variables- life expectancy

2. People with higher education experience/endure healthier lives? nominal

A. People with a higher education lives greater than 25% healthier lives.

N. People with a higher education lives less than 25% healthier lives.

Independent variables- higher education

Dependent variables- healthier lives

3. Does higher education means less unemployment? ordinal

A. People with higher education will receive unemployment.

N. People with higher education will not receive unemployment.

Independent- education

Dependent- unemployment

Sampling Design

When surveying a population for data collection and analysis, the importance of effective sampling cannot be overstated. Data is collected from a properly targeted group or groups in order to provide the answer to the problem (Sekaran, 2003). In surveys, the survey group is known as the population, among which are individual elements. Sampling is a technique in which a sufficient number of elements that properly represent the population as a whole is selected to study.

In the week two paper, we defined a problem in the CIA dataset for Global Demographics, which measures population, gross domestic product,