An introduction to research for primary dental care clinicians: part 7: stage 8. Collecting data.

Introduction This paper, the seventh in the series, will address the eighth of the ten stages of a research project suggested in the first paper. The ten suggested stages are: 1. The initial idea (asking a research question). 2. Searching the literature. 3. Refining the research question. 4. Planning the study. 5. Writing a protocol. 6. Obtaining ethical approval and funding. 7. Piloting the methodology and project management. 8. Collecting data. 9. Analysing the data. 10. Writing up and disseminating the results. The previous paper outlined how to pilot the methodology and manage a research project. Once the pilot has taken place and any issues have been identified, then data collection can take place. This paper outlines the principles of data collection. It updates two previous FGDP(UK) research advice sheets: Data Collection and Sampling.