Data collection for a doctoral study among natives living abroad: revisiting the challenges and strategies undertaken

This paper is based on the first author’s PhD research data collection experiences conducted with his country people who work and live as migrant workers in the production sector in Malaysia. The data collection process is a crucial component in doctoral studies as there is a need to ensure that the data collected is representative, reliable and unbiased. The main objective of this PhD data collection was to understand the economic and social well-being of the migrant workers in the light of the economic and social well-being approaches. In exploring those issues, there were many challenges that the first author faced during data collection (between October 2016 and April 2017). This paper divulges these practical experiences and limitations of this data collection. The notable challenges and limitations were difficult to identify study locations and undocumented migrant workers, time constraint, the difficulty of sampling from a large number of the estimated population, matter of confidentiality and rapport building, lack of cooperation, high field cost, the possibility of false data, language barrier and scared of harassment and personal protection. In addition, the paper discusses the strategies undertaken for better capture of the economic and social well-being. The experiences learnt from this data collection process can be a valuable guideline for the researchers who intend to do further research in a similar context.