A method in which an investigator himself or an enumerator appointed by him personally visits the persons from whom the information is to be obtained, asks them questions pertaining to the inquiry or survey and collects the required information, is called the method of direct inquiry.
The advantages and disadvantages of this method are as follows:
Advantages:
- Since the investigator or enumerator himself collects the data by personal visit, the data obtained by this method are accurate and reliable.
- The presence of an enumerator possibly creates confidence in the person giving information. If the person giving information has a question or doubt or any embarassment, he can seek clarification from the enumerator.
- The enumerator or investigator sometimes gets supplementary information of the respondents which may be useful at the time of interpretation of the results.
- This method is much better when the information is to be obtained from a limited field of inquiry.
- The data is obtained personally hence the information about the complex questions can be obtained easily. Moreover the data pertaining to the personal information can be obtained by supplementary questions. Assurance is given that such information will not be misused.
Disadvantages:
- This method is not much effective in case of extensive and wide field of inquiry.
- This method involves considerable amount of time, energy and money because the investigators collects the data. by making personal visits to informants.
- The information collected by this method is less reliable if the enumerators are not well trained, dutiful and honest towards the object of inquiry.
- This method of inquiry is likely to be affected to a large extent by the prejudices or biases of the enumerators.
