Key Method The educator or district leader determines the necessary qualitative data to collect and also identifies the types of instruments, timeline, and participants involved in the data collection. The educator or district leader reviews publicly available research instruments and uses these to create data collection instruments, such as a survey that includes open-ended questions, one or more interview, or focus group protocol(s) to gather qualitative data from pilot participants. Method Components 1. Identify the metrics you would like to measure. The first step in data collection is to explicitly articulate the metrics that need to be collected. Consider the goal or research question involved in this project to identify the appropriate data necessary to answer your question or measure the success of a pilot.