RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS

A Research Instrument is a tool used to collect, measure, and analyze data related to
your research interests. These tools are most commonly used in health sciences, social sciences,
and education to assess patients, clients, students, teachers, staff, etc. A research instrument
can include interviews, tests, surveys, or checklists. The Research Instrument is usually
determined by researcher and is tied to the study methodology. This document offers some
examples of research instruments and study methods.

CHOOSING A RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

The following list is an example of the steps to complete a research project. Choosing a
research instrument is done after conceptualization and the units of analysis have been chosen,
and before operationalizing concepts construct instruments:
1. Select a topic
2. Formulate a thesis statement
3. Choose the types of analyses
4. Research and write a literature review
5. Formulate the research questions
6. Conceptualize a topic, refine thesis
7. Choose research method and research instrument
8. Operationalize concepts construct instruments
9. Formulate the data collection strategy
10. Perform a pilot study
11. Collect data
12. Prepare the data for processing & analysis
13. Process & analyze data
14. Interpret & make inferences about data
15. Write the research paper
16. Publish data

CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

 Valid and reliable
 Based on a conceptual framework, or the researcher's understanding of how the
particular variables in the study connect with each other
 Must gather data suitable for and relevant to the research topic
 Able to test hypothesis and/or answer proposed research questions under investigation
 Free of bias and appropriate for the context, culture, and diversity of the study site
 Contains clear and definite instructions to use the instrument

TYPES OF RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS: INTERVIEW

Interviews or the interaction where verbal questions are posed by an interviewer to elicit verbal
responses from an interviewee.

Structured Interview: A formal set of questions posed to each interviewee and recorded using a
standardized procedure.

Unstructured Interview: A less formal set of questions; the interviewer modifies the sequence and
wording of questions.

Non-Directive Interview: An unguided interview, including open-ended questions and use of

spontaneous engagement.

Focus Interview: An emphasis on the interviewees’ subjective and personal responses where the
interviewer engages to elicit more information.

Focus Group Interview: A group of selected participants are asked about their opinion or
perceptions concerning a particular topic.

TYPES OF RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS: OBSERVATIONS

Observation (watching what people do) is a type of correlational (non-experimental) method
where researchers observe ongoing behavior.

Structured Observations: Research conducted at a specific place, time, where participants are
observed in a standardized procedure. Rather than writing a detailed description of all behaviors
observed, researchers code observed behaviors according to a previously agreed upon scale.
Naturalistic Observation: The study the spontaneous behavior of participants in natural
surroundings. The researcher simply records what they see in whatever way they see it.

Participant Observation: A variation on natural observations where the researcher joins in and
becomes part of the group they are studying to get a deeper insight into their lives.

TYPES OF RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS: SURVEYS

Survey research encompasses any measurement procedures that involve asking questions of
respondents. The types of surveys can vary on the span of time used to conduct the study. They
can be comprised of cross-sectional surveys and/or longitudinal surveys. Types of questions
asked in surveys include:

Free-Answer: Also referred to as open-ended questions, these include unrestricted, essay, or

unguided questions.

Guided Response Type: Recall-type questions asking the participant to recall a set of categories.
Multiple-choice or multiple response questions.

RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS
 A tool used to collect, measure, and analyze data related to your research interests. A
research instrument can include interviews, tests, surveys, or checklists. It is done after
conceptualization and the units of analysis have been chosen, and before operationalizing
concepts construct instruments.

What Makes a Good Research Instrument?

 A good research instrument is one that has been validated and has proven reliability. It
should be one that can collect data in a way that’s appropriate to the research question
being asked.
 The research instrument must be able to assist in answering the research aims, objectives
and research questions, as well as prove or disprove the hypothesis of the study.
 It should not have any bias in the way that data is collect and it should be clear as to
how the research instrument should be used appropriately.

Characteristics of a Good Research Instrument

 Valid and reliable
 Based on a conceptual framework, or the researcher's understanding of how the
particular variables in the study connect with each other
 Must gather data suitable for and relevant to the research topic
 Able to test hypothesis and/or answer proposed research questions under
investigation
 Free of bias and appropriate for the context, culture, and diversity of the study site
 Contains clear and definite instructions to use the instrument

TYPES OF RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS

1. QUESTIONNAIRE
 A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions for the
purpose of gathering information from respondents. They can be carried out face to face,
by telephone, computer or post. Questionnaires can be an effective means of measuring
the behavior, attitudes, preferences, opinions and, intentions of relatively large numbers
of subjects more cheaply and quickly than other methods.

Format of Questionnaires
A. Open Ended. These are questions that allow the target audience to voice their
feelings and notions freely that often provide real, perceptional, and at times,
startling proposals. Open-ended questions placed at the end of a questionnaire tend
to draw accurate feedback and suggestions from respondents as well.
B. Closed Ended. These are questions which have multiple options as answers and
allow respondents to select a single option from amongst them. As a fixed answer
set is provided, these are ideal for calculation of statistical information and
percentages of various types.

Types of Closed Ended Format Questionnaires

1) Leading Questions. These are questions forcing the target audience to opt for
a specific kind of answer. Leading questions are usually prepared to derive
audience opinion within a set of limited words.
 2) Importance Questions. Questions which ask respondents to rate the
importance of some specific matter on a rating scale. Such questions facilitate
drawing what respondents consider significant.
3) Likert Questions. The degree to which respondents agree to a specific
statement can be ascertained. Customers' feelings about a topic, product or
service can be easily gauged by asking them these questions.
4) Dichotomous Questions. Questions that make respondents answer with a
simple "yes" or "no". These questions carry one disadvantage- there is no
other way of analyzing the answer between a "yes” and “ no".
5) Bipolar Questions. Questions that have two answers with different levels of
extremities, written at opposite ends of a scale Respondents have to mark their
response anywhere between these two extremities, showing their opinion.
6) Rating Scale Questions. Questions that ask respondents to provide a rating
on a specific matter on a scale of 1 to 10 or on a scale of "poor" to "good".
Normally, these questions have an even number of choices, so as to prevent
respondents to choose a middle way out.
7) Buying Propensity Questions. These are aimed at assessing customers'
future intentions, determining their propensity toward buying a specific
product or service. Buying propensity questions help marketers to
understand the needs of customers and the probability of their buying a
certain product or a service.

Questionnaire Design
 Aims. Make sure that all questions asked address the aims of the research.
However, use only one feature of the construct you are investigating in per item.
 Length. The longer the questionnaire, the less likely people will complete it.
Questions should be short, clear, and be to the point; any unnecessary
questions/items should be omitted.
 Pilot Study. Run a small-scale practice study to ensure people understand the
questions. People will also be able to give detailed honest feedback on the
questionnaire design.
 Question Order. Questions should progress logically from the least sensitive to
the most sensitive, from the factual and behavioral to the cognitive, and from the
more general to the more specific. The researcher should ensure that the answer
to a question is not influenced by previous questions.
 Terminology. There should be a minimum of technical jargon. Questions should
be simple, to the point and easy to understand. The language of a questionnaire
should be appropriate to the vocabulary of the group of people being studied. Use
statements which are interpreted in the same way by members of different
subpopulations of the population of interest.
 Presentation. Make sure it looks professional, include clear and concise
instructions.
 Confidentiality. The researcher must ensure that the information provided by the
respondent is kept confidential, examples are name, address, and etc. Participants
must provide informed consent prior to completing the questionnaire, and must
be aware that they have the right to withdraw their information at any time during
the survey/ study.

2. INTERVIEW
 Interviews are primarily done in qualitative research and occur when researchers ask
one or more participants general, open- ended questions and record their answers.
Interviews are particularly useful for uncovering the story behind a participant’s
experiences and pursuing in-depth information around a topic.

Types of Interviews
 Structured Interviews. Have predetermined questions in a set order. They are
often closed-ended, featuring dichotomous (yes/no) or multiple-choice
questions. While open-ended structured interviews exist, they are much less
common. The types of questions asked make structured interviews a
predominantly quantitative tool.
Advantages:
 Can be used for quantitative research
 Data can be compared
 High reliability and validity
  Time-effective for the interviewer and the respondent
Disadvantages:
 Researcher can’t ask additional questions for
more clarification or nuance
 Limited scope: you might miss out on interesting data
 Due to the restricted answer options, people
might have to choose the “best fit”

 Semi-Structured Interviews. Are a blend of structured and unstructured

interviews. While the interviewer has a general plan for what they want to ask, the
questions do not have to follow a particular phrasing or order.
Advantages:
 Can be used in quantitative research
 Relatively high validity
 You can ask additional questions if needed
Disadvantages:
 Lower validity than the structured interview
 You need to have good conversational skills to get the most out of the
interview
 Preparation is time-consuming
 Unstructured interview is the most flexible type of interview. The questions and
the order in which they are asked are not set. Instead, the interview can proceed
more spontaneously, based on the participant’s previous answers.
Advantages:
 You can ask additional questions if needed
 Respondents might feel more at ease
 You can collect rich, qualitative data
 Can be used if little is known about the topic
Disadvantages:
 Low reliability and validity
 You need to have excellent conversational skills to keep the interview
going
 Easy to get sidetracked
 Hard to compare data
 Preparation is very time-consuming
 Focus group brings together a group of participants to answer questions on a
topic of interest in a moderated setting. Focus groups are qualitative in
nature and often study the group’s dynamic and body language in addition to
their answers. Responses can guide future research on consumer products
and services, human behavior, or controversial topics. Advantages:
 Efficient method, since you interview multiple people at once
 Respondents are often more at ease
 Relatively cost-efficient
 Easier to discuss difficult topics
Disadvantages:
 You can ask a limited number of questions due to time constraints
 You need good conversational and leadership skills
 There is a higher risk of social desirability bias
 You can’t guarantee confidentiality, since
there are multiple people present
3.OBSERVATION
 A research technique where you observe participants and phenomena in their most
natural settings. This enables researchers to see their subjects make choices and react
to situations in their natural setting, as opposed to structured settings like research labs
 or focus groups.

Types of observation
 Naturalistic observation. With naturalistic observation, observation occurs
directly in the environment where the phenomenon occurs. The observations are
made as unobtrusively as possible with the researcher not directly interacting
with the participants in any way.
 Participant observation. With participant observation, researchers actively
participate in the study itself. In addition to observing behaviors, a researcher
might conduct interviews, take notes, look at documents, and take photographs.
 Structured observation. With structured observation, researchers do not
observe in the natural setting, but instead in a lab or a simulated environment.
A structured observation is meant to observe a specific, limited set of behaviors.
This method is less natural, but enables less variables to be at play.

4.DOCUMENT OR CONTENT ANALYSIS

 Content analysis is a research tool used to determine the presence of certain words,
themes, or concepts within some given qualitative data (i.e. text). Using content
analysis, researchers can quantify and analyze the presence, meanings, and
relationships of such certain words, themes, or concepts.

Types of document or content analysis Conceptual Analysis

Typically, people think of conceptual analysis when they think of content analysis. In
conceptual analysis, a concept is chosen for examination and the analysis involves
quantifying and counting its presence. The main goal is to examine the occurrence of
selected terms in the data. Terms may be explicit or implicit. Explicit terms are easy to
identify. Coding of implicit terms is more complicated: you need to decide the level of
implication and base judgments on subjectivity (an issue for reliability and validity).
Therefore, coding of implicit terms involves using a dictionary or contextual translation
rules or both.

Document Analysis
 Document or Documentary analysis is a social research method and is an important
research tool in its own right and is an invaluable part of most schemes of
triangulation. It refers to the various procedures involved in analyzing and
interpreting data generated from the examination of documents and records relevant
to a particular study. In other words, documentary work involves reading lots of
written material (it helps to scan the documents onto a computer and use a
qualitative analysis package). A document is something that we can read and which
relates to some aspect of the social world. Official documents are intended to be read
as objective statements of fact but they are themselves socially produced.

Sources of Documents:

 Public records
 The media
 Private papers
 Biography
 Visual documents Types of Analysis
Quantitative:
Content Analysis
 Content analysis is like a social survey but uses a sample of images rather than people.
It is a technique for gathering and analyzing content of text. Content analysis is formal
and systematic. It lends structure to your research. Variables are categorized in a
precise manner so you can count them and intercoder reliability is commonly reported
with the results of content analysis studies. However, content analysis ignores context
and multiple meanings.
Generally speaking, it consists of the following steps:

1. Choose a question which can be measured with variables.

2. Devise your unit of analysis (amount of text that's assigned a code - e.g. each daily
newspaper could be a unit) and design your code book.
3. Make a sampling frame, choosing the cases to analyze that are representative and
unbiased. To get a sampling frame, search for relevant cases in contemporary or
historical archives. The sample has to be representative, yet small enough for
analyzing in depth. You define your population (which can be words, paragraphs,
sentences or all articles in a certain period of time) and sampling element. Very
often you are counting words - e.g. how many times does the word 'hooligan'
appear in articles sensationalizing the reporting of disturbances at football
matches?
4. Code all the cases and analyze the resulting data.
This coding is sometimes known as 'manifest coding' and measures 4
characteristics:

 Frequency – e.g. how many times is the subject, phrase or word mentioned?
 Direction - i.e. the direction of messages in the content along some continuum - e.g.
positive, negative.
 Intensity - i.e. strength or poser of a message in a direction.
 Space - i.e. size of space on a newspaper page, time on television, placement in
social media
You can also have 'latent coding' (which is predominantly used in semantic analysis below).
This looks at the underlying, implicit meaning in the content of the text. You will need a codebook
in advance with rules on what to interpret. It is less reliable than 'manifest coding', as it relies on
coder's knowledge of language and social meaning.

5. Produce semi-quantitative results using cross- tabulations, charts or graphs and

where there are few cases, use tables.
6. Report in a standard 'scientific' format.

Qualitative:

Semiotics
Semiotics is a science that studies the life of signs in society. It is the opposite to the positivist
method of content analysis. It is used a lot in media analysis.
In semiotics, the analyst seeks to connect the signifier (an expression which can be words, a
picture or sound) with what is signified (another word, description or image). The use of language
is noted as it is considered to be a description of actions. As part of language, certain signs match
up with certain meanings. Semiotics seeks to understand the underlining messages in visual
texts. It is related to discourse analysis and forms the basis for interpretive analysis.

Discourse Analysis
This is concerned with the production of meaning through talk and texts. Language is viewed as
the topic of the research and how people use language to construct their accounts of the social
world is important.

Interpretative Analysis
This aims to capture hidden meaning and ambiguity. It looks how messages are encoded, latent
or hidden. You are also acutely aware of who the audience is.

Conversation Analysis
This is concerned with the underlying structures of talk in interaction and with the achievement
of interaction.

Grounded Theory
This is inductive, interpretative and can be social construction list. Central focus is on
inductively generating novel theoretical ideas or hypotheses from the data. These new theories
arise out of the data and are supported by the data. So, they are said to be grounded.

5.OTHER RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS

 SOCIOMETRY- Technique for describing the social relation among individuals in a
group. In an indirect way it attempts to describe attractions or repulsions between
individuals by asking them to indicate whom they would choose or reject in
various situations.
 SCORECARD- A rating that may yield a total weighted score that can be used in
evaluating communities, buildings, sites, schools, or textbooks. Similar in some
respect to checklist and rating scale.
 TEACHER or RESEARCH-MADE TOOLS- Part of
the overall instruments used in research studies. It combined with other
standardized tests in the assessment of individuals' operations and situations.
 TAPE RECORDED DATA- Observe through the ear as well as through the eye.
Also use video tape recorder or radio cassette recorder.
 OPINIONNAIRE- An information form that attempts to measure the attitude or
belief of an individual. Also known as attitude scale.
 PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS- An instrument designed to describe and measure a
sample of certain aspects of human behavior. e,i performance test, paper and
pencil test, achievement inventory, personality inventory and projective devices
 READY-to-USE INSTRUMENTS or
STANDARDIZED TEST - Product of long years of study. Tend to be highly reliable
and cover a wide range of student performance level
6.Criteria for Measuring Research Instruments Characteristics of good

measuring instrument:
 RELIABILITY - is the consistency of your measurement, or the degree to which an
instrument measures the same way each time it is used under the same condition with
the same subjects. In short, it is the repeatability of your measurement. A measure is
considered reliable if a person's score on the same test given twice is similar. It is
important to remember that reliability is not measured, it is estimated. A good
instrument will produce consistent scores. An instrument’s reliability is estimated using
a correlation coefficient of one type or another.
 VALIDITY- Validity is the extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure. It
is vital for a test to be valid in order for the results to be accurately applied and
interpreted. Validity isn’t determined by a single statistic, but by a body of research that
demonstrates the relationship between the test and the behavior it is intended to
measure. There are three types of validity: It is the strength of our conclusions,
 inferences or propositions. More formally, Cook and Campbell (1979) define it as the
"best available approximation to the truth or falsity of a given inference, proposition or
conclusion."
 PRACTICIBILITY - It should be feasible & usable. Quality of being usable in context to
the objective to be achieved.
 USABILITY (practicality) ease in administration, scoring, interpretation and
application, low cost, proper mechanical make – up
 MEASUREABILITY - It should measure the objective to be achieved.