LESSON 5

CONSTRUCTING RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

Prepared By: Rey John D. Caballero
RESEARCH INSTRUMENT
• A tool used to collect, measure, and
analyze data related to your
research interests.

• Commonly used in health sciences,

social sciences, and education to
assess patients, clients, students,
teachers, staff, etc.
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
CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

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
Common examples of data to be collected
from the respondents
• Demographic information or data e.g., age, sex,
gender, educational background, ethnicity, religion,
etc.
• Test scores
• Responses to researchers’ questions in an interview
or written replies to a survey question
• Grade point averages obtainable from school
records
• Essay written by students e.g., projects, theses and
dissertations.
• Anecdotal records kept by teachers or counselors or
researchers.
 TYPES OF RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS

1. Questionnaire
2. Interviews
3. Content Analysis
4. Focus Groups
5. Observation
6. Experiment
1. QUESTIONNAIRE

It consists of a set of questions

or other types of prompts that
aims to collect information
from a respondent.
Advantages Disadvantages
1. Inexpensive 1. Dishonest answers
2. Practical 2. Unanswerable questions
3. Offers a quick way to get 3. Different Understanding/
results Interpretation
4. Scalability 4. Hard to convey feelings
5. Comparability and emotions
6. Easy Analysis of Data 5. Difficult to analyze
7. Actionable Data 6. Biased
8. No time constraints 7. Personalization
9. Respondent Anonymity 8. Unconscientious
10. Covers any aspect of a response
topic 9. Accessibility
10. Survey Fatigue
TYPES OF QUESTIONNAIRE
• Mail Survey - addressed to respondents and delivered by
mail; impersonal; can suffer low response rates
• Group-Administered Questionnaire – sample of
respondents can be brought as a group; response rates
can be higher; researchers can assist the respondents
• Household drop-off Survey - researcher delivers the
questionnaire by hand to a member of an identified
household for collection at some later date.
• Web Surveys (e-surveys) - questionnaires are sent over the
internet to a sample of respondents and they can respond
to this survey over the world wide web
TYPES OF QUESTIONS
1) Closed-ended Questions

• It comes in a multitude of forms, including

dichotomous (yes or no), multiple choice, drop
down, checkboxes, and ranking questions.
• Each question type doesn’t allow the respondent
to provide unique or unanticipated answers, but
rather, choose from a list of pre-selected options.
TYPES OF QUESTIONS
Use closed-ended questions for the following:
• When your audience isn’t particularly
interested in your survey topic
• When you need quantifiable data
• To categorize respondents
TYPES OF QUESTIONS
2) Open-ended Questions
• Exploratory in nature, and offer the researchers rich, qualitative
data.
• It provides the researcher with an opportunity to gain insight on
all the opinions on a topic they are not familiar with.
• Each response must be recorded and analyzed or coded to
reveal the meaning of the response.
• However, being qualitative in nature makes these types of
questions lack the statistical significance needed for
conclusive research.
TYPES OF QUESTIONS
Open-ended questions are incredibly useful in
several different ways:
• Expert interviews
• Small population studies
• Preliminary research
• A respondent outlet
Open-ended vs. Closed-ended
Questionnaire
9 steps involved in the
development of a questionnaire:
1. Decide the information required.
2. Define the target respondents.
3. Choose the method(s) of reaching your target respondents.
4. Decide on question content.
5. Develop the question wording.
6. Put questions into a meaningful order and format.
7. Check the length of the questionnaire.
8. Pre-test the questionnaire.
9. Develop the final survey form.
How long a questionnaire should be?
• It should take no more than about
twenty minutes to complete.
• If a respondent is asked to give up
more time than this, he or she may
abandon part or all of the
questionnaire.
2. INTERVIEWS

• Also known as oral

questionnaire.
• The researcher asks
information from the
respondents through
verbal interaction.
• Materials that could be
used are tape recorded
and paper.
Advantages

1. Provides flexibility to the interviewers

2. The interview has a better response rate

than mailed questions, and the people who
cannot read and write can also answer the
questions.

3. The interviewer can judge the non-verbal

behavior of the respondent.
4. The interviewer can decide the
place for an interview in a private and
silent place, unlike the ones conducted
through emails which can have a
completely different environment.

5. The interviewer can control over the

order of the question, as in the
questionnaire, and can judge the
spontaneity of the respondent as well.
Disadvantages
1. Conducting interview studies can be very costly as well as very
time-consuming.
2. An interview can cause biases. For example, the respondent’s
answers can be affected by his reaction to the interviewer’s race,
class, age or physical appearance.
3. Interview studies provide less anonymity, which is a big concern for
many respondents.
4. There is a lack of accessibility to respondents (unlike conducting
mailed questionnaire study) since the respondents can be in
around any corner of the world or country.
TYPES OF INTERVIEWS
1) Structured
Questions are planned and created in advance. All
respondents are asked the same questions in the same
order.
2) Unstructured
Interviewer will ask open-ended questions and the
given answers by the interviewee will stimulate new
questions.
3) Semi-Structured
The interviewer has a list of questions, but the approach
is flexible (order and phrasing).
Stages in developing and using interviews

Draft the Pilot your Select your

Interview Questions interviewees

Analyze the
interview Conduct the
data interviews
3. CONTENT ANALYSIS

A research tool used to

determine the presence of
certain words, themes, or
concepts within some given
qualitative data (i.e., text).

To quantify and analyze the

presence, meanings and
relationships of such certain
words, themes, or concepts.
• Transform a large number of text / images into a
highly organized and concise conceptual structure.
• A single study may analyze various forms of text in its
analysis.
• Coding Process: the text must be coded, or broken
down, into manageable code categories for
analysis (i.e., “codes”).
• Codes can then be further categorized into “code
categories” to summarize data even further.
Sources of Data
• Interviews
• Open-ended questions
• Field research notes
• Conversations
• Any occurrence of
communicative language
(such as books, essays,
discussions, newspaper
headlines, speeches, media,
historical documents).
Uses of Content Analysis
• Detect the existence of ideas, concepts, and
truths hidden in the text.
• Identify the intentions, focus or communication
trends of an individual, group or institution
• Describe attitudinal and behavioral responses to
communications
• Determine psychological or emotional state of
persons or groups
Uses of Content Analysis
• Reveal international differences in
communication content
• Reveal patterns in communication content
• Pre-test and improve an intervention or survey
prior to launch
• Analyze focus group interviews and open-ended
questions to complement quantitative data
Types of Content Analysis
A. 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
Types of Content Analysis
B. Relational Analysis
Begins like conceptual analysis, where a concept is
chosen for examination.

Analysis involves exploring the relationships between

concepts.

Individual concepts are viewed as having no deep-

rooted meaning and rather the meaning is a product
of the relationships among concepts.
4. FOCUS GROUPS

• Used to collect data through

group interaction.

• The group comprises a small

number of carefully selected
people who discuss a given
topic.

• Used to identify and explore

how people think and behave,
and they throw light on why,
what and how questions.
5. OBSERVATION
• The target respondent/subject is
observed and analyzed in their
natural/real-world setting.

• Used when other data collection

procedures, such as surveys,
questionnaires, etc. are not effective
or adequate.

• When the goal is to evaluate an

ongoing behavior process, event, or
situation; or when there are physical
outcomes that can be readily seen.
6. EXPERIMENT

• Here the researchers carry out

experiments in a laboratory
setting

• Method produces immediate

results

• If controlled, results are viable

and error free

• Too costly to undertake