LESSON REVIEW (5 minutes)

NUR 027 (Nursing Research 1-Lecture) BS

INSTRUCTOR’S GUIDE NURSING/SECOND YEAR
Session # 25

Materials:
LESSON TITLE: OTHER TYPES OF RESEARCH
INSTRUMENTS Book, pen and notebook

LEARNING OUTCOME:
Upon completion of this lesson, the nursing student will be
able to:
1. Describe other types of research instruments.
Textbook:
Barrientos-Tan, C. (2011). A Research Guide in Nursing
Education: Building an Evidence-Based Practice. Pasay
City: Philippines, Visprint Inc.
References:
Polit, Denise F. & Beck, Cheryl T. (2012). Nursing
research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing
research (9th ed.), Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer Health/
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

The instructor will open a box of rolled papers with your assigned numbers. The students whose numbers were
picked by the instructor will answer one of the following questions:
1. What is a research instrument?
2. What is a questionnaire?
3. What are the types of questionnaire?
4. How does a researcher formulate a questionnaire?

MAIN LESSON (30 minutes)

Interview
Interview is the next most used research instrument. The researcher, in a one-on-one dialogue with the subject, asks
or reads the questions to elicit answers from the latter. The researcher may use the following devices such as video
camera and tape recorder or other methods to ensure that data are accurately recorded. A research assistant may
help record the questions and answers during the interview.

An interview schedule is used for formal interviews. And interview guide consisting of pertinent questions is used in
informal interviews.

Types of Interview
a. Structured Interview
Specifically, this kind of interview is a dialogue in which the interviewer is guided by prepared questions to
gather needed data with ease from respondents or interviewees of the study.

b. Unstructured Interview
Here, the interviewer asks the questions at random but makes sure that needed data from the
respondents will give holistic information on the subject of the interview. The interviewer is free to direct
the course of the interview.

Methods of Interviewing

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a. Personal interview
 The interviewer asks questions facing the interviewee. This can take place at any place where the
respondent is willing to answer the questions asked by the researcher.

b. Telephone Interview
The most popular interviewing method through which people can be easily contacted.

c. Mail Surveys
This allows the respondent to answer during his or her leisure time or most convenient time. These are not
intrusive and considered the least expensive method.

Computer Directed Interviews

Interviewees enter their own answers directly into the computer. Computers can be used in the hospitals,
malls, offices, among others. Some researchers set up a Web page survey for this purpose.

E-mail Surveys
These are both efficient and economical and more people have full internet access with no cost involved
once more people have full internet access with no cost involved once the set-up is complete. The
respondent an attach pictures, sound files, but limited only to simple questions.

Internet/Intranet (Web Page) Surveys

These are extremely fast since the questionnaire is posted on Website which can gather several thousand
responses within a few hours. Many will respond to an e-mail invitation to take a survey within a few days.
Web page questionnaires can use colors, fonts and other formatting. It can give more honest answers to
sensitive questions such as drug use or sexual habits, among others

Advantages and Disadvantages of Interviews

Advantages of Interviews Disadvantages of Interviews

1. Responses are broad and varied 1. They can be time consuming and expensive

2. Respondents can give complete answers if 2. The schedule for interviews may be difficult to
questions are well structured make

3. Verbal and non-verbal behavior can be 3. Respondents’ answers may be influenced by

observed and the interviewer’s behavior and

4. There is flexibility in questions asked and 4. Interviewers need training

respondents reaction to these.

Scales
Scales are devices designed to assign a numeric score to people to place them on a continuum with respect to
attributes being measured. Social-psychological scales used in quantitative studies can discriminated among people
having different attitudes, fears, motives, perceptions, personality traits, and needs. The following are types of scales:

a. Likert scale consists of declarative statements or items that expresses viewpoint on a topic. The respondent
shall indicate the degree of agreement or disagreement.

b. Semantic Differential scale is another technique for measuring attitudes. Concepts are rated by the subjects or
respondents according to the degree by which the variables being measured affects them.

c. Visual analogue scale is used to measure subjective experiences of the respondents such as pain, fatigue and
nausea to name a few.

d. Graphic Rating Scale is a scale in which respondents are asked to rate something (e.g., concept or an issue)
along an ordered, numbered continuum, typically on a bipolar dimension

e. Q sorts is a sorting technique. Subjects are presented with a set of cards on which words, phrases or
statements are written. They are asked to sort the card along a specified bipolar dimension (Polit & Beck, 2008)
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Vignettes are brief descriptions of situations to which subjects are asked to react. The descriptions are structured to
elicit information about respondents’ perceptions, opinions, or knowledge about a phenomenon. Vignettes are written
descriptions but can also be video recorded.

Self-reports
A Self-report is a measure where a person is asked to report his or her own behavior or mental contents. Self-report
measures include questions like “How happy are you on a scale of 1 to 10?” or “Do you dream in color?” Most people
will agree to answer such questions, but the results are not always dependable. In fact, self-report measure are
notoriously inaccurate and unreliable.

The least accurate type of self-report measure is one that asks a person to look back in time and remember details of a
behaviour or experience called the retrospective self-report. This combines the uncertainty of self-report with the
uncertainty of memory reconstruction. Even a person who exerts effort to tell the truth cannot necessarily distinguish
between a creative fabrication and a genuine memory.

Anecdotal Records and other Documentary Materials

Anecdotal records are personal accounts of the researcher written on a notebook or typewritten for recording
purposes. Documentary materials supplements the primary data gathered to enhance the veracity of the variables
investigated.

Mechanical Instruments or Biophysiological Measures

These include diagnostic machines, e.g. X-rays, ultrasound, computed tomography scan, magnetic resonance
imaging; treatment devices such as mechanical ventilators, resuscitators, defibrillators, suction machines, parenteral
infusion, traction, casting, Milwaukee brace, heart lung machines, fetal heart monitoring device, blood pressure
apparatus, stethoscope, microscope, weighing scale, computer assisted interview or observation, video and
teleconferencing and electronic learning devices, among others.

CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING (15 minutes)

Short Quiz. Students will be instructed to write TRUE if the statement is correct and FALSE if the statement is
incorrect.. (10 points)
1. An interview guide is prepared prior to the unstructured interview.

ANSWER: __________________________

2. Visual analogue scale can be used to measure objective experiences of the respondents such as

anxiety. ANSWER: __________________________

3. A brief descriptions of a toddler’s reaction when a medication is given by a nurse dressed up like an astronaut is a
called a vignette.

ANSWER: __________________________

4. A retrospective self-report is found out to be the least accurate among all self-report

data. ANSWER: __________________________

5. A happy-sad scale is considered a graphic rating scale.

ANSWER: __________________________

6. A Likert scale is consists of several declarative items that express a viewpoint on a

topic. ANSWER: __________________________

7. Respondents’ answers may be influenced by the interviewer’s behaviour in an

interview. ANSWER: __________________________

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8. Verbal and non-verbal behavior of respondents can be observed in a scale.

ANSWER: __________________________

9. Scales are devices designed to assign a numeric score to people to place them on a continuum with respect to
attributes being measured.

ANSWER: __________________________

10. In Q sort, participants are presented with a set of cards on which words or phrases are

written. ANSWER: __________________________

RATIONALIZATION ACTIVITY
The instructor will now rationalize the answers to the students and will encourage them to ask questions and to discuss
among their classmates.

1. ANSWER: ________________________________
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2. ANSWER: ________________________________________
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7. ANSWER: ________________________________________
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8. ANSWER: ________________________________________
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9. ANSWER: ________________________________________
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10. ANSWER: ________________________________________

RATIONALE:_______________________________________________________________________________
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LESSON WRAP-UP (10 minutes)

You will now mark (encircle) the session you have finished today in the tracker below. This is simply a visual to help
you track how much work you have accomplished and how much work there is left to do.

You are done with the session! Let’s track your progress.

AL Strategy: Muddiest Point

The instructor summarizes the lesson discussed leaving enough time for you to respond. You will be asked to
bring out ¼ sheet of pad paper to write on your answer when the instructor asks the following question:

In today’s session in research, what was least clear to you?

The instructor collects the papers and answers the “unclear” part of the discussion before the class dismissed.
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