RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

1. QUESTIONNAIRE – the most commonly used tools to

generate data. Sometimes it is called survey form. It is an
inventory of pieces of information which the researcher anticipates
to gather from a respondent. It is a list of planned, written
questions related to a particular topic, with space provided for
indicating the response to each questions, intended for submission
to a number of persons for reply commonly used in normative
survey and in the measurement of attitudes and opinions.
1. Personally- administered
Confined to local area and the organization is willing and able to
assemble groups of employees to respond to the questionnaire

2. Mailed – questionnaire
It is administered by mail to designated respondents under an
accompanying cover letter, by mail, by the respondent to the
research organization. It can cover wide geographical area and
respondents are given in their own free time and convenience to
complete the questionnaire.
Advantages of a Questionnaire. Calderon, et.al., cited
the following advantages of a questionnaire:

1. The questionnaire is easy to construct.

2. Distribution is easy and inexpensive.
3. Responses are easy to tabulate.
4. The respondent’s replies are free.
5. Confidential information may be given freely.
6. The respondent can fill out easily the questionnaire.
7. The respondent can give more accurate replies.
 Disadvantages of a Questionnaire

1. Questionnaire cannot be used by those who cannot read nor

write well.
2. If many respondents do not return the filled up copies of the
questionnaire purposely or forgetfully, considerable follow-ups
are necessary.
3. If the respondents gives wrong information, it cannot be
corrected at once.
4. Respondent may leave some or many questions unanswered
because nobody urges him to do so or may not understand
the significance of the information he gives.
5. Some questions may be vague and so the respondents may not
answer them.

Criteria of a Good Questionnaire

1. The language must be clear.

2. The content of the question and time period involved must be
specific.
Example : What has been your most interesting experience in
school?
It should be : What was your most interesting experience in your
fourth year schooling in high school?
3. The question should show singleness of purpose.
4. The question must be free from assumptions.
5. The question should be free from suggestions.
Example : Many countries have been progressive due to
modernization. Do you agree that the Phil. Can also be
progressive if it becomes modernized.
6. The question should have linguistic completeness and
grammatical consistency.
 Kinds of Questionnaire
1. Open-ended questionnaire
One whose options of the items are not given or not arranged.

2. Close-ended questionnaire
The options or answers are given or enumerated and the respondents
simply check or encircle his answers.
Example : Encircle the number with the best answer. The options are the
following:
5 – Strongly Agree 2 – Disagree
4 – Agree 1 – Strongly Disagree
3 – Not sure
 Construction of a Questionnaire.

1. Doing library search.

2. Talking to knowledgeable people.
3. Mastering the guidelines.
4. Writing the questionnaire.
5. Editing the questionnaire.
6. Rewriting the questionnaire.
7. Pre-testing the questionnaire.
8. Writing the questionnaire in its final form.
Guidelines in the construction of questions for a
questionnaire:

1. Make all directions clears and unequivocal.

Example :
Directions : Below are statements that would determine Spanish
Instructor’s level of efficiency. Please encircle the number opposite
each statement that best represent your assessment of the efficiency
of the instructors in your department. The numbers are coded as
follows:
1 – Poor4 – Very Satisfactory
2 – Fair 5 – Excellent/Outstanding
3 – Satisfactory
2. Use correct grammar
3. Avoid asking biased questions.
4. Objectify the response.
5. Relate all questions to the topic under study.
6. Create categories or classes for approximate answers.
7. Group the questions in logical sequence.
8. Word carefully or avoid questions that deal with confidential or
embarrassing information.
9. State all questions affirmatively.
10. Add a catch-all word or phrase of multiple response questions.
11. Place all spaces for replies at the left side then the spaces should
be in vertical column.
12. Make the respondents anonymous.
2. INTERVIEW – this is feasible when a personal interaction is
available. The data is collected through direct verbal interaction
between the interviewer and the respondents.

• Structured interview – the questions are stated specifically in

a fixed list (called interview guide) and the interviewer asks the
questions verbatim in the order in which they are listed .

• Unstructured interview –although the interviewer has a list of

questions, he does not need to follow the order in which they
come.
 Advantages of Interview

1. Researchers is able to witness for himself the reactions or

emotions portrayed by the respondents.
2. More information is generated.
3. Interviews are sometime necessary for some particular
sample such as patients suffering from strokes etc.
4. Can clarify some points which are not found in questionnaire.
 Disadvantages of Interview

1. It is sometimes uncomfortable.
2. It is time consuming and more expensive.
3. Information gathered is difficult to quantify.
4. It needs training to be able to do the art of questioning.

3. OBSERVATION – involves the researcher watching the

research situation. It can be used in descriptive and experimental
investigations but it can not be used in historical studies.
Two Types of Observation
Catane (2000) identified the following types of observation:

• Unstructured observation – the researcher does not impose

his structure on the situation but instead attempts to provide an
analysis of the true complexities found in the situation.

• Structured observation – the researcher knows what aspects

of the group activity are relevant for his purpose.
Validity and Reliability of Instrument

1. Validity – is the extent to which an instrument measures what

it is supposed to measure and performs as it is designed to
perform.

• External Validity – is the extent to which the results of a study

can be generalized from a sample to a population.

• Content Validity – refers to the appropriateness of the content of

an instrument.
2. Reliability – can be thought of as consistency. Does the
instrument consistently measure what it is intended to measure?
It is not possible to calculate reliability; however, there are four
general estimators that you may encounter in reading
research :

1. Inter-rater/observer reliability – the degree to which

different raters/observers give consistent answer or estimates.
2. Test-retest reliability – the consistency of a measure
evaluated over time.
3. Parallel-forms reliability – the reliability of two test
constructed the same way, from the same content.
4. Internal consistency reliability – the consistency of results
across items, often measured with Cronbach’s Alpha. It
determines the average correlation of items in a survey
instrument to gauge its reliability.

Methods of Testing and Reliability of the

Questionnaire

Survey Questionnaire – is a tool for consistency implementing a

scientific protocol for obtaining data from respondents. It includes
questions that address specific study objectives and may also be
used to collect demographic information for calculating survey
weights.
A Survey Questionnaire should:

1. Contain only one idea or question

2. Define the scope to consider
3. Be written with neutral language
4. Use language that enables less educated persons
5. Contain response options that are simple, clear, and consistent
6. For categorical responses, be mutually exclusive and exhaustive
7. For numeric responses, guide the respondent to provide the
response in a consistent format and units.
Questionnaires may be designed as :

1. Structured questionnaires – they are those in which some

control or guidance is given for the answer. This may be
described as closed form because the questions are basically
short, requiring the respondents to provide ‘yes’ or ‘no’
response, or checking an item out of a list of given responses.

2. Unstructured questionnaires – this type is also termed as

open ended or unrestricted type of questionnaire calls for a
free response in the respondent’s own words.
Questions to Be Avoided In a Survey Questionnaire

1. Embarrassing questions
2. Positive/negative connotation questions
3. Hypothetical questions

Piloting the Questionnaires

The purpose of pre-testing the questionnaire is to determine:

1. Whether the questions as they are worded will achieve the

desired results.
2. Whether the questions have been placed in the best order
3. Whether the questions are understood by all classes of
respondent
4. Whether additional or specifying questions are needed or
whether some questions should be eliminated
5. Whether the instructions to interviews are adequate

Unstructured interview – is a spontaneous conversation,

not a specific set of questions asked in a predetermined order.
Conducting the interview itself is as much art as science,
and requires practice. For this reason, the following steps
provide a useful guide:

1. Opening up the interview

2. Administer questions
3. Closing down the interview

Structured Observation Instrument – is the process of

watching someone or something. Often observation is an
informal action, but it can also be formal and involve data
collection. An observation can be collected information itself.
DATA COLLECTION AND PROCEDURE
is the process of gathering and measuring information on
targeted variables in an established systematic fashion, which then
enables one to answer relevant questions and evaluate outcomes.

Typical data collection procedures include:

1. Survey – this is standardized paper and pencil or phone

questionnaires that as predetermined questions. It collects data
from a targeted group of people about their opinions, behaviour or
knowledge.
Questionnaires could be in the form of :

1. Paper-pencil-questionnaires
2. Web-based questionnaires – this would mean receiving an e-
mail on which you would click on an address that would take
you to a secure web-site to fill in a questionnaire.

INTERVIEW – it becomes necessary when researchers feel the

need to meet face to face with individuals to interact and
generate ideas in discourse that borders on mutual interest. It is
an interaction in which oral questions are posed by the
interviewer to elicit oral response from the interviewee.
Four main kind of interview:

1. Structured Interviews
2. Unstructured Interviews
3. Non – Directive Interview – gives excessive freedom for the
respondents to express his or her ideas subjectively and
spontaneously as she chooses or is able to. There are no set
questions in this style.
4. Focus Interview – focuses on the respondent’s subjective
responses and experience on the subject matter to elicit more
information.
Transcribing – audio visual recordings on mediums like CD’s
and DVD’s have become major sources of soft data which
researchers rely on during data collection. Other sources like
youtube.

Observation – is one of the important methods for obtaining

comprehensive data in research especially when a composite of
both oral and visual data become vital to the research. By the
use of observation strategy, researchers are able to obtain first
hand information.
With this instrument, the researcher may become a :

1. Participants observer – the researcher lives as a member of the

subjects of the study.
2. Non-Participants Observer – the researcher doesn’t live as a
member of the subjects of the study.

With all ways of observation an important decision the researcher has

to make is how to classify and record the data. Usually this involve a
method of sampling. The three main sampling methods are:

1. Event Sampling – observer decides in advance what types of

behaviour he is interested in and all occurences.
2. Time Sampling – the observer decides in advance that observation
will take place only during specified time periods and records the
occurrence of the specified behaviour during that period only.

3. Instantaneous (target time) Sampling – the observer decides in

advance the pre-selected moments when observation will take place
and records what is happening at that instant.

Reading of Documents
it is also an instrument for studying public documents such as
newspapers, minutes of meetings and private documents such as
letters, biographies and diaries to enable the researcher obtain the
language and words of informants who may not be alive at the time of
the research.
STATISTICAL TREATMENT OF DATA
is taking a raw data and turning it into something that can be
interpreted and used to make decisions.

1. Descriptive Statistics – allows researchers to summarize large

quantities of data using measures that are easily understood by
an observer or a reader.
2. Inferential Statistics – this consist of procedures for making
generalizations about characteristics of the populations, based on
information contained in a sample taken from the population.
3. Hypothesis Testing – includes those which are useful in situation
where we are interested in making decision about a value, rather
than in obtaining an estimate of its value.
Elements of a Statistical Test

1. Assumptions – to be valid, all statistical tests are based on certain

assumptions that must be met.

• The assumed scale of measurement of the variable. As with other statistical

procedures, each test is especially designed for a certain level of measurement,
i.e., nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio,
• the form of the statistical distribution. For many tests, the variable must be
continuous or even normally distributed.
• The method of sampling. The formulate for most tests require random
sampling
• The sampling size. To be valid, many tests rely on results similar to the Central
Limit Theorem and require a minimum sample cases (n=30 or less) and large
sample cases (n> more than 30 cases).
2. Hypotheses
when a researcher sets out to test a phenomenon, he
formulates first an intelligent guess or explanation that he
believes to be true.