LESSON 11: THE RESEARCH INSTRUMENT
(W7_1) study or project to discover problems and revise to
RESEARCH INSTRUMENT
 A research instrument is a tool used to obtain,
measure, and analyze data from subjects around
the research problem/topic.
TYPES OF RESEARCH INSTRUMENT
1. Interview - the interaction where verbal questions
are posed by an interviewer to elicit verbal
responses from an interviewee.
2. Observations - watching what people do where
researchers observe ongoing behavior
3. Survey - encompasses any measurement
procedure that involve asking questions from
respondents
INTERVIEWS
1. Structured Interview: A formal set of questions
posed to each interviewee and recorded using a
standardized procedure.
2. Unstructured Interview: A less formal set of
questions; the interviewer modifies the sequence
and wording of questions.
3. Non-Directive Interview: An unguided interview,
including open-ended questions and use of
spontaneous engagement.
4. Focus Interview: An emphasis on the
interviewees subjective and personal responses
where the interviewer engages to elicit more
information.
5. Focus Group Interview: A group of selected
participants are asked about their opinion or
perceptions concerning a particular topic.
OBSERVATIONS
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Participant Observations: 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 QUESTIONS ASKED IN A SURVEY
1. Free Answer: Also referred to as open-ended
questions, these include unrestricted, essay, or
unguided questions.
2. Guided Response Type: Recall-type questions
asking the participant to recall a set of categories.
Multiple-choice or multiple-response questions.
CONSIDERATIONS IN DEVELOPING THE
INSTRUMENT
1. Use of existing instruments - must fit with
research hypothesis/questions, theoretical
framework, and conceptual definitions
 Must have author's written permission to use or
modify tool and use modification
 Practicality of instrument in terms of cost,
appropriateness for population, time required to
complete it, physical and mental stamina of
subjects, motor skills or language ability; and
researcher training required to administer or score
the instrument
2. Instrument development
 development of valid and reliable tool is very time
consuming and may take years to accomplish
 Testing required with multiple administrations,
statistical analyses, and revisions
 Instrument must be pilot tested before use in actual
eliminate difficulties with the large sample
QUALITIES OF A GOOD RESEARCH INSTRUMENT
Validity: the degree to which a test measures what it
intends to measure or the truthfulness of the response
 Content Validity – determined by the relevance of
a test to different types of criteria including a
thorough judgement and systematic examination of
related literature and pooled judgement of subject
matter experts
 Concurrent Validity – determined by the degree
to which the test agrees or correlates with a
criterion set-up as an acceptable measure
 Predictive Validity – determined by showing how
well predictions made from the test are proven by
data or facts collected at some succeeding time
 Construct Validity – determined by the extent to
which the test measures a theoretical trait. This
involves tests on understanding, appreciation and
interpretation of data. Examples are intelligence
and mechanical aptitude tests
Reliability: the extent to which a test is consistent and
dependable; there are four methods to test reliability
including:
 Test-Retest Method – the same test is
administered to the same group of subjects with
similar characteristics to the target population at
two weeks interval; and the correlation coefficient
is determined (Spearman rank correlation
coefficient)
 Parallel or Equivalent Forms Method – two
forms of the test are constructed (similar but not
identical content, type of test item, difficulty,
instruction) and administered to a group of
subjects; correlation coefficient is determined
(Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient)
 Split-Half Method – the test is administered once
but the test items are divided into two. The two
halves of the test must be similar but not identical
in content, number of items and difficulty; scores
obtained in two halves are correlated using the
Spearman-Brown Formula
 Internal Consistency Method – used in
psychological tests that consist of dichotomous
scored items; the examinee either passes or fails in
a item; this method employs the Kuder-Richardson
Formula
Practicability: the degree to which a test can be used
without undue expenditure of time, money, and effort.
 Ease of administration
 Ease of Scoring
 Ease of interpretation and application
 Low cost
 Proper mechanical make-up
Ethical: the degree to which a test conforms to ethical
guidelines in research including the following
characteristics:
 Respects intellectual property rights
 Follows informed-consent guidelines – the
informed consent form must include the
background and purpose of the research, the
procedures, the risks and benefits of participation,
voluntary participation clause, confidentiality
clause, and questions clause
MEASUREMENT IN INSTRUMENTS
 A measurement is an assigned number to
objects/phenomena to represent quantities of
attributes
 By assigning numbers the researcher connects
numbers to the phenomena
 LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT

Categorical: mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories

 Nominal: gender, martial status, occupation
 Ordinal: attitudinal scales, Likert scales

Continuous: mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories

that are ranked with equal intervals between each rank or
unit of measurement.
 Interval: body ratio, temperature, age
 Ratio: heart rate, respiratory rate, number of times
pregnant
Semantic Scale - makes extensive use of words rather
than numbers. Respondents describe their feelings about
SCALES OF MEASUREMENT the products or brands on scales with semantic labels.

Comparative scales: usually used in marketing research

 Paired comparison
 Dollar metric comparisons
 The unity-sum-gain technique

Noncomparative Scales
 Continuous rating scales
 Line marking scale
 Semantic scales
 Likert scales

Continuous Rating Scale - The respondents are asked to

give a rating by placing a mark at the appropriate position
on a continuous line.
Likert Scale - A Likert scale is what is termed a summated
instrument scale; the items making up a Likert scale are
summed to produce a total score; usually, each scale item
will have 5 categories, with scale values ranging from -2 to
+2 with 0 as neutral response.

Line Marking Scale - The line marked scale is typically

used to measure perceived similarity differences between LESSON 12: DATA ANALYSIS
products, brands or other objects. (W8)

DATA ANALYSIS
 Data Analysis is the process of systematically
applying statistical and/or logical techniques to
describe and illustrate, condense and recap, and
evaluate data.
 According to LeCompte and Schensul, research
data analysis is a process used by researchers for
reducing data to a story and interpreting it to derive
insights.
 The data analysis process helps in reducing a
large chunk of data into smaller fragments, which
makes sense.

THE DATA ANALYSIS PROCESS

Itemized Rating Scale - respondents are provided with a
scale having numbers and/or brief descriptions associated 1. Data preparation – validation, editing and coding
with each category and are asked to select one of the 2. Statistical analyses – descriptive and
limited number of categories, ordered in terms of scale inferential
position, that best describes the product, brand, company
or product attribute being studied. DATA PREPARATION
The first stage of analyzing data is data preparation, where
the aim is to convert raw data into something meaningful
and readable. It includes three steps:
 Data Validation
 Data Editing
 Data Coding

DATA VALIDATION
The purpose of data validation is to find out, as far as
possible, whether the data collection was done as per the
pre-set standards and without any bias.

DATA EDITING
Large data sets include errors. For example, respondents
may fill fields incorrectly or skip them accidentally. To make
sure that there are no such errors, the researcher should
conduct basic data checks and edit the raw research data
to identify and clear out any data points that may hamper
the accuracy of
results.
Data Check: Number of Respondents vs. Rows
For any kind of survey, you should always match the
number of rows in your data to the number of respondents
surveyed to ensure data completeness.
Example 1: For a survey involving 500 households, the first
step will be to ensure the number of rows in your data set
equals 500.
Number of Respondents vs. Rows
Check if all unique identifiers (UIDs) are unique. Copy the
values in the column to a different sheet in Excel. Select the
entire column, and then click on the “Remove Duplicates”
option under the “Data” tab of the Excel ribbon. A pop-up
like this will appear:
Data Check: Number of Questions vs. Columns
Quickly match the total number of columns in your
spreadsheet with the total number of questions in your
survey. Similar to the rows check done earlier, this will help
you identify missed or duplicate values.
Dealing w/ Missing Values
 Listwise Deletion
 Mean/Mode/Median/Mode Imputation
 Last Observation Carried Forward
 Resurveying
In the listwise deletion method, all rows that have one or
more column values missing are deleted.
Missing values in dependent variables would often require
you to delete the entire record, since it cannot contribute to
the research. Alternatively, for a particular dependent
variable, too many missing independent variables can also
result in no meaningful insights, which would also require
you to delete the entire record.
In the mean/median/mode imputation method, all
missing values in a particular column are substituted with
the mean/median/mode, which is calculated using all the
values available in that column.
You can use appropriate functions in Excel to compute the
mean/median/mode by simply plugging in the range of the
column into the input of the function.
 Mean (commonly known as average) is equal to
the sum of all values in the column divided by the
number of values present in the column. In Excel,
you can use the AVERAGE () function to compute
the mean.
 Mode is the value that occurs the most often in the
range of values. In Excel, you can use the MODE
() function to compute the mode.
 Median is the “middle” value amongst the range of
values. To compute the median of a range
containing ‘n’ number of values, you need to sort
these ‘n’ values in ascending order.
o For an odd number of observations, the
median is the ((n+1)/2) th value. For
the example, the median for a sorted list of 13
observations is the 7th value. For
an even number of observations, the
median is the average of the (n/2) th and
((n+2)/2)th values. For example, the
median for a sorted list of 12
observations is the average of the
6th and 7th values.
 In Excel, you can use the MEDIAN () function to
compute the median.
 Last Observation Carried Forward (LOCF) is a
technique specific to longitudinal data analysis.
This is a crude method where a missing value for a
particular row is filled in with a value available from
the previous stages.
 Resurveying a data point — e.g. sending a
surveyor back to a respondent to re-collect a data
point — is the most foolproof way of dealing with
missing data. Unlike the methods above, it ensures
that a missing data point is filled with an accurate,
rather than approximate, value.
DATA CODING
 Data coding refers to grouping and assigning
values to responses from the survey.
 For example, if a researcher has interviewed 1,000
people and now wants to find the average age of
the respondents, the researcher will create age
buckets and categorize the age of each of the
respondent as per these codes. (For example,
respondents between 13-15 years old would have
their age coded as 0, 16-18 as 1, 18-20 as 2, etc.)
 Then during analysis, the researcher can deal with
simplified age brackets, rather than a massive
range of individual ages.
QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS METHODS
 Descriptive statistics (also known as
descriptive analysis): summarize data from
samples and find patterns.
 Inferential statistics: draw
generalizations/conclusions from data taken from
samples
 SURVEY DATA ANALYSIS

 Descriptive statistics are the basic measures

used to describe survey data. They consist of
summary descriptions of single variables (also
called “univariate” analysis) and the associated
survey sample. Examples of descriptive statistics
for survey data include frequency and percentage
response distributions, measures of central
tendency (which include the mean, median and
mode), and dispersion measures such as the
range and standard deviation, which describe how
close the values or responses are to central
tendencies.
 Inferential statistics is concerned with making
larger inferences about social phenomena. This
can include associations between variables, how
well your sample represents a larger population,
and cause-and-effect relationships. Some
examples of inferential statistics commonly used in
survey data analysis are t-tests that compare group
averages, analyses of variance, correlation and
regression, and advanced techniques such as
factor analysis, cluster analysis and
multidimensional modeling procedures.

QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS METHODS

1. Content analysis: This is one of the most

common methods to analyze qualitative data. It is
used to analyze documented information in the
form of texts, media, or even physical items. When
to use this method depends on the research
questions. Content analysis is usually used to
analyze responses from interviewees.
2. Narrative analysis: This method is used to
analyze content from various sources, such as
interviews of respondents, observations from the
field, or surveys. It focuses on using the stories and
experiences shared by people to answer the
research questions.
3. Discourse analysis: Like narrative analysis,
discourse analysis is used to analyze interactions
with people. However, it focuses on analyzing the
social context in which the communication between
the researcher and the respondent occurred.
Discourse analysis also looks at the respondent’s
day-to-day environment and uses that information
during analysis.
4. Grounded theory: This refers to using qualitative
data to explain why a certain phenomenon
happened. It does this by studying a variety of
similar cases in different settings and using the
data to derive causal explanations. Researchers
may alter the explanations or create new ones as
they study more cases until they arrive at an
explanation that fits all cases.