Instruments in Data Collection

• Questionnaire

  • Composed of a series of questions that is used to get information, which is answered and filled out by all the participants in the sample.
  • Can be in oral or written form
  • Most common and widely used
  • Best to use when collecting data from a large sample and when crossing geographical limitations
• Interview Guide

  • Helps you direct the conversation towards the topic and issues you want to learn about
  • May vary from highly scripted to relatively loose
  • Helps you to know what to ask about, in what sequence, how to pose your questions and how to pose follow-ups
  • Provide guidance about what to do or say next after your interviewee has answered the last question
• Types Of Interview

  • Unstructured Interview – more conversational and may sometimes take long to finish and conducted in a usual situation
  • Structured Interview – always operates within a formal written instrument
• Observation – may also be used in quantitative research with the use of an observation guide.
• Types of Observation

  • Unstructured Observation – the observer monitors all aspects of the phenomenon that seems relevant to the problem at hand (e.g. observing children playing a new toy)
  • Structured Observation – specifies in detail what is to be observed and how the measurements are to be recorded (e.g. an auditor performing inventory analysis on a store) requires preparation of record-keeping forms such as category systems, checklists, and rating scales. The researcher usually has some prior knowledge about the behavior or event of interest.
• Records

  • Refers to all the numbers and statistics that the institutions, organizations, and people keep as a record of their activities such as census data, educational records, hospital/clinic records, and the like
• Experimental Approach

  • Used for testing hypothesis of causal relationships among variables
  • The researcher/s controls the independent variable and watches the effect on the dependent variable
• Information: refers  to either a meaningful answer to a query or a meaningful stimulus that can be considered into further queries.
• Data Processing

  • Most often refers to processes that convert data into information or knowledge.