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Research Methodologies: Research Instruments

• Research Methodology Basics
• Research Instruments
• Types of Research Methodologies

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Types of Research Instruments

A research instrument is a tool you will use to help you collect, measure and analyze the data you use as part of your research.  The choice of research instrument will usually be yours to make as the researcher and will be whichever best suits your methodology. 

There are many different research instruments you can use in collecting data for your research:

• Interviews  (either as a group or one-on-one). You can carry out interviews in many different ways. For example, your interview can be structured, semi-structured, or unstructured. The difference between them is how formal the set of questions is that is asked of the interviewee. In a group interview, you may choose to ask the interviewees to give you their opinions or perceptions on certain topics.
• Surveys  (online or in-person). In survey research, you are posing questions in which you ask for a response from the person taking the survey. You may wish to have either free-answer questions such as essay style questions, or you may wish to use closed questions such as multiple choice. You may even wish to make the survey a mixture of both.
• Focus Groups.  Similar to the group interview above, you may wish to ask a focus group to discuss a particular topic or opinion while you make a note of the answers given.
• Observations.  This is a good research instrument to use if you are looking into human behaviors. Different ways of researching this include studying the spontaneous behavior of participants in their everyday life, or something more structured. A structured observation is research conducted at a set time and place where researchers observe behavior as planned and agreed upon with participants.

These are the most common ways of carrying out research, but it is really dependent on your needs as a researcher and what approach you think is best to take. It is also possible to combine a number of research instruments if this is necessary and appropriate in answering your research problem.

Data Collection

How to Collect Data for Your Research   This article covers different ways of collecting data in preparation for writing a thesis.

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RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS FOR DATA COLLECTION (Updated)

2020, Godfred Annum (PhD)

These are the fact finding strategies. They are the tools for data collection. There is no doubt that in Educational Research, data collection, forms an essential component of the research process. This is because it enables the researcher to obtain relevant information or gain the experience of others from which he or she imbibes lessons for the enrichment of his report. In this respect, different procedures and data collection instruments have to be employed. These principally include questionnaire, interview, observation, reading and transcribing. Since data collected specifically in qualitative research has to help in answering research questions, the researcher must carefully select the informants (respondents) to be interviewed or administered with questionnaire. He or she must carefully choose relevant documents to be read or visual materials to be observed. This means that research question or statement of hypothesis significant in quantitative research determines the appropriate data collection instrument for a research. Essentially the researcher must ensure that the instrument chosen is valid and reliable. In data collection, it is important to find out which instrument or tool will better serve the purpose of the study, in order to obtain the right information that will answer the research questions. Please note that the validity and reliability of any research project depends largely on the appropriateness of such instruments. Whatever procedure one uses to collect data, it must primarily be critically examined to check the extent at which it is likely to give you the expected results. Today, the use of both digital and analogue recorders enhance data collection. Technical gadgets such as the audio and video recorders, cameras, telephones, computers, fax, and e-mail systems have gained importance as auxiliary tools and equipment in the data collection processes. Sketching in drawing is one of the traditional artistic skills, by which fine artists, industrial designers and architectural designers collect data for studio and design-based research.

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World Conference on Qualitative Research

WCQR 2019: Computer Supported Qualitative Research pp 33–41 Cite as

The Researcher as an Instrument

• Safary Wa-Mbaleka 17  
• Conference paper
• First Online: 17 September 2019

2466 Accesses

3 Citations

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 1068))

In qualitative research, there are many different sources of data. Qualitative research data are collected using many different methods. Interestingly, one of these data collection methods is the researcher himself or herself. This is the reason why most experts consider the researcher as an instrument. The question always asked is “What does it really mean?” This chapter explains what it is and what is expected from the researcher in his or her role as an instrument throughout a qualitative research study. The ethical considerations pertaining to this important role are also discussed. This chapter is meant to bring this important role to everyone’s awareness so that rigor in qualitative research can be fostered.

• Rigor in qualitative research
• Data collection
• Data analysis
• Data interpretation
• Research instrument
• Trustworthiness
• Ethical considerations

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Wa-Mbaleka, S. (2020). The Researcher as an Instrument. In: Costa, A., Reis, L., Moreira, A. (eds) Computer Supported Qualitative Research. WCQR 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1068. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31787-4_3

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