This document discusses research instruments and their development. It covers: 1. Drafting measurement questions such as open-ended, closed-ended, dichotomous, and rating scale questions for surveys and checklists. 2. Assembling, pre-testing, and revising instruments to ensure questions are appropriate and identify issues before full data collection. 3. Testing instruments for reliability to ensure consistent results over time and validity to confirm they accurately measure the intended constructs. Characteristics of good research instruments and the process of designing questionnaires are also outlined.

1. FOREST RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY
BSH 365
Prabin Pandit
Assistant lecturer
(PUCEF)
foresterpandit@gmail.com

2. Unit-6: Questionaries development
• Drafting measurement questions/checklists/schedules
• Assembling , Pre- testing and revising instruments
• Test of validity and reliability of instruments
• Finalizing and formatting the instruments

3. Research instruments
• A Research Instrument is a tool used to collect, measure, and analyze data
related to your research interests.
• A research instrument can include interviews, tests, surveys, or checklists
etc.
• The Research Instrument is usually determined by researcher and is tied to the
study methodology.

4. Characteristics of a Good Research Instrument
• Valid and reliable
• Based on a conceptual framework
• Must gather data suitable for and relevant to the research topic
• Able to test hypothesis and/or answer proposed research questions under
investigation
• Free of bias and appropriate for the context, culture, and diversity of the study
site
• Contains clear and definite instructions to use the instrument

5. Questionaries designing process

6. Drafting measurement questions/checklists/schedules
Open ended questionaries: questions that allow respondents to answer in open text format
Example:
• Do you think community forestry helps to improve livelihood of the forest dependent
people?
• What you think about existing revenue sharing of CFUG?
• What you feel about the restructuring of Forestry organization in federal Nepal?
• What are your suggestions to make more collaboration with CFUG and local
government?

7. Drafting measurement questions/checklists/schedules
Closed ended questionaries: questions that can only be answered by selecting from a
limited number of options, usually multiple-choice questions with a single-word answer ,
'yes' or 'no', or a rating scale (e.g. from strongly agree to strongly disagree).
Example:
• What is the area of your community forest?
• Are you being the member of CFUG present or previous?
• From your perspectives, which level of government should monitor the CFUG?
a. Federal level b. Provincial level c. local level

8. Drafting measurement questions/checklists/schedules
Dichotomous question: Belonging to the closed-ended family of questions, dichotomous
questions are ones that only offer two possible answers, which are typically presented to
survey takers in the following format – Yes or No, True or False, Agree or Disagree and
Fair or Unfair.
Example:
• Are local people (CFUG) involved in collection of Satuwa?
a. Yes b. No
• Have you think any change in benefit sharing mechanism within CFUG?
a. Yes b. No

9. Drafting measurement questions/checklists/schedules
Rating scale/Likert scale question:
Example: What you think on the statement that CFUG is supportive to local governance system
strengthening?
a. Strongly agree b. Agree c. Neutral d. Disagree e. strongly disagree

10. Assembling , Pre- testing and revising instruments
• The practice of pretesting is highly regarded as an effective technique for improving
validity in qualitative data.
• Pretesting involves simulating the formal data collection process on a small scale to identify
practical problems with regard to data collection instruments, sessions, and methodology.
• The value of pretesting can lead to detecting errors, word ambiguity, as well as discovering
possible flaws in survey measurement variables.
• Pretesting can also provide advance warning about how or why a main research project can
fail.

11. Assembling , Pre- testing and revising instruments
• A typical pretest in qualitative research involves administering the interview to a group of
individuals that have similar characteristics to the target study population, and in a manner
that replicates how the data collection session will be administered
• Pretesting provides an opportunity to make revisions to study materials and data collection
procedures to ensure that appropriate questions are being
• It is vital that pretests be conducted systematically and include practice for all personnel
who will be engaged in data collection procedures for the eventual main study.

12. Reliability of instruments
• In research, the term reliability means " repeatability" or "consistency"
• It is the degree to which an assessment tool produces stable and consistent results.
• Reliability is the degree of consistency with which the attributes or variables are measured
by an instrument.
• A test is considered reliable if researcher frequently gets the same reading at different time
interval. Eg. Diameter measurement of tree.
• Reliability is the degree of consistency with which an instrument measures the attribute for
which it is designed to measure.
• Reliability is defined as the ability of an instrument to create reproducible results.

13. Validity of instruments
• Validity refers to an instrument or test actually testing what it suppose to be testing.
- Treece and Treece
• Validity refers to the degree to which an instrument measures what it suppose to measuring.
- Polit and Hungler.
• Validity is the appropriateness, meaning, fullness and usefulness of the interference made
from the scoring of the instrument.
- American Psychological Foundation.

14. Types of Validity
FACE VALIDITY: Face validity involves an overall look of an
instrument regarding its appropriateness to measure a particular
attribute or phenomenon.
CONTENT VALIDITY: Content validity is concerned with
scope of coverage of the content area to be measured.
CRITERION VALIDITY: This type of validity is a
relationship between measurements of the instrument with some
other external criteria.
CONSTRUCT VALIDITY : It refers to the extent to which
one instrument correlate with other instrument measure similar
construct.

15. Reliability & Validity

16. Thank You