Research Instruments

Question: Discuss about practical and ethical issues an experience of the survey. Answer: It is very important to choose proper instrument for conducting the research work. The most popular instrument for collecting the quantitative data from the sample population of the research work is survey questionnaire. In order to conduct a survey, the questionnaire design is very vital. The data collection method of the qualitative research work can be efficiently done by using the interview. In order to conduct the interview, an interview guide is required (Krathwohl, 2009). Practical and ethical issues: The effectiveness of the research work is dependent on the questionnaire used for the data collection method. There are two types of questions: close ended and open ended questions. The questions that have some options or the multiple choice questions are the close ended questions and the questions which required some descriptive answers are considered as the open ended questions (Bryman, 2006). The questions should be attractive also which can ensure that the respondents will not be bored at the time of give their responses to the questions. Generally, the quantitative data are gathered through the use of close ended questions. On the other hand, the open ended questions are used for the collection of qualitative data (Johnson Onwuegbuzie, 2004). Use of the questionnaires for the survey method is associated with some ethical considerations. Before conducting the survey, the consent of the respondents should be taken. The questions should be simple and straightly connected to the research topic. The language of the questions should be clear and formal (Onwuegbuzie Leech, 2006). The questions of the interview should not harm anyones sentiment. The interviewer should not ask any personal question which is not related to the research work. Like the survey, the consent of the respondents is required before conducting the interview (Venkatesh, Brown Bala, 2013). Experience of the survey: The survey was little bit lengthy as it was almost 7 pages long. Generally, people pay little attention to conduct a lengthy survey. Length of 3-4 pages is quite effective for gathering the feedbacks of common people. The questions were good enough to gather the feedbacks against the infrastructure of the university, but too many questions were used in the same area. I got tired to answer some the questions which are about the same fact. The open ended questions were good to collect the viewpoints of the students about the infrastructure of the university and the experiences gathered by the students to complete the study within the university. The questions were clear enough to understand the meaning and then give proper answer to the questions. The questions can be treated as leading as these were able to collect the details about the different types of experiences of the students. I would like to prefer the closed questions, because these questions are less time consuming. Choosing an option from some specific alternatives is much easier than providing written answers. The overall experience can be shared through the use of the close ended questions where the answers to the open ended questions is required to be analyzed to get the idea about the overall experience i.e., whether it is good or bad. I would like to choose the close ended questions for my own research work. Common people have less interest to give responses to the work of another person. In this context, too lengthy questions which require a lot of words to be written will not be able to get the desired level of interest of the target population of the data collection. As the close ended questions takes less time for thinking about the answers, the people will be able to give their responses quickly. The answers which are come within an instance are more effective to know the actual perception of the people. This activity helped me a lot to understand the practical implementation of the data collection process through the use of the survey questionnaire. I have gathered the knowledge of practical issues from my own experience of participating in a survey. I will use this experience in my future research work to achieve the desired level of success by avoiding the potential issues. I will avoid the use of the facts which made me less interested to take participate in the survey such as the wordy open ended questions or similar types of questions. I will also try to design a short questionnaire of 3 to 4 pages. References: Bryman, A. (2006). Integrating quantitative and qualitative research: how is it done?.Qualitative research,6(1), 97-113. Johnson, R. B., Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2004). Mixed methods research: A research paradigm whose time has come.Educational researcher,33(7), 14-26. Krathwohl, D. R. (2009).Methods of educational and social science research: The logic of methods. Waveland Press. Onwuegbuzie, A. J., Leech, N. L. (2006). Linking Research Questions to Mixed Methods Data Analysis Procedures 1.The Qualitative Report,11(3), 474-498. Venkatesh, V., Brown, S. A., Bala, H. (2013). Bridging the Qualitative-Quantitative Divide: Guidelines for Conducting Mixed Methods Research in Information Systems.MIS quarterly,37(1), 21-54