Assignment 4

1)Data's are facts or information used usually to calculate, analyze, or plan something. Facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis.

2) The instrumentation process defines what data need to be collected and the timing of the data collection process. Instrumentation refers to the use of various survey instruments such as questionnaires, interview schedule, rating scale etc.

3) The three different methods of data collection are observation, interview and sociometric technique.

4) Data collection instruments are the devices through which the researcher collects data from the sample. They are divided into three categories’ namely

I-Researcher instruments 

II-subject instruments                                                                                                      

III-Informants instruments

 5) The various types of (i) Research instruments are-

 a) Rating scale- These are the instruments having numerical or descriptive character and the researcher has to rate the performance or behavior of the sample by careful observation.

 b) Interview schedule- It has specific predetermined questions which has to be asked by the interviewer at the time of interview to avoid time delay and unwanted questions.

 c) Tally Sheet- It bears a number of desirable behaviors and the researcher has to tally it with the number of occurrence of that behavior.

 d) Anecdotal record–This record gives a brief description about one’s evaluation, interpretation of an observation or some general and specific views about the sample.

 e) Checklist- It possesses the general characteristics of a behavior and the researcher only observes whether that particular behavior is present or not.

 ii) Subject instruments are-

 a) Questionnaire- It bears a number of questions related to a specific area according to the need of the researcher. These questions may be of true/false type or MCQ type. The subject has to response accordingly.

 b) Attitude scale- There are various types of attitude scales. It may be an eleven point scale or a five point scale. Researcher has to rate according to the desirability of the attitude.

 c) Performance inventory- It is used to rate the performance on a specific trait.

 d) Projective devices- It projects or predicts the amount of a particular trait such as interest, personality, motivation in an individual in future. The tests like thematic appreciation test, Rorschach ink blot test are the examples.

 6) An unobtrusive measure is a method of making observations without the knowledge of those being observed. Unobtrusive measures are designed to minimize a major problem in social research, which is how a subject’s awareness of the research project affects behavior and distorts research results. The main drawback, however, is that there is a very limited range of information that can be gathered this way.

 Examples are-

 I) One way to assess the effect of racial integration in schools is to compare the academic records of students educated in schools whose student populations vary in their degree of racial heterogeneity.

 ii) Access the level of discipline among students in the playground.

 7) Different Scales of measurements are-

a. Nominal Scale: It is simply a system of assigning number symbols to events in order to label them Example: assigning numbers to football players in order to identify them just for convenience, no quantitative value is present here.

 b. Ordinal Scale: The lowest level of the ordered scale that is commonly used is the ordinal scale .This scale places events in order .Example- Rank orders represent ordinal scales,a student’s rank in his graduation class involves the use of ordinal scale .These scales have no absolute values .All that we can say is that one person is higher or lower in rank on the scale. It just mentions greater than or less than without stating how much greater or less.

 c. Interval scale: The interval scale has equal interval between two consecutive points. The interval between 1 and 2 equals the difference between 2 and 3. In this case the intervals are adjusted in terms of some rule that has been established as a basis for making the units equal. These scales can have an arbitrary zero .it lacks a true zero .The Fahrenheit scale is an example of an interval scale.

 d. Ratio Scale: It incorporates all the powers of previous three Scales. They have an absolute or true zero of measurement .Example- measurement of physical dimensions like height, weight, distance and area.