forest

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