Instrument Design

SRC can help in the design of different types of data collection instruments, including interview schedules for telephone or face-to-face interviewing, self-administered questionnaires, and forms for abstracting records. The type of instrument used may vary from an open-ended question guide for depth interviews to a fixed-format series of items with precoded response categories. In all cases, Center staff work closely with investigators to determine the most appropriate instrument for the subject matter and design of the study.

Within the substantive framework of a study, our goal is to design instruments that

• ask each question in a way that makes sense to respondents and avoids biasing the answers;
• maintain the respondent's interest and minimize inconvenience;
• facilitate clear recording of answers; and
• collect data in a form that is efficient for later processing.

One of the Center's principal missions is to participate in the development of new methodologies for survey research, particularly in the area of instrument design. Accordingly, the Center actively supports experiments to measure the effects of varying question wording, question sequence, response format, and overall layout. Our computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) facility (see below) is an ideal setting for such experiments, since it can handle complex questionnaires and facilitates random assignment of respondents and conditions.

For a brochure (pdf) or more information on instrument design, please contact us by phone at 510-642-6578, or e-mail srcinfo@berkeley.edu.