what are research instruments and examples

Research Methodologies: Research Instruments

• Research Methodology Basics
• Research Instruments
• Types of Research Methodologies

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Types of Research Instruments

A research instrument is a tool you will use to help you collect, measure and analyze the data you use as part of your research.  The choice of research instrument will usually be yours to make as the researcher and will be whichever best suits your methodology. 

There are many different research instruments you can use in collecting data for your research:

• Interviews  (either as a group or one-on-one). You can carry out interviews in many different ways. For example, your interview can be structured, semi-structured, or unstructured. The difference between them is how formal the set of questions is that is asked of the interviewee. In a group interview, you may choose to ask the interviewees to give you their opinions or perceptions on certain topics.
• Surveys  (online or in-person). In survey research, you are posing questions in which you ask for a response from the person taking the survey. You may wish to have either free-answer questions such as essay style questions, or you may wish to use closed questions such as multiple choice. You may even wish to make the survey a mixture of both.
• Focus Groups.  Similar to the group interview above, you may wish to ask a focus group to discuss a particular topic or opinion while you make a note of the answers given.
• Observations.  This is a good research instrument to use if you are looking into human behaviors. Different ways of researching this include studying the spontaneous behavior of participants in their everyday life, or something more structured. A structured observation is research conducted at a set time and place where researchers observe behavior as planned and agreed upon with participants.

These are the most common ways of carrying out research, but it is really dependent on your needs as a researcher and what approach you think is best to take. It is also possible to combine a number of research instruments if this is necessary and appropriate in answering your research problem.

Data Collection

How to Collect Data for Your Research   This article covers different ways of collecting data in preparation for writing a thesis.

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Research Instruments

• Resources for Identifying Instruments
• Assessing Instruments
• Obtaining the Full Instrument
• Getting Help

What are Research Instruments?

A research instrument is a tool used to collect, measure, and analyze data related to  your subject.

Research instruments can  be tests , surveys , scales ,  questionnaires , or even checklists .

To assure the strength of your study, it is important to use previously validated instruments!

Getting Started

Already know the full name of the instrument you're looking for? 

• Start here!

Finding a research instrument can be very time-consuming!

This process involves three concrete steps:

It is common that sources will not provide the full instrument, but they will provide a citation with the publisher. In some cases, you may have to contact the publisher to obtain the full text.

Research Tip :  Talk to your departmental faculty. Many of them have expertise in working with research instruments and can help you with this process.

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• Last Updated: Aug 27, 2023 9:34 AM
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Keep up-to-date on postgraduate related issues with our quick reads written by students, postdocs, professors and industry leaders.

What is a Research Instrument?

• By DiscoverPhDs
• October 9, 2020

The term research instrument refers to any tool that you may use to collect or obtain data, measure data and analyse data that is relevant to the subject of your research.

Research instruments are often used in the fields of social sciences and health sciences. These tools can also be found within education that relates to patients, staff, teachers and students.

The format of a research instrument may consist of questionnaires, surveys, interviews, checklists or simple tests. The choice of which specific research instrument tool to use will be decided on the by the researcher. It will also be strongly related to the actual methods that will be used in the specific study.

What Makes a Good Research Instrument?

A good research instrument is one that has been validated and has proven reliability. It should be one that can collect data in a way that’s appropriate to the research question being asked.

The research instrument must be able to assist in answering the research aims , objectives and research questions, as well as prove or disprove the hypothesis of the study.

It should not have any bias in the way that data is collect and it should be clear as to how the research instrument should be used appropriately.

What are the Different Types of Interview Research Instruments?

The general format of an interview is where the interviewer asks the interviewee to answer a set of questions which are normally asked and answered verbally. There are several different types of interview research instruments that may exist.

• A structural interview may be used in which there are a specific number of questions that are formally asked of the interviewee and their responses recorded using a systematic and standard methodology.
• An unstructured interview on the other hand may still be based on the same general theme of questions but here the person asking the questions (the interviewer) may change the order the questions are asked in and the specific way in which they’re asked.
• A focus interview is one in which the interviewer will adapt their line or content of questioning based on the responses from the interviewee.
• A focus group interview is one in which a group of volunteers or interviewees are asked questions to understand their opinion or thoughts on a specific subject.
• A non-directive interview is one in which there are no specific questions agreed upon but instead the format is open-ended and more reactionary in the discussion between interviewer and interviewee.

What are the Different Types of Observation Research Instruments?

An observation research instrument is one in which a researcher makes observations and records of the behaviour of individuals. There are several different types.

Structured observations occur when the study is performed at a predetermined location and time, in which the volunteers or study participants are observed used standardised methods.

Naturalistic observations are focused on volunteers or participants being in more natural environments in which their reactions and behaviour are also more natural or spontaneous.

A participant observation occurs when the person conducting the research actively becomes part of the group of volunteers or participants that he or she is researching.

Final Comments

The types of research instruments will depend on the format of the research study being performed: qualitative, quantitative or a mixed methodology. You may for example utilise questionnaires when a study is more qualitative or use a scoring scale in more quantitative studies.

A concept paper is a short document written by a researcher before starting their research project, explaining what the study is about, why it is needed and the methods that will be used.

You’ve impressed the supervisor with your PhD application, now it’s time to ace your interview with these powerful body language tips.

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Academic conferences are expensive and it can be tough finding the funds to go; this naturally leads to the question of are academic conferences worth it?

This post gives you the best questions to ask at a PhD interview, to help you work out if your potential supervisor and lab is a good fit for you.

Fabian’s in the final year of his PhD research at Maastricht University. His project is about how humans learn numbers and how hands might help that process; this is especially useful for children developing their maths skills.

Rose is a final year PhD student at the University of St Andrews. Her research is focussed on modelling stars similar to the sun in its youth and understanding better the magnetic fields of these stars.

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Research Instruments: Surveys, Questionnaires, and other Measurement Tools

• Descriptions and Search Tips
• Last Updated: Apr 4, 2024 1:48 PM
• URL: https://researchguides.uvm.edu/researchinstruments

Research Instruments (Tests & Measures)

How to use this guide, what are research instruments.

• Locating Research Instruments
• CINAHL (Nursing & Allied Health)
• PsycInfo (Psychology)
• ERIC (Education)

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For more help on this topic, please contact our Research Help Desk: [email protected] or 781-768-7303. Stay up-to-date on our current hours . Note: all hours are EST.

This Guide was created by Carolyn Swidrak (retired).

This guide will help you discover resources related to research instruments. This includes information about various measurement tools, including reviews, how to obtain a copy, articles about studies that use various instruments, and more.

If you are a doctoral student you may need to find a research instrument for your own use. Other students may need to find information about the use of research instruments. A good way to discover research instruments that may be relevant to your own research is by reading the methods section in research articles.

This guide provides information on how to find information about research instruments

• using credible websites, or

Note: While the Regis Library can help you find information about tests and measures, we cannot obtain research instruments for you.

Research instruments are devices used to measure or collect data on various variables being studied. Examples include measurement tools such as:

• questionnaires
• observation schedules
• interview schedules
• Next: Locating Research Instruments >>
• Last Updated: Feb 29, 2024 3:35 PM
• URL: https://libguides.regiscollege.edu/research_instruments

HOW to Find Research Instruments

Books about research.

Information Literacy Coordinator

What are Research Instruments?

Research instruments are tools used to collect, measure, and analyze data related to your subject.

Research instruments can be  tests ,  surveys ,  scales ,  questionnaires , or even  checklists .

To assure the strength of your study, it is important to use previously validated instruments!

Finding Research Instruments

Sage Research Methods

This database contains information suited to all levels of researchers, from undergrads starting their first projects to the most senior faculty. It contains books, reference works, case studies, sample datasets, and videos. There is everything a researcher needs to design and execute a research project. 

You can explore the Methods Map in this database for guidance on:

• Designing a research project
• Quantitative methods design
• Qualitative methods design
• The practice of data analysis
• and more...

PsycINFO 1887-Current (EbscoHost)  

• This APA database contains useful information on Tests & Measures.                                                                     
• In searching, opt for the Tests & Measures selection to retrieve articles with relevant tests and measures
• Also refer to this LINK for more details about using PsycInfo
• Link to some educational resources on research instruments
• Selecting, developing, and evaluating research instruments

BOOKS from the ZU Library

Developing Research Instruments

Suggested sources of information:

• Electronic Questionnaires Design and Implementation
• Fundamental issues in questionnaire design

Instrument Development : Sage Research Methods                                     

Tips for developing and testing questionnaires

Using Cronbach’s Alpha When Developing and Reporting Research Instruments

• Magowe, M. K. M. (2012). Procedures for an instrument development study : The Botswana experience: Research instrument development procedures.  International Nursing Review,  59 (2), 281-288.  https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-7657.2011.00950.x
• Zhang, H., & Schuster, T. (2018). Questionnaire instrument development in primary health care research : A plea for the use of Bayesian inference.  Canadian Family Physician,  64 (9), 699-700.

Assessing the Reliability and Validity of Research Instruments

It is important to assess an instrument's validity and reliability before you try to obtain its full text.

• Open  this link  for information on  How to Determine the Validity and Reliability of an Instrument
• Article: Mohamad, M. M., Sulaiman, N. L., Sern, L. C., & Salleh, K. M. (2015). Measuring the validity and reliability of research instruments.  Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences ,  204 , 164-171.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.08.129
• Chapter: Stapleton, L. M. (2019). In Hancock G. R., Stapleton L. M. and Mueller R. O.(Eds.),  The Reviewer’s guide to quantitative methods in the social sciences   (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315755649. Chapter 35

Where you find that data depends on whether the instrument is "published" or "unpublished." 

Published Instruments

Published means commercially published, and that the instrument is typically available for sale. you can find reviews of many published instruments, including validity and reliability data, in  mental measurements yearbook , unpublished instruments, unpublished means that the instrument has not been commercially published.  if the instrument is   unpublished ,   contact the author directly., you may be able to find the full text of unpublished instruments using the  library's databases..

• If you find the full text, read the  permission terms  to determine if it is available for reuse or if you will need to contact the author/publisher.
• Look for the author's email address or phone number to contact them, also letting them know that you are a student.
• If the email bounces back or phone number doesn't work, search for their institution affiliation as this may lead to their contact information. 
• Ask your professor or  a librarian  for help! They might be able to help. 
• If you have tried all of the above and still cannot locate the author, see if the author has any co-authors (in other papers) that you can contact.
• Contact authors of articles that mention the instrument you are looking for, and ask them how they obtained permission.
• Last Updated: Aug 31, 2022 3:49 PM
• URL: https://zu.libguides.com/c.php?g=1210895

Advanced Research Instrumentation and Facilities (2006)

Chapter: 2 introduction to instrumentation, 2 introduction to instrumentation.

T his chapter introduces the subject of instrumentation in general; defines the particular instrumentation that is the subject of this report, advanced research instrumentation and facilities (ARIF); and gives examples of ARIF used in various fields.

WHAT IS INSTRUMENTATION, AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Instruments have revolutionized how we look at the world and refined and extended the range of our senses. From the beginnings of the development of the modern scientific method, its emphasis on testable hypotheses required the ability to make quantitative and ever more accurate measurements—for example, of temperature with the thermometer (1593), of cellular structure with the microscope (1595), of the universe with the telescope (1609), and of time itself (to discern longitude at sea) with the marine chronometer (1759). Instruments have been an integral part of our nation’s growth since explorers first set out to map the continent. The establishment of the US Geological Survey had its roots in the exploration of the western United States, and its activities depended critically on advanced surveying instruments.

A large fraction of the differences between 19th century, 20th century, and 21st century science stems directly from the instruments available to explore the world. The scope of research that instrumentation enables has expanded considerably, now encompassing not only the natural (physical and biologic) world but

also many facets of human society and behavior. Instrumentation has often been cited as the pacing factor of research; the productivity of researchers is only as great as the tools they have available to observe, measure, and make sense of nature. As one of the committee’s survey respondents commented,

without continued infrastructure support…. We will see many young investigators changing the nature of the projects and science they do to areas that have less impact but assure better chances of success. The lack of instruments or the ability to upgrade aging local facilities simply dictates the science done in the future. 1

Cutting-edge instruments not only enable new discoveries but help to make the production of knowledge more efficient. Many newly developed instruments are important because they enable us to explore phenomena with more precision and speed. The development of instruments maintains a symbiotic relationship with science as a whole; advanced tools enable scientists to answer increasingly complex questions, and new findings in turn enable the development of more powerful, and sometimes novel, instruments.

Instrumentation facilitates interdisciplinary research. Many of the spectacular scientific, engineering, and medical achievements of the last century followed the same simple paradigm of migration from basic to applied science. For example, as the study of basic atomic and molecular physics matured, the instruments developed for those activities were adopted by chemists and applied physicists. That in turn enabled applications in biological, clinical, and environmental science, driven both by universities and by innovative companies. A number of modern tools that are now essential for medical diagnostics, such as magnetic resonance imaging scanners, were originally developed by physicists and chemists for the advancement of basic research.

WHAT IS “ADVANCED RESEARCH INSTRUMENTATION AND FACILITIES”?

Borrowing from the terminology used by Congress in its request, the committee’s study focuses on the issues surrounding a particular category of instruments and collections of instruments, referred to as advanced research instrumentation and facilities. In the charge to the committee, ARIF is defined as instrumentation with capital costs between $2 million and several tens of millions of dollars. In that range, there is no general instrumentation program at either the

National Science Foundation (NSF) or the National Institutes of Health (NIH), yet they are the primary federal agencies that support instrumentation for research outside the national laboratories. The instruments and facilities in this price range fall under neither NSF’s Major Research Instrumentation program nor its Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction account. The committee found that there are no general ARIF programs at the other federal funding agencies.

The committee identifies other characteristics of ARIF that should be part of its definition. Many qualities distinguish ARIF from more easily acquired instrumentation. The capital cost of ARIF is not its distinguishing factor, and thus many of the characteristics of and challenges associated with ARIF may apply to instruments and facilities costing less than $2 million. ARIF are

Difficult for individual investigators to obtain and more commonly acquired by large-scale centers or research programs; it is often necessary to have the consensus of a field when attempting to find support for such an instrument or collection of instruments.

Often in need of a substantial institutional commitment for its acquisition, including the availability of proper space and continued upkeep. Multiple federal and nonfederal sources are needed to meet the initial acquisition cost, but the costs of operation and maintenance often require a substantial and long-term financial commitment from the host institution. Many academic institutions—even major research universities—have no ARIF, and institutions that do have ARIF generally have no more than a handful of such instruments or facilities.

Often dependent on PhD-level technical research support staff to ensure that researchers are able to take full advantage of the unique capabilities of the instrument and to keep them in proper operating condition.

Dependent on relatively high-level decision-making. The investment process for ARIF is likely to include the head of a directorate of NSF, a division or directorate external advisory committee, and the vice-president or vice-provost of research at a university. Identifying or renovating appropriate space for an instrument may require the approval of a university provost or president.

Managed by institutions, not individual investigators, because their administration requires a large financial commitment.

Often funded in ways that cannot be easily tracked. Acquiring instruments and facilities often requires multiple sources of funding to meet the initial capital cost. As a result, it is difficult to obtain an accurate picture of contributions of institutions, states, federal agencies, and other supporters.

ARIF includes both commercially available instruments and specially designed and developed instruments and both physical and nonphysical tools. Specially developed instruments are assembled from many less expensive components to make a new, more advanced and powerful instrument. ARIF may be single standalone instruments, networks, computational modeling applications, computer databases, systems of sensors, suites of instruments, and facilities that house ensembles of interrelated instruments. A number of different funding mechanisms support the wide diversity of ARIF.

ARIF can be loosely categorized in two distinct types of use. Some are “workhorse” instruments, essential to everyday research and training. Others are “racehorse” instruments, newly developed or constantly developing, that are perched on the cutting edge of research. Racehorse instruments, because they are novel, are often easier to justify to potential funders. Both workhorse and racehorse instruments are vital for research, and finding the right balance between the two is a challenge.

The “facilities” portion of “ARIF” was incorporated by the committee to emphasize that some research fields and problems require collections of advanced research instrumentation. As has been described earlier, the changing face of research has demanded that a wide array of instruments be brought to bear on a single problem. Collections of instruments are often essential for meaningful research to occur. To solve some types of scientific problems or to engineer new materials, multiple instruments are necessary to carry out a series of steps or processes. Complementary instruments are more effective when housed side by side and may be far more productive than each one is individually.

Historically, centralized facilities have played a large role in research involving

ARIF instrumentation by consolidating resources, increasing collaboration, and making available rare or unique resources to a large number of users. Most publicly funded centralized facilities are located at universities and national laboratories. The state of US research facilities is often cited as an indicator of the nation’s long-term international competitiveness in research. For example, a 2000 National Academies Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy study of materials facilities noted that “rapid advances in design and capabilities of instrumentation can create obsolescence in 5–8 years.” The study further noted that the overall quality of characterization services provided by materials facilities supporting universities and industry had “lost substantial ground” to Japan and Europe. 2 The committee distinguishes between facilities and centers . A center is defined as a collection of investigators with a particular research focus. A facility is defined as a collection of equipment, instrumentation, technical support personnel, and physical resources that enables investigators to perform research.

In referring to ARIF, the committee excludes facilities that house large assemblies of unrelated or only loosely related equipment and that generally require no targeted support staff. Different research fields require different types of ARIF, and some fields have a larger demand for ARIF than others. ARIF are not distinguished by the diversity of research fields or geographic regions it supports.

EXAMPLES OF ARIF

The research community recognizes the importance of instruments. The National Science Board (NSB) recently identified eight Nobel prizes in physics that were awarded for the development of new or enhanced instrumentation technologies, including electron and scanning tunneling microscopes, laser and neutron spectroscopy, particle detectors, and the integrated circuit. 3 Nobel prizes for the development of instrumentation have been awarded in chemistry and medicine for instrumentation related to nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) or magnetic resonance imaging, and many were also awarded at least in part for the development of ARIF. Many of the ground-breaking instruments that qualified for a Nobel prize or contributed to Nobel prize-winning work began as ARIF and through development have become widely available and more affordable.

Table 2-1 lists the types of ARIF reported to the committee in its survey of institutions. The results of this survey are known to be incomplete and not repre-

TABLE 2-1 Examples of ARIF, by Field

sentative of the state of ARIF on university campuses. Notably absent from this table, for example, are cybertools other than supercomputers, which cost much to develop but little to use. Computer modeling programs are used often by the chemistry and biology community. The cost of acquiring these computational modeling programs is often negligibly small, but the cost of creating them is often substantial. The computational chemistry program, NWChem, for example, cost around $10 million to create and is distributed free. Further details about the committee’s survey and the ARIF reported in it can be found in Appendix C . Table 2-1 is followed by descriptions of several types of ARIF.

Imaging Technologies: From Physics to Biology

Imaging technologies provide many of the best-known examples of the evolution of modern instrumentation. Fifty years ago, studies of the effects of magnetic fields on the nuclear spin states of molecules were at the forefront of esoteric physics research. The earliest magnetic resonance spectrometers were inexpensive to build (they could literally be cobbled together by graduate students from spare radar parts); this was fortunate because measuring nuclear spin properties had no conceivable application. If sensitivity and instrument performance had stayed the same, NMR still would have no conceivable application.

Instead, today magnetic resonance is a fundamental technique for biological imaging and the most important spectroscopic method for chemists, the only one that measures the structure of proteins in their natural environment (in solution). Since 1980, the sensitivity of the best commercially available NMR spectrometers

FIGURE 2-1 Historical capability of NMR spectrometers.

Source: Razvan Teodorescu, “Bruker Biospin Magnets.” Presentation to the National Research Council Committee on High Magnetic Field Science, December 8, 2003.

has improved by a factor of 30. With that advance alone, NMR spectra could be acquired 900 times faster today than 25 years ago. Improvements in resolution and pulse sequences make the advances in NMR spectrometry even more dramatic. Figure 2-1 shows how NMR resolution and sensitivity have progressed since 1980.

Modern, very-high-field NMR spectrometers (high fields help to resolve the many atoms found in large molecules) are complex instruments; the most advanced machines today cost millions of dollars. The next generation, which pushes to still higher magnetic field strengths, will require a concerted effort in superconductor physics and radiofrequency design but will create even further dramatic extensions of the applicability of the technique. 4

The pioneers of magnetic resonance would never have dreamed that 50 years later the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine would have 2,800 papers and 4,500 attendees at its annual meetings. Today, magnetic resonance imaging is a mainstream diagnostic tool, and functional magnetic resonance

imaging (literally, watching people think) promises to revolutionize neuroscience and neurology. Again, the applications and the expense are intimately coupled to the sophistication of the technology: a modern, commercially available 4 Tesla whole-body magnetic resonance imager can easily cost $10 million to acquire and site, and it requires highly specialized technical staffing to maintain its perfor-

mance. For the institutions that responded to the committee’s survey, the annual cost of operation for magnetic resonance imagers averaged 10% of the capital cost.

Modern methods in optical and x-ray imaging also reflect the evolution from physics to more applied science. They are not simply descendants of van Leeuwenhoek’s crude microscope and Röntgen’s x-ray hand picture; they embody

and enhance our understanding of molecular and cellular structure and function. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that the most important application of the crude lasers of the 1960s was as inspiration for science-fiction television and movie weapons. Today, advanced laser systems permit microscopy hundreds of times deeper into tissue than would be possible with an ordinary microscope, and they are central to the rapidly growing field of molecular imaging.

The National Cancer Institute has identified molecular imaging as an “extraordinary opportunity” with high scientific priority for cancer research. The most promising approach is the development of new technologies and methods to improve the imaging and molecular-level characterization of biologic systems.

In the committee’s surveys of researchers and institutions, NMR spectrometers were among the most commonly cited individual instruments, and advanced models were among the most commonly sought. The availability of ARIF in general was of concern to many researchers for whom access to increasingly advanced instruments was the key to advancing science and providing solutions to societal problems. The NMR spectrometer, as it becomes more and more sophisticated, exemplifies the issue. As one researcher noted,

there is an increasing need for advanced research instrumentation in many fields. Many instruments that start out appearing to be expensive and esoteric rapidly become mainstream. The good side of this is that these instruments fuel impressive scientific results. The bad side is that scientists who do not have access to these instruments tend to fall behind in terms of their results and in what experiments they can propose in grant applications.

… Five or six years ago, few labs had access to very high field spectrometers (750 MHz or above), but now the field has been pushed ahead to where many … projects require such instrumentation. A significant number of researchers have access to these machines, but many either don’t have access or must drive/fly long distances to obtain access. While on paper it sounds fine to ask a researcher to travel to a high field spectrometer, in practice this is very cumbersome and does not lead to cutting edge results. For any particular NMR project, a dozen or more different NMR experiments must be carried out on a sample…. Traveling back and forth to a “richer” or better endowed university is not conducive to getting results. 5

High-Speed Sequencers and the Human Genome Project

One of the major accomplishments of science in the 20th century was the deciphering of the human genome. That achievement made it possible to understand the molecular basis of human life in unprecedented detail. The potential for

improving health and curing disease has already been demonstrated, but most of the benefits remain to be seen. The achievement will provide the basis of discoveries far into the future.

The genetic information in DNA is stored as a sequence of bases, and DNA sequencing is the determination of the exact order of the base pairs in a segment of DNA. Two groups, in the United States and the United Kingdom, first accomplished sequencing in 1977 and were awarded the 1980 Nobel prize in chemistry. However, their approaches were time-consuming and labor-intensive. Further

advances came in 1986-1987 with the development of fluorescence-based detection of the bases. That led quickly to automated high-throughput DNA sequencers that were soon commercialized and made generally available to the research community. However, the speed of those devices was still not sufficient to decode the human genome in any reasonable amount of time.

Beginning in 1990, the pressures of approaching the daunting task of sequencing the human genome produced a number of new advances, which resulted in a fully automated high-throughput parallel-processing device that was 10 times faster than the older method. The progress and success of the Human Genome Project constitute a case study in instrumentation and of how, without develop-

ment, it can become a pacing factor for research. The leaders of the sequencing efforts at the Department of Energy Office of Science and NIH recognized that the existing technology was not capable of sequencing fast and cost-effectively. As a result, they invested substantially not only in researchers but in the further development of sequencing technologies. The tandem approach proved very successful.

Genome sequencing requires the assembly of millions of fragments into a complete sequence. By itself, the mechanical process of sequencing was not sufficient to map the human genome in a reasonable time. The project was aided by computer algorithms developed by researchers in the late eighties and early nineties. The confluence of hardware and software development made it possible to complete the human genome sequence years before it had been considered possible. It also provided a general approach to large-scale sequencing that has resulted in the understanding of the genomes of a wide variety of organisms. The knowledge of genomes of a number of organisms has vastly accelerated discovery in basic biology research.

The history of the genome project shows how technology development can influence the course of discovery. Hardware and software were both needed and

were synergistic. The parallel development of sequencers and software demonstrates that not only key insights but also incremental improvements can make a qualitative difference in the progress of science.

Today, computers are vital tools to scientists and engineers. Indispensable for communication and often used in conjunction with many instruments, the computer can also be a scientific instrument itself. This section gives examples of three types of cybertools that are fundamental to several fields of research: software, data collections, and surveys.

Although one of the first scientific applications of digital computers in the 1940s was to try to predict the weather—with grants from the US Weather Service, the Navy, and the Air Force to John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University—scientific applications software aimed at obtaining

a better understanding of physical phenomena did not become widely available until the 1960s and 1970s. Scientists and engineers have since developed a broad array of scientific software applications that are acknowledged to be indispensable in the scientist’s toolkit—the software equivalents of the NMR spectrometer and other instruments described above. Examples of such applications software in use today are Gaussian, a molecular modeling code that is used by experimental and theoretical chemists to understand molecular structure and processes better and more easily by performing computer “experiments” rather than chemistry experiments; the Community Climate System Model, which is used by the climate research community to understand the evolution of past and future climates; and CHARMM and AMBER, used by the biomolecular community to understand the structure and dynamics of proteins and enzymes.

Scientific applications, such as Gaussian, often began as small research projects in the laboratory of a single investigator. However, as the capabilities of computers increased, the applications included models of the physical and chemical processes of higher and higher fidelity, and the software became more and more complex. Today, many of the scientific applications involve hundreds of thousands to millions of lines of code, took hundreds of person-years to design and build, and require substantial continuing support to maintain, port to new computers, and continue to evolve the capabilities of the software as new knowledge accumulates. The cost of developing major new scientific and engineering applications can be more than $10 million, and the cost of continuing maintenance, support, and evolution exceeds $2 million per year. Thus, these software applications are well within the category of advanced research instrumentation being considered in this report.

Digital data collections also provide a fundamentally new approach to research. By gathering data generated in studies on related topics, digital data collections themselves become a new source of knowledge. One of the best examples of a large scientific database that is integral to progress in science and engineering is GenBank, the genetic sequence database maintained for the biomedical research community by NIH. GenBank was born at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1982, well before the beginning of the Human Genome Project. When the Human Genome Project came into being and the number of available sequences exploded, GenBank became an indispensable repository for the data being generated. Today GenBank contains over 49 billion nucleotide bases in over 45 million sequence records, and the amount of data is increasing exponentially with a doubling time

of less than two years. All sequencing data produced by the Human Genome Project must be deposited in GenBank before it can be published in the literature. Because of the unique role now being played by digital data collections in research and education, the NSB recently drafted a report on the subject, finding that such collections are used in most fields of science, from astronomy (as in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey) to biology (as in The Arabidopsis Information Resource). 6 It concluded that “digital data collections serve as an instrument for performing analysis with an accuracy that was not possible previously or, by combining information in new ways, from a perspective that was previously inaccessible.” The collections are often fundamental tools of the social sciences, housing extensive survey and census results and archived media.

Especially in the social sciences, the survey itself is a scientific instrument that can cost millions of dollars a year to maintain. Longitudinal surveys, large and often decades-long surveys, are analogs to the telescopes and microscopes of the other sciences. These surveys are not created by single investigators; they are often sources of basic data used by arrays of disciplines. Increasingly, surveys collect not only social data but also biomedical data (e.g., cheek swabs for DNA analysis) or are integrated with satellite down feeds or inputs from air quality sensors. The data from these surveys is expensive to collect and document as well as make publicly accessible to researchers while preserving anonymity and confidentiality. They are very expensive to collect in any given round let alone over time. They are also expensive to document and make accessible as public use files, preserving anonymity and confidentiality. Frequently, the data for such surveys can only be collected by one or two survey research centers in the country, such as the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, that possess the ongoing human and local infrastructure to manage them at affordable scale.

Computational technology has advanced to the point where computers can be used as tools not only for remotely accessing databases and collaborating with other researchers but for remotely accessing and controlling scientific instruments. A 900-MHz virtual NMR facility at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, for example, supports a national community of users, roughly half of whom use the instrument remotely. The technology can improve and provide less expensive access to instruments for geographically remote users and can permit more effective use of instruments. The openness of this technology and the ability to book at all hours may be a means to generate more revenue from user fees and thus recoup the facility’s operation and maintenance expeditures.

Distributed Advanced Research Instrumentation Systems

Not all advanced research instrumentation is housed in laboratories. Progress in the physics underlying the technological development of modern scientific instruments and their associated cybertools has given rise to an unprecedented explosion in the scope of basic research in the geosciences and biosciences that relies on field observations. Atmospheric scientists, oceanographers, geophysicists, and ecologists are now tackling and solving fundamental problems that require analysis of large numbers of observations that are both time- and space-dependent. Some of the sensors and tools required to make the necessary measurements can be deployed on familiar mobile instrumental platforms, such as oceanographic ships, research aircraft, and earth-orbiting satellites; but many need to be distributed in sensor networks of local, regional, or even global scale. Both physical and wireless networks can be used to transmit data to off-site storage facilities.

A good example of a distributed sensor network is the Global Seismographic Network (GSN), which consists of 130 seismic stations distributed on continental landmasses, oceanic islands, and the ocean bottom. GSN recording and nearly real-time distribution of seismic-wave parameters measurements at numerous sites over the globe serve the needs of basic research in geophysics (such as seismic tomography of the earth’s interior structure) and of applied geosciences (such as earthquake and tsunami monitoring and seismic monitoring of nuclear testing).

Seismometers were originally developed to study earthquakes, but their modern versions, deployed in geographically distributed networks, record data that can be processed with sophisticated computing methods to produce images of the solid earth. The resulting “seismic imaging” is science’s most important source of knowledge about the structure of the earth’s interior and its consequences for humanity with respect to, for example, mineral and energy resources, earthquakes and volcanic hazards.

Today’s seismograph system takes advantage of modern off-the-shelf hardware for many of its components. Global positioning system (GPS) receivers provide the accurate timing required, off-the-shelf electronic amplifiers generate little noise or distortion, and commercial analog-to-digital converters with true 24-bit or higher resolution are an improvement over custom-designed “gain-ranging” systems; but the primary sensor of a modern seismometer still requires unique design to meet a combination of stringent requirements. To detect the smallest signals above the earth’s background “hum,” the self-excitation of the pendulum sensor by Brownian noise must be less than that caused by shaking the instrument’s foundation with an acceleration of 1 nm/s 2 across a wide frequency band of 10 −4 -100 Hz. Furthermore, to make faithful records of the largest earthquakes, the response across the same frequency band must be linear up to excitation amplitudes that are 10 12 times greater than the smallest detectable signals. No company in the United States produces sensors with those capabilities, and no US universities train engineers in seismometer design.

Environmental sensor systems must often be installed in remote field locations, and this poses difficulties not encountered in housing instruments in a laboratory setting. For example, seismometers must be installed in ways that isolate them from drafts, temperature changes, and ambient noise and that protect them from damage by animals and vandalism. Low-power, rugged, and high-capacity data-storage systems are required for remote locations where energy must be provided by fuel cells or batteries recharged by solar or wind-based systems. In locations where Internet service is not available, transmission of data must take advantage of satellites or other telemetry technologies that can substantially add to costs. Although data transmission and interrogation of routine instrument functions can be dealt with remotely, periodic maintenance by technicians is needed

and can account for a large fraction of operation and maintenance costs, especially for large networks with worldwide distribution of stations. Although the combined equipment, installation, and a year of operation and maintenance of an individual station typically will cost between $100,000 and several hundred thousand dollars depending on instrumentation specifications and location (polar regions and ocean-bottom locations are obvious examples of expensive locations), it is clear to the committee that distributed network “instruments” fall well within its definition of ARIF.

Tools for Integrated Circuits

An advanced research instrument may consist of a suite of tools that must be combined to advance a particular field of science and technology and eventually affect society. An excellent example is the microelectronic processing technology

that has been developed over the last 50 years to create integrated circuits (ICs). ICs are found in every electronic product purchased by Americans to enhance our day-to-day living. Communication, education, transportation, defense, health care, and recreation, to name a few examples, have been dramatically transformed by the creation of ICs. In 1947, the first point-contact transistor was demonstrated; it consisted of a sizable chunk of germanium with two gold wires to conduct electricity and enable the demonstration of power gain. A few years later, in 1956, Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley were awarded the Nobel prize in physics for the discovery of the transistor. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s key technological breakthroughs in crystal growth, ion implantation, photolithography, and planar processing paved the way for the creation of the IC. By fabricating the transistor in a planar form, engineers and scientists could envision methods to interconnect the transistors and begin combining them to perform an unlimited number of functions.

In 1971, Intel introduced its 4004 processor that contained 2,300 integrated and interconnected transistors in a 4 × 5 mm area—about 10,000 transistors/cm 2 . In 1997, the Intel Pentium II processor contained 7.5 million transistors in an area of about 8 × 8 mm. The Pentium III has 28 million transistors; by 2006, the industry projects a logic transistor density of 40-80 million per square centimeter! In 2000, Kilby was awarded the Nobel prize for the invention of the IC. Today, the microelectronic processing technology industry has sales of over $150 billion per year. To create such amazing ultra-high-density, small-area ICs requires a suite of planar processing tools, each of which can be categorized as an advanced research instrument but all of which are needed to build the IC.

As the capability of an instrument increases, its price also increases. For example, in 1982, a physical vapor-deposition tool cost about $400,000; whereas in 2002 a physical vapor-deposition tool cost $7 million. This rise in cost reflects substantial gains in the precision and repeatability of vapor deposition. Similar increases in equipment costs have occurred for other tools in the suite as resolution has increased, feature size has been reduced, and overlay accuracy has been improved. The incredible gains demonstrated by the microelectronic processing technology industry were facilitated by placing the suite of tools within specially designed space or clean rooms to ensure defect-free high-density ICs; such special space adds further to the cost of ownership of these advanced research instruments.

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is a broad field that has stemmed from our recently developed ability to manipulate atomic and molecular objects with dimensions 1-100 nm—a length scale that has become increasingly important in pushing the boundaries of operation and performance. It involves the ability to engineer materials on a

nanometer scale by placing atoms into predetermined locations. In light of the broad goals and possible applications of nanotechnology, a large array of synergistic tools has been developed.

A primary need in nanotechnology is the ability to “see” the locations of specific atoms. That has been accomplished largely through the development of scanning probe microscopes. These types of microscopes have the ability to scan or map a surface line by line at atomic resolution. Scanning probe microscopes are distinct from most other microscopes in using mechanical devices, instead of light and lenses, to image surfaces.

The development of scanning probe technology began in 1981 with the scanning tunneling microscope in Zurich. Scanning tunneling microscopes use quantum principles not only to visualize surfaces but also to manipulate them by, for example, initiating chemical reactions. In 1986, the Nobel prize in physics was awarded to the discoverers of this microscopy technique; the remarkably short

time after the initial discovery indicates its importance. Since then, an array of other scanning microcopies have been developed, most notably the atomic-force microscope in 1986 that measured attractive or repulsive forces between a very fine tip and a sample. That approach allowed the imaging of nonconductive surfaces, which the tunneling technique could not do. As is often the case, sophisticated software is required to make sense of the information generated by these tools and to integrate it into a comprehensible image.

The effects of nanotechnology are beginning to be felt, for example, in materials science (nanotubes and nanoparticles), in the development of smaller computer chips, and in the manipulation of biologic components to create nanomotors. Recently, there has been interest in the interaction of “hard” and “soft” materials, which require special facilities where semiconductor fabrication and biomolecular assembly can take place in concert.

Tools for Space Exploration

The exploration of space and the solar system depends on a number of ground-based and space instruments, such as the Supernova Acceleration Probe, a satellite observatory that probes the history of the expansion of the universe over the last 10 billion years. The exploration of space has also become increasingly dependent on diagnostic equipment, whose focus is characterization of samples that have been returned to the earth from space. Such instruments as the MegaSIMS combination spectrometer (see Table 2-1 ), which was specially designed to analyze GENESIS NASA solar wind samples, are ARIF that bridge space and earth exploration and enable us to understand better the materials that make up the world around us and the processes that govern its development.

F2-1: Instrumentation is a major pacing factor for research; the productivity of researchers is only as great as the tools they have available to observe, measure, and make sense of nature. Workhorse instruments, once cutting-edge, now enable scientists to perform routine experiments and procedures much faster. Those tools now have efficiency and sensitivity greater by several orders of magnitude than a decade ago. Research that previously took years to conduct now takes hours. Most of the research funded by the federal government today would be impossible with tools that were developed in decades past.

F2-2: As new research questions are answered, more advanced instrumentation needs to be developed to respond to researcher needs. As a result, the useful life of instruments has shortened dramatically in recent decades, and the demand for new instruments has increased. Instruments that used to be relevant to cutting-edge research for a decade or more today last less than half that time. Older instruments are still useful, but the demand for new instruments is greater and greater.

F2-3: ARIF include both workhorse instruments that are used every day by researchers and racehorse instruments that represent the state of the art or are still developing.

F2-4: ARIF often depend on PhD-level technical research support staff for its proper operation and maintenance and to facilitate use by researchers. ARIF require highly specialized knowledge and training for proper operation and use . Nonspecialists increasingly need ARIF for their research and require dedicated personnel to provide expertise.

RECOMMENDATIONS

R2-1: The committee recommends the following definition of ARIF:

Advanced research instrumentation and facilities (ARIF) are instrumentation and facili ties housing collections of closely related or interacting instruments used for research and includes networks of sensors, data collections, and cyberinfrastructure. ARIF are distinguished from other types of instrumentation by being more commonly acquired by large-scale centers or research programs rather than individual investigators. The acquisition of ARIF by scientists often requires a substantial institutional commitment, depends on high-level decision-making at institutions and federal agencies, and is often managed by institutions. Furthermore, the advanced nature of ARIF often requires ex pert PhD-level technical research support staff for its operation and maintenance.

R2-2: Continued and vigorous federal investment in ARIF is essential to enable cutting-edge research in the future.

In recent years, the instrumentation needs of the nation's research communities have changed and expanded. The need for particular instruments has become broader, crossing scientific and engineering disciplines. The growth of interdisciplinary research that focuses on problems defined outside the boundaries of individual disciplines demands more instrumentation. Instruments that were once of interest only to specialists are now required by a wide array of scientists to solve critical research problems. The need for entirely new types of instruments—such as distributed networks, cybertools, and sensor arrays—is increasing. Researchers are increasingly dependent on advanced instruments that require highly specialized knowledge and training for their proper operation and use. The National Academies Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy Committee on Advanced Research Instrumentation was asked to describe the current programs and policies of the major federal research agencies for advanced research instrumentation, the current status of advanced mid-sized research instrumentation on university campuses, and the challenges faced by each. The committee was then asked to evaluate the utility of existing federal programs and to determine the need for and, if applicable, the potential components of an interagency program for advanced research instrumentation.

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Research Instruments

This Guide provides access to databases and web based resources useful for locating a wide variety of research instruments.   

American Thoracic Society Quality of Life Resource Instruments

The goal of this website is to provide information about quality of life and functional status instruments that have been used in assessing patients with pulmonary disease or critical illness.

Cancer Prevention Research Center

Cancer Prevention Research Center provides access to copyrighted psychological measures developed at the University of Rhode Island Cancer Prevention Center. Permission is granted to use these transtheoretical model-based measures for research purposes provided the appropriate citation is referenced. All assessment inventories are available for research purposes only.

CINAHL Plus Research Instruments

CINAHL Plus provides access to research instrument records, research instrument validation records, and research instrument utilization records. These records indicate which studies have used a specific research instrument and include the purpose and variables measured, sample population, methodology, other instruments, items and questions, where the original study was mentioned, and how to obtain the actual research instrument. 

HealthMeasures

Funded by an NIH grant, HealthMeasures consists of four precise, flexible, and comprehensive measurement systems that assess physical, mental, and social health symptoms, well-being, and life satisfaction along with sensory, motor, and cognitive function: PROMIS®, NIH Toolbox®, Neuro-QoL, and ASCQ-Me. 

Medical Outcomes Trust Instruments

Medical Outcomes Trust Instruments provides a list of instruments approved by the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Medical Outcomes Trust. Records include a description of each instrument. Readers must contact the original author or source cited for each tool to obtain approval for its use.

PROQOLID™ was created in 2002 by Mapi Research Trust to extend access to Patient Centered Outcome resources to the scientific community. PROQOLID™ is supplied exponentially with new instruments throughout the year based on recommended sources such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency, and Research and Development scientific community.

Rehabilitation Measures Database

The Rehabilitation Measures Database was developed to help clinicians and researchers identify reliable and valid instruments used to assess patient outcomes during all phases of rehabilitation. This database provides evidence based summaries that include concise descriptions of each instrument's psychometric properties, instructions for administering and scoring each assessment as well as a representative bibliography with citations linked to PubMed abstracts. Whenever possible, we have also included a copy of the instrument for users to download or information about obtaining the instrument. This database was developed through collaboration between the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research (CROR) at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and the Department of Medical Social Sciences Informatics group at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine with funding from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The Rehabilitation Measures Database and its content were created by CROR.   

Types of market research: Methods and examples

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Here at GWI we publish a steady stream of blogs, reports, and other resources that dig deep into specific market research topics.

But what about the folks who’d appreciate a more general overview of market research that explains the big picture? Don’t they deserve some love too?

Of course they do. That’s why we’ve created this overview guide focusing on types of market research and examples. With so many market research companies to choose from, having a solid general understanding of how this sector works is essential for any brand or business that wants to pick the right market research partner.

So with that in mind, let’s start at the very beginning and get clear on…

Market research definition

At the risk of stating the slightly obvious, market research is the gathering and analyzing of data on consumers, competitors, distributors, and markets. As such it’s not quite the same as consumer research , but there’s significant overlap.

Market research matters because it can help you take the guesswork out of getting through to audiences. By studying consumers and gathering information on their likes, dislikes, and so on, brands can make evidence-based decisions instead of relying on instinct or experience. 

What is market research?

Market research is the organized gathering of information about target markets and consumers’ needs and preferences. It’s an important component of business strategy and a major factor in maintaining competitiveness.

If a business wants to know – really know – what sort of products or services consumers want to buy, along with where, when, and how those products and services should be marketed, it just makes sense to ask the prospective audience. 

Without the certainty that market research brings, a business is basically hoping for the best. And while we salute their optimism, that’s not exactly a reliable strategy for success.

What are the types of market research?

Primary research .

Primary research is a type of market research you either conduct yourself or hire someone to do on your behalf.

A classic example of primary research involves going directly to a source – typically customers or prospective customers in your target market – to ask questions and gather information about a product or service. Interviewing methods include in-person, online surveys, phone calls, and focus groups.

The big advantage of primary research is that it’s directly focused on your objectives, so the outcome will be conclusive, detailed insights – particularly into customer views – making it the gold standard.

The disadvantages are it can be time-consuming and potentially costly, plus there’s a risk of survey bias creeping in, in the sense that research samples may not be representative of the wider group.

Secondary research 

Primary market research means you collect the data your business needs, whereas the types of market research known as secondary market research use information that’s already been gathered for other purposes but can still be valuable. Examples include published market studies, white papers, analyst reports, customer emails, and customer surveys/feedback.

For many small businesses with limited budgets, secondary market research is their first choice because it’s easier to acquire and far more affordable than primary research.

Secondary research can still answer specific business questions, but with limitations. The data collected from that audience may not match your targeted audience exactly, resulting in skewed outcomes. 

A big benefit of secondary market research is helping lay the groundwork and get you ready to carry out primary market research by making sure you’re focused on what matters most.

Qualitative research

Qualitative research is one of the two fundamental types of market research. Qualitative research is about people and their opinions. Typically conducted by asking questions either one-on-one or in groups, qualitative research can help you define problems and learn about customers’ opinions, values, and beliefs.

Classic examples of qualitative research are long-answer questions like “Why do you think this product is better than competitive products? Why do you think it’s not?”, or “How would you improve this new service to make it more appealing?”

Because qualitative research generally involves smaller sample sizes than its close cousin quantitative research, it gives you an anecdotal overview of your subject, rather than highly detailed information that can help predict future performance.

Qualitative research is particularly useful if you’re developing a new product, service, website or ad campaign and want to get some feedback before you commit a large budget to it.

Quantitative research

If qualitative research is all about opinions, quantitative research is all about numbers, using math to uncover insights about your audience. 

Typical quantitative research questions are things like, “What’s the market size for this product?” or “How long are visitors staying on this website?”. Clearly the answers to both will be numerical.

Quantitative research usually involves questionnaires. Respondents are asked to complete the survey, which marketers use to understand consumer needs, and create strategies and marketing plans.

Importantly, because quantitative research is math-based, it’s statistically valid, which means you’re in a good position to use it to predict the future direction of your business.

Consumer research 

As its name implies, consumer research gathers information about consumers’ lifestyles, behaviors, needs and preferences, usually in relation to a particular product or service. It can include both quantitative and qualitative studies.

Examples of consumer research in action include finding ways to improve consumer perception of a product, or creating buyer personas and market segments, which help you successfully market your product to different types of customers.

Understanding consumer trends , driven by consumer research, helps businesses understand customer psychology and create detailed purchasing behavior profiles. The result helps brands improve their products and services by making them more customer-centric, increasing customer satisfaction, and boosting bottom line in the process.

Product research 

Product research gives a new product (or indeed service, we don’t judge) its best chance of success, or helps an existing product improve or increase market share.

It’s common sense: by finding out what consumers want and adjusting your offering accordingly, you gain a competitive edge. It can be the difference between a product being a roaring success or an abject failure.

Examples of product research include finding ways to develop goods with a higher value, or identifying exactly where innovation effort should be focused. 

Product research goes hand-in-hand with other strands of market research, helping you make informed decisions about what consumers want, and what you can offer them.

Brand research  

Brand research is the process of gathering feedback from your current, prospective, and even past customers to understand how your brand is perceived by the market.

It covers things like brand awareness, brand perceptions, customer advocacy, advertising effectiveness, purchase channels, audience profiling, and whether or not the brand is a top consideration for consumers.

The result helps take the guesswork out of your messaging and brand strategy. Like all types of market research, it gives marketing leaders the data they need to make better choices based on fact rather than opinion or intuition.

Market research methods 

So far we’ve reviewed various different types of market research, now let’s look at market research methods, in other words the practical ways you can uncover those all-important insights.

Consumer research platform 

A consumer research platform like GWI is a smart way to find on-demand market research insights in seconds.

In a world of fluid markets and changing attitudes, a detailed understanding of your consumers, developed using the right research platform, enables you to stop guessing and start knowing.

As well as providing certainty, consumer research platforms massively accelerate speed to insight. Got a question? Just jump on your consumer research platform and find the answer – job done.

The ability to mine data for answers like this is empowering – suddenly you’re in the driving seat with a world of possibilities ahead of you. Compared to the most obvious alternative – commissioning third party research that could take weeks to arrive – the right consumer research platform is basically a magic wand.

Admittedly we’re biased, but GWI delivers all this and more. Take our platform for a quick spin and see for yourself.

And the downside of using a consumer research platform? Well, no data set, however fresh or thorough, can answer every question. If you need really niche insights then your best bet is custom market research , where you can ask any question you like, tailored to your exact needs.

Face-to-face interviews 

Despite the rise in popularity of online surveys , face-to-face survey interviewing – using mobile devices or even the classic paper survey – is still a popular data collection method.

In terms of advantages, face-to-face interviews help with accurate screening, in the sense the interviewee can’t easily give misleading answers about, say, their age. The interviewer can also make a note of emotions and non-verbal cues. 

On the other hand, face-to-face interviews can be costly, while the quality of data you get back often depends on the ability of the interviewer. Also, the size of the sample is limited to the size of your interviewing staff, the area in which the interviews are conducted, and the number of qualified respondents within that area.

Social listening 

Social listening is a powerful solution for brands who want to keep an ear to the ground, gathering unfiltered thoughts and opinions from consumers who are posting on social media. 

Many social listening tools store data for up to a couple of years, great for trend analysis that needs to compare current and past conversations.

Social listening isn’t limited to text. Images, videos, and emojis often help us better understand what consumers are thinking, saying, and doing better than more traditional research methods. 

Perhaps the biggest downside is there are no guarantees with social listening, and you never know what you will (or won’t) find. It can also be tricky to gauge sentiment accurately if the language used is open to misinterpretation, for example if a social media user describes something as “sick”.

There’s also a potential problem around what people say vs. what they actually do. Tweeting about the gym is a good deal easier than actually going. The wider problem – and this may shock you – is that not every single thing people write on social media is necessarily true, which means social listening can easily deliver unreliable results.

Public domain data 

Public domain data comes from think tanks and government statistics or research centers like the UK’s National Office for Statistics or the United States Census Bureau and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences. Other sources are things like research journals, news media, and academic material.

Its advantages for market research are it’s cheap (or even free), quick to access, and easily available. Public domain datasets can be huge, so potentially very rich.

On the flip side, the data can be out of date, it certainly isn’t exclusive to you, and the collection methodology can leave much to be desired. But used carefully, public domain data can be a useful source of secondary market research.

Telephone interviews 

You know the drill – you get a call from a researcher who asks you questions about a particular topic and wants to hear your opinions. Some even pay or offer other rewards for your time.

Telephone surveys are great for reaching niche groups of consumers within a specific geographic area or connected to a particular brand, or who aren’t very active in online channels. They’re not well-suited for gathering data from broad population groups, simply because of the time and labor involved.

How to use market research 

Data isn’t an end in itself; instead it’s a springboard to make other stuff happen. So once you’ve drawn conclusions from your research, it’s time to think of what you’ll actually do based on your findings.

While it’s impossible for us to give a definitive list (every use case is different), here are some suggestions to get you started.

Leverage it . Think about ways to expand the use – and value – of research data and insights, for example by using research to support business goals and functions, like sales, market share or product design.

Integrate it . Expand the value of your research data by integrating it with other data sources, internal and external. Integrating data like this can broaden your perspective and help you draw deeper insights for more confident decision-making.

Justify it . Enlist colleagues from areas that’ll benefit from the insights that research provides – that could be product management, product development, customer service, marketing, sales or many others – and build a business case for using research.

How to choose the right type of market research 

Broadly speaking, choosing the right research method depends on knowing the type of data you need to collect. To dig into ideas and opinions, choose qualitative; to do some testing, it’s quantitative you want.

There are also a bunch of practical considerations, not least cost. If a particular approach sounds great but costs the earth then clearly it’s not ideal for any brand on a budget.

Then there’s how you intend to use the actual research, your level of expertise with research data, whether you need access to historical data or just a snapshot of today, and so on.

The point is, different methods suit different situations. When choosing, you’ll want to consider what you want to achieve, what data you’ll need, the pros and cons of each method, the costs of conducting the research, and the cost of analyzing the results. 

Market research examples

Independent agency Bright/Shift used GWI consumer insights to shape a high-impact go-to-market strategy for their sustainable furniture client, generating £41K in revenue in the first month. Here’s how they made the magic happen .

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CYBER.ORG partnered with Louisiana Tech University (Tech) and Virginia's Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired (DBVI) and Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services (DARS) to deliver on the 2020-awarded NSF INCLUDES grant in a project titled Project ACCESS (Accessible Cyber Content Expanded through State Synergies). Initially, the project intended to bring together various thought leaders in the area of accessible curriculum and provide a clearinghouse of resources for others in the community to learn about and benefit from in their own programs. Covid prevented us from gathering in a face to face setting so the project pivoted to endeavor to meet the thought leaders virtually, continue to report on accessible curriculum, and report out to community partners virtually.

All in all, 19 events were hosted during the project year and into the no-cost extension year. CYBER.ORG and DBVI collaborated on 18 of those events with Tech and DARS participating in a number of others. Many of the events were recorded webinars (Appteon's National Apprenticeship Week event, for example), some were meetings and presentations to regional community members (Pre-ETS CoP on Blindness, for example), and others were conference presentations where information on the project was reported out (CEC2022, for example).

By the end of the grant period, dozens of partners had collaborated to share details on various accessibility opportunities across the country with an impact of hundreds of national and international partners. CEC2022 was probably the most impactful face to face opportunity during the project. The two Appteon events were easily the most impactful virtual opportunities that were scheduled during the project.

One of the key outcomes of the project was the development of a list of 18 relevant research documents, seven conferences and events that focus on accessibility and students with disabilities, and other various resources to inform future planning, decisions, and proposals related to our mission. A few examples include:

• Candela, A. R. (2019). Blind Coding Academies: A Proposed Method for Overcoming Accessibility Barriers for Individuals Who are Blind or Severely Visually Impaired.  Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness 2019, 113 (4), 387-393. American Foundation for the Blind.
• Connally, K. & Kimmel, L. (2020, July). The Role of Inclusive Principal Leadership in Ensuring an Equitable Education for Students With Disabilities.  CEEDAR Center.  Retrieved from https://ceedar.education.ufl.edu/portfolio/the-role-of-inclusiveprincipals/
• Independence Science. (2020, September).  2020 ISLAND Conference (Inclusion in Science, Learning a New Direction, Conference on Disability).  Retrieved from https://pccm.princeton.edu/2020-ISLAND-conference
• Moon, N.W., Todd, R. L., Morton, D. L., & Ivey, E. (2012). Accommodating Students with Disabilities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM): Findings from Research and Practice for Middle Grades through University Education.  Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access.  College of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology. Atlanta, Georgia. Retrieved from https://hourofcode.com/files/accommodating-students-with-disabilities.pdf
• Terada, Y. (2020, May 4). A Powerful Model for Understanding Good Tech Integration.  Edutopia.  Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/article/powerful-model-understanding-good-tech-integration

Last Modified: 08/04/2022 Modified by: Charles P Gardner

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