Tools and Instruments in Research, Explained

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Tools and Instruments in Research

Research Methods in Psychology · Chapter 1: Foundations of Psychological ResearchSection 1.4 · lesson 4 of 9410 min · free with a free account

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In this lesson

How psychologists transform questions into measurable data.

  • Categorize the four families of research tools
  • Separate self-report, behavioral and physiological measures
  • Weigh the strengths and limits of each
  • Match an instrument to a research question

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Transcript

Everything said in the video, section by section (1,361 words). Read along, or search it.

Foundations of Psychological Research

Tools and Instruments

A research question can be brilliantly conceived and elegantly designed. And it can still produce completely useless data. That happens when the measuring instrument is the wrong one. This section is about the tools, and about how to choose between them. There are four broad families, and each one sees something the others miss. By the end, you will categorize the major instruments used in psychology. You will separate self report, behavioral, physiological, and archival measures. You will name the strengths and the limits of each approach. And you will match an instrument to a question, based on what it actually measures. Measurement is not a technical detail. It is a foundational choice.

Why Measurement Matters

The Instrument Decides the Data

Start with why this matters more than it looks. The history of psychology contains many important hypotheses that simply languished. For decades, because no adequate measurement tool existed. Others flourished only when a new instrument made an inaccessible variable observable. Functional magnetic resonance imaging is the clearest case. Introduced in the early nineteen nineties, it opened entire subfields. For the first time, researchers could observe living brain activity non invasively. So measurement is not a technical detail to be settled later. Every instrument captures certain features of behavior, while overlooking others. Every instrument carries assumptions, costs, and ethical considerations. Choosing one is a decision about what your study will be able to see.

Four Families

What They Measure, and How Directly

Contemporary psychology uses four broad families of tools. They differ in what they measure, and in how directly they measure it. Self report instruments ask people to describe their own experience. Behavioral measures record what people actually do. Physiological and neuroscientific instruments record bodily activity. Archival and big data sources use records that already exist. Notice the direction of travel across those four. You move from the most direct access to private experience. Toward measures the participant cannot control, and may not even be aware of. No family is superior. Each answers a different kind of question.

Asking People

Surveys and Questionnaires

Self report instruments ask participants to describe their own thoughts and feelings. Their behaviors, and their attitudes. They are by far the most common tools in psychology, and there is a reason. Many constructs of interest are inherently internal. Beliefs, emotions, motivations. The person experiencing them has the most direct access. Surveys typically use closed ended items with fixed response options. Strongly disagree, through to strongly agree. Some questionnaires are standardized, which means their psychometric properties are established. The Beck Depression Inventory. The Big Five personality scales. The Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale. Reliability and validity documented across many studies, and many populations. Surveys are inexpensive, reach large samples, and produce data suited to statistical analysis.

Depth And Timing

Interviews, Diaries, Experience Sampling

Interviews trade reach for depth. A structured interview asks every participant the same questions, in the same order. A semi structured interview follows a flexible guide, so the interviewer can probe. An unstructured interview is conversational, guided by the participant's own narrative. Interviews produce richer, more contextual data than questionnaires. They also cost more. Greater interviewer skill, more time per person, more careful analysis. Then there is a third self report family, and it solves one specific problem. Diary methods ask participants to record experiences as they occur. Often several times a day, over weeks. Experience sampling methods use smartphones to prompt participants at random moments. Both reduce reliance on memory, and catch variation a one off survey cannot detect.

Cost Of Asking

Three Biases in Self-Report

Self report is unmatched for accessing private experience. It is also vulnerable in three ways, and you should be able to name them. Social desirability bias comes first. Participants give the answer they believe is appropriate, rather than the accurate one. Recall bias comes second. Memory distorts past events, quietly and confidently. Response styles come third, and this one is easy to miss. Some people consistently pick the extreme options. Others consistently pick the middle. That is a property of the person, not of the thing being measured. None of this makes self report unusable. Skilled researchers anticipate these threats, and design instruments that mitigate them.

Behavioral Measures

What People Do, Not What They Say

Behavioral measures record what participants do, rather than what they say. That distinction matters most in three situations. When the behavior is automatic. When it is socially sensitive. Or when it is beyond conscious awareness, so nobody could report it accurately. Reaction time tasks measure how quickly participants respond to a stimulus. Often with millisecond precision. The Stroop task, the lexical decision task, and the Implicit Association Test. Each of them uses response speed to infer an underlying cognitive process. Performance tasks measure accuracy instead. On tests of memory, attention, decision making, or problem solving. Together these tools form the backbone of cognitive psychology.

Watching Directly

Observation and Eye-Tracking

Behavioral observation means systematically recording what participants do. In natural settings, or in controlled ones. Observers may use checklists, or time sampling, which records behavior at fixed intervals. Or event sampling, which records every instance of a specific behavior. Observation is essential wherever the behavior itself is the phenomenon of interest. Developmental, clinical, educational, and organizational research all depend on it. Eye tracking is the most precise form of watching. It records where a participant looks, for how long, and in what sequence. Because attention often guides eye movement, that opens an indirect window into cognition. Reading, scene perception, decision making, and social attention are the usual targets. Modern systems are non invasive, and can be combined with other measures.

The Body Reports

Physiological and Neuroscientific Tools

Physiological measures record bodily activity that accompanies psychological states. They are objective in one specific sense. They do not rely on the participant's verbal report at all. Electroencephalography records electrical activity at the scalp. Its strength is timing, at the millisecond level, and it is used in sleep research. Functional magnetic resonance imaging tracks blood oxygen changes in the brain. Its strength is spatial localization of neural activity during a task. Heart rate and its variability index stress, emotion regulation, and autonomic function. Skin conductance measures sweat gland activity, used to study arousal and emotion. Cortisol assays measure stress hormone concentration, for chronic stress research. And pupil dilation indexes cognitive load, and emotional engagement.

Reading The Signal

Power, Price, and Interpretation

Physiological measures can reveal processes participants cannot consciously report. That is genuinely powerful. It is also genuinely expensive. These instruments require specialized training, and are typically limited to smaller samples. And there is an interpretive trap worth naming carefully. Findings must always be read in light of the construct they are taken to index. Take a heart rate increase. It can reflect fear. It can reflect excitement. It can reflect physical exertion. The signal itself is the same in all three cases. Only the experimental context tells you which one you are looking at. So an objective measure still needs careful theoretical framing around it.

Data That Exists

Archival and Big-Data Sources

The fourth family uses data that already exists. Archival research draws on public records and organizational documents. Clinical case files, social media activity, online behavior traces, and large survey datasets. The advantages are real. Archival sources are inexpensive. They allow analysis of behavior over long time spans. And they avoid the reactive effects of being studied, because nobody knew they were. The limitation is equally real, and it is structural. The data were designed to answer somebody else's question. You work with the variables that happen to be available. Big data approaches extend this, using computational methods over millions of records. Sentiment analysis of posts, machine learning classification of language, digital trace studies. But they raise distinct ethical questions about consent, privacy, and who is represented.

Choosing And Combining

Matching the Tool to the Question

So which tool should you use? There is no single best instrument. The right one depends on the question being asked. A study of the lived experience of grief calls for in depth interviews. A study of attentional bias calls for a reaction time task. A study of stress hormones calls for a cortisol assay. Four criteria guide the choice. Construct fit. Does the instrument actually measure the construct of interest? Psychometric quality. Has it been established for this particular population? Feasibility. Are the time, cost, and equipment realistic given your constraints? And ethical acceptability. Does the procedure protect participant welfare and privacy? Because every tool has limitations, strong studies often combine several of them. That is triangulation. If self report, behavior, and physiology all agree, confidence rises.

About Research Methods in Psychology at UPI Study

Research Methods in Psychology (Psychology 111) is a self-paced online course of 94 video lessons in 16 chapters, from the scientific method and research ethics to designs, data collection, sampling, measurement, validity, experiments, descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing. It carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits.

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Why students take Research Methods in Psychology with UPI Study

How psychologists know what they knowResearch Methods in Psychology teaches how psychological studies are designed, run and judged: research ethics, surveys and observation, correlational and experimental designs, sampling, reliability and validity, and the statistics used to test hypotheses. It is a core course in psychology and many social-science degrees.
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Universities that work with NCCRS

Research Methods in Psychology carries a NCCRS credit recommendation. These universities work with NCCRS; some are UPI Study's signed partners. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.

Thomas Edison State UniversityThomas Edison State UniversitySigned partnerUniversity of the PeopleUniversity of the PeopleSigned partnerCharter Oak State CollegeCharter Oak State CollegeSigned partnerStrayer UniversityStrayer UniversitySigned partnerColumbia Southern UniversityColumbia Southern UniversitySigned partnerIndiana TechIndiana TechSigned partnerPenn StatePenn StateWorks with NCCRSSouthern New Hampshire UniversitySouthern New Hampshire UniversityWorks with NCCRSSUNYSUNYWorks with NCCRS +many more cooperating universitiesFind my college →

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FAQ

Questions students ask us

About Tools and Instruments in Research

What are the main types of measures used in psychology research?
Psychology uses four broad families of measures: self-report instruments, behavioral measures, physiological and neuroscientific measures, and archival or big data sources. Self-report asks people to describe their own experience, behavioral measures record what people do, physiological measures record bodily activity, and archival sources use records that already exist. No family is superior; each answers a different kind of question, and strong studies often combine several.
What are the disadvantages of self-report measures in psychology?
Self-report measures are vulnerable to three main problems: social desirability bias, recall bias and response styles. Participants may give the answer they think is appropriate rather than the accurate one, memory can distort past events, and some people habitually choose extreme or middle options regardless of the question. Researchers can reduce these threats through careful instrument design, and self-report remains unmatched for accessing private experience.
What is the difference between EEG and fMRI in psychology research?
EEG records electrical activity at the scalp and is strongest at timing, with millisecond-level precision, while fMRI tracks changes in blood oxygen in the brain and is strongest at locating where neural activity occurs during a task. Both are physiological measures that do not depend on verbal report, but they require specialized training and are usually limited to smaller samples.
What is triangulation in psychology research?
Triangulation means combining several different measures of the same construct so that the weaknesses of one are offset by the strengths of others. A stress study might use a self-report questionnaire, a behavioral task and a cortisol assay. If self-report, behavior and physiology all point the same way, confidence in the conclusion rises. It is useful because every measuring tool has limitations.

About the Research Methods in Psychology course

How many college credits is Research Methods in Psychology?
Research Methods in Psychology (Psychology 111) carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
How much does Research Methods in Psychology cost and what is included?
$250, paid once, with lifetime access: all 94 video lessons, a practice quiz after each, the graded work and final exam, and an official transcript when you finish. Students who want several courses choose UPI Study PRO instead.
Which universities accept UPI Study credits?
UPI Study has signed partner agreements with universities such as Thomas Edison State University, University of the People and Charter Oak State College, and works with universities such as Penn State, SNHU and SUNY. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities. Use "Find my college" on this page to check yours.
How long does Research Methods in Psychology take?
It is self-paced with no deadlines. The 94 lessons total about 16 hours of video; most students add reading and practice time and finish in a few weeks to a few months, on their own schedule.
How are the exams done?
Quizzes and assignments are online in the course. The final exam is taken online with proctoring; a person on the UPI Study team checks assignments, usually within two days.
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