RESEARCH TOOLS- SCHEDULE : DEFINITION, NATURE,FUNCTIONS, KINDS AND QUALITIES OF GOOD SCHEDULE.

 RESEARCH TOOLS:- 

Any instrument used by the researcher to collect the information or data is called Research tools. Schedule and questionnaire are used to collect the information. Hence, these are tools, we can also use interview, recall, focus group study and others as a research tools for data collection.

1. Schedule: The schedule is the form containing some blank tables and fill in the blanks which are be field by the investigators after getting information from the respondent. Schedule is very similar to questionnaire in nature but there is a slight difference between them. It is the format of collecting information. Schedule has to be used in direct interview, or direct observation and is filled by the investigator himself and the questionnaire is generally mailed or handed over to the respondents, who fill it up and return to the sender.

The schedule may contain two types of blank or table ‘one in form of fill in the blank’ to collect their information or opinion.

For  example – Your opinion about the problem, your suggestions to improve the problem, etc and the other  in the form of a table as it may be better in tabular form like name, age, occupation, members in the family etc.

NATURE OF SCHEDULE.

1. Proper sequence of fill- in the blanks—To gain internal consistency it is necessary to have a proper sequencing.
2. Easy and clear – To make it easy to understand by the respondent and the researcher easy and clear language must be used while framing the blanks or tables.
3. Limited size – The information to be collected should not be irrelevant, deviating from the real topic. Its number may depend on the information requirement based on the research problem.
4. Avoiding ambiguous statement –  The statement should be based on research topic and unambiguous, as ambiguous inquiry statement may confuse the respondents.
5. To get accurate response– The schedule should be well articulated so the needful, relevant and exact data can be drawn from it.
6. Provision of alternate cross-statement – To check the credibility of the response given by the respondent it is necessary to keep cross-statement on a single aspect.

FUNCTION OF SCHEDULE.

1. The schedule is a standardized tool of observation or interview or in other method be schedule the respondent has to reply the same query put in the same language and the researcher has no choice to get the desired reply by putting the statement or changing the language or the same statement. This helps in collecting data perfectly and objectively.
2. It act as a guideline for the research to collect all information in a sequence Otherwise, (s)he may forget collecting any important information. S(he) would have to repeat the whole process again which would waste time, money and energy.
3. Schedule helps in tabulation and analysis of the collected information. It is in tabular form, arranged sequentially, thus, helps in sorting the data group wise, question wise conveniently and faster.

Kinds of schedules:

In communication research schedules are classified according to the use which are put in fourparts-

1. Interview schedules– The term clearly suggests that it is used for interview purpose. It contains standard statements that interview has to read to collect response and blank tables that he has to fill up after getting information from the respondents.
2. Rating schedules – They used in those cases where the attitude or opinion is to be measured. Scales or ranks are developed for the purpose.
3. Document schedule– Here, the writing documents like autobiography, case history, diary or officials records are recorded using a schedule. It is generally used for preparing source list or collecting preliminary information about the universe.
4. Observation schedule– Such schedule make a very focused or narrow observation by pointing to what is to be observed, how it is to be observed and how it is to be recorded. It is basically used in field observation.

HOW TO MAKE GOOD SCHEDULE.

The following steps should be kept in mind while framing a schedule:

1. Study the different aspects of the research problem. Frame the schedule base of the information to be collected on different aspects or research problem. Suppose that a survey is to be conducted to study the effect of TV programme on youth,” the various aspects of the problem can be general attitude, qualification, economic status, etc. Moreover, how it effects their life style.
2. To recognise the necessary information to be collected for a valid generalisation on each aspect. To do so a research need to break down the related aspects in to sub parts. Taking the above example the aspects like economic status can be further broken in to occupation, income, number of earning members in the family, type of house, mood of transport etc. information may be obtained about each of them.
3. Framing the actual fill in the blanks and tables: Here, investigator has to be very particular about the usage of words and the language. It should not be ambiguous. The respondent should be able to understand the statement. When information cannot be secured by direct statements, indirect statement may be kept as an option.
4. Systematic arrangement of the statement. After forming all the statement, a well planned arrangement of the statement should be made to attain continuity and flow of interview. This results in a healthy interaction with the respondents.
5. The validity of the scheduled has to be pre-testing before finalising it. Thus, schedule has to be filled on trails basis, and tested on the sample population. It should be amended accordingly.