Abstract
In quantitative research methodology, the empirical research method is finding importance due to its effectiveness in carrying out research in social sciences, business management, and health sciences. The empirical research method contains the procedure of developing a model to find the relationship between different variables identified in a problem. Based on developing hypotheses and testing hypotheses, one can examine and improve the model to explain realworld phenomena. The empirical research method consists of using a survey-based questionnaire to collect the data to identify and interrelate variables present in the problem. It is a comparatively difficult task to design and develop an effective, efficient, and psychometrically perfect questionnaire to be used for research data collection in empirical and clinical research settings. This paper provides a reference on guidelines and framework for developing suitable questionnaires for use in social sciences, business management, medical, and paramedical research with a special emphasis on various stages of questionnaire preparation, preliminary questionnaire testing, and validation (reliability & validity) of the questionnaire using a number of statistical methods. The paper throws light on data collection and analysis stages before the finalization of the developed model for testing hypotheses in empirical research by providing guidelines for the design, development, and translation of questionnaires for application in the above-mentioned research fields. The different types of validation processes required for cleaning the data by various measuring instruments in experimental research are also discussed for comparison. A framework is suggested to guide researchers through the various stages of questionnaire design, development, and improvement using suitable statistical methods to assess the reliability and validity of the questionnaire used in empirical research and validation of the data obtained in experimental research.
Highlights
Research is a process of investigating answers to a question in a scientific and systematic manner by means of the formulation of the hypotheses, testing of the hypotheses by means of data collection on relevant constructs, analysis, and interpreting the results in a systematic way, and reaching the conclusions as a generalized solution
This paper provides a reference on guidelines and framework for developing suitable questionnaires for use in social sciences, business management, medical, and paramedical research with a special emphasis on various stages of questionnaire preparation, preliminary questionnaire testing, and validation of the questionnaire using a number of statistical methods
A simple and authentic set of guidelines is provided through this systematic review, on how to design, develop, reliability test, and validation test to translate a draft questionnaire into a usable questionnaire in social science, business management, and health science research
Summary
Srinivas College of Pharmacy, Mangalore, India, College of Management Commerce, Srinivas University, Mangalore, India. The empirical research method consists of using a survey-based questionnaire to collect the data to identify and interrelate variables present in the problem. This paper provides a reference on guidelines and framework for developing suitable questionnaires for use in social sciences, business management, medical, and paramedical research with a special emphasis on various stages of questionnaire preparation, preliminary questionnaire testing, and validation (reliability & validity) of the questionnaire using a number of statistical methods. Questionnaires based survey methods are widely used in social science, business management, and clinical research to collect quantitative data from consumers, customers, and patients. This paper discusses the procedure of design and development of an empirical questionnaire and determining its reliability and consistency by validating it systematically using various statistical methods. Many research publications are available through Google scholar in different aspects related to it and some important scholarly publications related to various issues are listed in table 1
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