I do not like the term "instrument" because the meaning of an instrument is not entirely clear to me. I have spent much of this lesson trying to decide if the instrument is the use of a statistical technique or if it is that and something more. Because of the discussion about the various coefficients, I am thinking at this moment that an instrument is nothing more than the statistical tests that the researcher will use. But I am not sure that this is correct. Therefore, I wish that Dr. Norman had spent more time explaining instruments and less time talking about things like reliability and validity.

While I would have liked less talk about reliability and validity, I did at least understand what he was talking about. I like it when a professor breaks things down into simple components, and I felt that Dr. Norman did that in the beginning of the lecture when he first started talking about reliability and validity. He said that reliability determines how "consistently" an instrument measures an attribute and that validity determines how "well" the instrument measures the intended attribute. How "consistently" and how "well" are two concepts that I can understand.

As far as terms like "instrument" and "attribute" are concerned, I do not think that I will really understand either of them very well until I see them in action in my Research Proposal. I have selected a variety of topics for my Research Proposal and am beginning my Literature Review. As I get into the various sections of my proposal, I think that many of the loose ends in my mind will start to come together.

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Lesson 16. Instrumentation

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