Finding Research Instrument Examples Made Easy

Exploring examples of how others do research is part of the literature review process. One of the key features that students are often looking for are examples of the measurement tools used in the published medical literature.

Trying to search these sources by research instrument is not easy in most databases. It is even harder if you don’t have a specific research instrument in mind and want to explore what options might be available. The CINAHL database can help you quickly identify and find articles by research instrument used with the CINAHL Subject Heading tool.

The CINAHL Subject Heading Tool is usually used by advanced researchers, but it is not hard to use. It can also be used to find many other things, not just research instruments, but we will keep it simple for this tutorial. It is most useful when starting a research project on an unfamiliar topic because it can help you quickly generate a list of possible search terms.

The CINAHL Subject Headings link can be found in the top menu on the main search screen of the CINAHL database.

Enter the term ‘Research’ into the main search box and it will bring up a list of terms for further exploration.

This is different from typical research because the initial search does not bring up any articles. This only allows you to look at a list of terminology. This list allows you to explore the relationship between terms in the database. Each term also has a definition for each term so you know its exact meaning.

Select the term “research” from the top of the list by clicking the link not the check box.

Clicking the term ‘Research’ will give you a breakdown of the term into smaller subheadings. The list is in outline form. Each subheading is indented from the larger subject heading above. We will select “Research Instruments”.

Clicking on terms with plus signs next to them will open up to show additional subheadings. Closing an open set of subject headings can be done by clicking on a different term.

Here you find several ways to view lists of research instruments. Any of these options will work, but for this posting we will show you the options under “Instrument by Type”. There are lots of options.

Several of the subheadings under “Instrument by Type” do not have a link that can be clicked. These terms have no subheadings under them. You can click on the note icon under the “Scope” column to get more information.

Select the term you want to use to search for articles by clicking in the check box to the left. Here we have selected “Questionnaires” and since it is the lead subject entry it will also find articles with both “Open-Ended” and “Structured” Questionnaires.

Click the green “Search Database” in the right hand column. This will take subject term out of the “Subject Headings” list and into a general search of the database.

These search results will look more familiar. You are now looking at research articles that used questionnaires as the research instrument. This example found over 400,000 results.

This type of searching can be very effective when you are unsure of what keywords you might want to use. It will help you understand the topic better and may spotlight new avenues to explore.

Don’t forget to contact the D’Youville Library if you have any questions about this search or for any other research questions you might have.

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