Review of the Steps for Development of Quantitative Research Tools

Abstract

The number of tools developed by researchers has increased in recent years. Still the demand and need for development of new and standardized tool is increasing to a great extent, the simple reason is either standardized tools are not available or available tools lacks reliability and validity in that setting. This article explores the steps and process which provides base by which a reliable and valid tool can be developed. Method followed was indepth review of published research articles. This article reviews tool development procedures used in 17 articles published in leading journals from 1992 to 2007. It points out the steps of tool development viz. item generation in which theoretical basis to be used. Next step is reliability in that internal consistency, equivalence by inter-rater and stability by test-retest method is checked; validity i.e. face, content, concurrent and construct validity to be calculated. Further in construct validity factor analysis including principal component analysis, pre-analysis checks and factor extraction is to be analysed. Based on the review, the author mentioned the steps of tool development which will guide researchers to improve the tool development process.