Do you mean instrument for data collection? if that is the case then ensure that your items are directly link to the objective of the study.

Yes, to support Ms. Marinette's answer:

If you are aiming at measuring in-class language speaking anxiety, your tools will be at least a direct observation and questionnaire/interview questions.

1. direct observation (or recorded by handycam)

a. decide what moment that will show the students anxiety. For example, when they are told to read aloud in front of the class, or just when they are doing simple conversation in among them.

b. make some kind of indicators (based on a theory, of course). For example in terms of their eye movement, gestures, speaking pace, hesitation in speaking, etc. Then you need to decide how to approach the indicators: do you want to do it quantitatively, i.e counting how many time they say "uh", "uhm" etc.; OR you can just describe each person's reactions.

c. After you process the data, make some kind of summary or trends. For example: Quantitaive : on average all students make 15 times of repetition when they speak; Qualitative : Most of students mostly performs vague expressions, repetition, long pause for xx seconds, ets

2. Questionnaire and/or interview questions.

You can either ask them direct questions after they perform a speaking task, i.e were you nervous?. Or you can make a set of questions (which is far better) that lead to the final questions. FOr example:

a. how often do you speak English?

b. Are scared of making mistakes?

c. What would you think happen if you mis-pronounce English word

d. etc

i hope my response helps you.

If you are going to operationalise this as a questionnaire - see David de Vaus' work ...

https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/author/david-de-vaus

This is also a good resource on validating your instrument -

https://www.statisticssolutions.com/creating-and-validating-an-instrument/

Hope this helps.

Bahtilla Marinette I want to develop a research tool to explore the causes of speaking anxiety within the classroom. For this purpose, I want to collect data from the students to tell me what are the various reasons / causes / possible sources / etc. for speaking anxiety. Now, I want to ask the students to fill an open ended questionnaire in which they could write as many sources as of anxiety as possible. My question is, can I do it through open ended questionnaire or is there a more effective way of doing that?

Syed Qaiser Hussain! please see if it can help:

Cheng, Y. S., Horwitz, E. K., & Schallert, D. L. (1999). Language anxiety: Differentiating writing and speaking components. Language learning, 49(3), 417-446.

You may find other workable options in the reference section. Wishing you the best

Samantha Curle has offered an extensive option to unfold and choose or invent a reliable tool to guage anxiety of the language learners in a classroom.

Hi Syed,

Yes yes - please check out David de Vaus' book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Research-Design-Social-Vaus-David/dp/0761953477

It's super useful to develop your own research instrument.

See here too:

http://research.apc.org/images/5/5f/De_Vaus_chapters_1_and_2.pdf

Thanks for the shout out Nailah Riaz :)

Samantha Curle! :) Sometimes seconding a feasible suggestion or a shout out convince a colleague better :)