Murder Board: some postmortem thoughts on instrument construction

The Murder Board provides a mechanism by which educational and psychosocial instruments developed for use in nursing research can be systematically reviewed to identify errors or flaws in construction. The information for this review is based on a small field-test of the tool administered to a sample of respondents representative of the population for whom the instrument was designed. Only eyewitness evidence obtained from this sample can reveal certain types of errors that would not be detected at any other stage of development. The board can use this evidence to comprehensively review each item and the instrument's structure and format to recommend appropriate revisions. This process should produce a draft version of an instrument that is free of structural flaws.