20. RM Questionnaires & Interviews

Question 1

Describe questionnaires.

Answer 1

-Gather personal data: attitudes, opinions, lifestyles. Any aspect of a persons life.
-Gather a large amount of information from a large sample in a relatively short amount of time.
-Can be administered by post, email, face to face or online.
-Should be completed anonymously.
-More straight forward questions come first followed by more in depth questions.
-Set of written questions, designed to collect information.
-Can discover what people think or feel (no guessing work like observations).
-Always pre-determined (structured).
-Can provide either qualitative or quantitative data.

Question 2

What is a strength of questionnaires?

Answer 2

-Can be easily repeated so data can be collected from large numbers of people quickly.
-Respondents may feel more willing to reveal personal/confidential information than in an interview as they feel more anonymous.

Question 3

What is a weakness of questionnaires?

Answer 3

-The sample of people involved may be biased because only certain types of people fill in questionnaires (literate individuals who are willing to spend the time filling them in).
-People don’t always tell the truth. Maybe because they don’t know what they think about a particular topic or how they’d behave in a particular situation. Or lack of truthfulness as they don’t want to look foolish or unlikeable so they present themselves in a way that makes them look better (this is social desirability bias).

Question 4

Evaluate questionnaires as a research method.

Answer 4

-Questionnaires can be evaluated by considering reliability.
-If the questionnaire was carried out again, would the same results be found?
-Closed questions have forced answer choices, so are reasonably reliable.
-Questionnaires are set out and repeated exactly (standardised), this is a condition for reliability.
-Open questions allow for opinions to be given, so are less reliable.

Question 5

How are questionnaires reliable?

Answer 5

Structured questions; the same for all respondents; so replicable and likely to be reliable.

Question 6

How are questionnaires valid?

Answer 6

Set questions with forced-choice answers are likely to be less valid as may not yield ‘true’ data.

Question 7

How are questionnaires open to subjectivity?

Answer 7

Structured format; less open to researcher bias in the analysis; closed questions do not require interpretation; open questions are likely to give short answers, so themes are clearer.

Question 8

What are the 2 types of data?

Answer 8

-Quantitative
-Qualitative

Question 9

Define quantitative.

Answer 9

Information that is or can be converted to numbers.

Question 10

What is a strength of quantitative data?

Answer 10

Easier to analyse and can be summarised using descriptive statistics. This usually makes it easier to analyse as you can see at a glance what the mean scores are etc. More objective measures, because measurements (height, weight etc) should be the same no matter who is doing the measuring and therefore are reliable. This gives measures greater validity as they are not biased by the person doing the measuring.

Question 11

What is a weakness of quantitative data?

Answer 11

-May not express participants precise thoughts/feelings because the answers provided are fixed so there may not be an answer to represent what they think. Therefore, data collected may be low in validity.
-Oversimplifies reality and human experience because it suggests that there are simple answers. It is a reductionist approach reducing human experience to quantities.

Question 12

Define qualitative.

Answer 12

Information that is non-numerical prose.

Question 13

What is a strength of qualitative data?

Answer 13

Represents the true complexities of human behaviour because thoughts and behaviours are not reduced to numbers. Therefore this is a holistic approach. Provides rich detail about how people think and behave as people are free to express themselves. Therefore this is higher in validity, as the researcher is more likely to be measuring the variable of interest.

Question 14

What is a weakness of qualitative data?

Answer 14

-More difficult to detect patterns and draw conclusions because of the large variety of information collected and because words cannot be easily reduced to a few simple points.
-Interpreting what people think is likely to be subjective, lowering credibility.

Question 15

Define closed questions.

Answer 15

Preset fixed answers- respondent much choose the answer that is the closest match to their opinion.
(Forced choice)

Question 16

Describe the rating scale.

Answer 16

On a scale from 1 to 10

Question 17

Define the Likert Scale.

Answer 17

Named after Rensis Likert. It follows this format. Strongly disagree to strongly agree. Can also be referred to as ranked scale.

Question 18

What is a strength of reverse order questions?

Answer 18

Survey item reversals using reverse order questions are considered a best practice because they keep respondents from answering carelessly, and help correct for response bias.

Question 19

What are 4 examples of researcher effects?

Answer 19

1. Social desirability
2. Demand characteristics
3. Question construction
4. Response bias

Question 20

Describe social desirability.

Answer 20

Tendency to answer in a way that is socially acceptable meaning the data is not valid.

Question 21

What are some examples of demand characteristics.

Answer 21

-Forced questions may hint at the time of the questionnaire.
-Respondent may want to help the researcher and give them the answers they think they want.
-Or might not want to help in which case they may give different answers.
-Responses lack validity as they are not the ‘true’ answers.
-More likely when using quantitative data as with a clear aim and hypothesis there may be clues about what the researcher is investigating.

Question 22

Describe question construction can be fixed.

Answer 22

Language can’t be ambiguous or too technical and questions should not lead or mislead the participants into giving a particular answer.

Question 23

How can response bias be avoided?

Answer 23

If all the statements are worded favourably or unfavourable the respondents can slip into agreeing or disagreeing with all of them. To resolve this the statements should be reversed or mixed up.

Question 24

Describe open ended questions.

Answer 24

Invites respondents to provide their own answers. Produce qualitative data which can’t be immediately counted, such as descriptive data.

Question 25

What is a strength of open ended questions?

Answer 25

-Provides rich details of how people behave as they are given free range to express themselves. Ppts can express what they actually think rather then being restricted by preconceived categories.
-Researchers may collect unexpected findings, proving insights. due to open questions ppts can provide unique thoughts the researcher hadn’t considered.

Question 26

What is a weakness of open ended questions?

Answer 26

-More difficult to draw conclusions because there are likely to be a wide range of respondents answers. Therefore, a researcher may look for patterns rather than using descriptive statistics.
-Interpreting what people mean is likely to be subjective. Each researcher may have a slightly different view of what a participant actually meant.

Question 27

Describe close-ended questions.

Answer 27

Fixed number of possible answers, providing quantitative data, ie answers that can be counted.

Question 28

What is a strength of closed questions?

Answer 28

-Easy to analyse because data is in numbers (quantitative data) which can be summarised using averages and graphs. This makes it easier to draw conclusions as you can make comparisons.
-Answers are more objective because they are more likely to be interpreted in the same way by any researcher.

Question 29

What is a weakness of closed questions?

Answer 29

-Lower validity as you can’t express your feelings exactly, you have to choose an option.
-Oversimplifies reality and human experience as it suggests there are simple answers, whereas several possible answers could reflect people’s views.

Question 30

Describe an interview.

Answer 30

-Interviews are different from questionnaires as they involve social interaction.
-Researchers can ask different types of questions which in turn generate different types of data.
-Some researchers use an interview schedule, this is a set of prepared questions designed to be asked exactly as worded. This has a standardised format.
-Interviews are often recorded by researched and data written up in as transcript which can be analysed at a later date.
-The language the interviewer uses should be appropriate, eg matching the social background of respondents age/educational level/social class/ethnicity.

Question 31

Describe a structured interview.

Answer 31

Predetermined questions delivered by an interviewer who does not probe beyond the answers received but may answer questions from the interviewee.

Question 32

What is a strength of structured interviews?

Answer 32

-Can be easily repeated.
-Easier to analyse than unstructured interviews because answers are more predictable.
-Interviewer can provide extra information, for example explaining what a particular question means.

Question 33

What is a weakness of structured interviews?

Answer 33

-The interviewer’s expectations may influence the answers the interviewee gives, this is called researcher/ interviewer bias.
-Participants may feel reluctant to reveal personal information when face-to-face with an interviewer.

Question 34

Describe a semi-structured interview.

Answer 34

Some questions are predetermined but also new questions are developed as the interview proceeds.

Question 35

What is a strength of semi structured interviews?

Answer 35

-More detailed information can be obtained from each respondent than in a structured interview because subsequent questions are specially shaped to the participant.
-Can access information that may not be revealed by predetermined questions.

Question 36

What is a weakness of semi structured interviews?

Answer 36

-More affected by interviewer bias than structured interviews because the interviewer is developing questions on the spot and may be prone to issues such as inadvertently asking leading questions.
-Requires well-trained interviewers, which may be difficult to obtain and makes the research more expensive.

Question 37

Describe an unstructured interview.

Answer 37

No questions are decided in advance.

Question 38

What is a strength of unstructured interviews?

Answer 38

-More detailed information can be obtained from each respondent than in a structured interview because subsequent questions are specially shaped to the participant.
-Can access information that may not be revealed by predetermined questions.

Question 39

What is a weakness of unstructured interviews?

Answer 39

-More affected by interviewer bias than structured interviews because the interviewer is developing questions on the spot and may be prone to issues such as inadvertently asking leading questions.
-Requires well-trained interviewers, which may be difficult to obtain and makes the research more expensive.

Question 40

How are interviews reliable?

Answer 40

Each person interviewed separately in different settings and on different occasions and perhaps by a different person; difficult to replicate and test for reliability.

Question 41

How are interviews open to subjectivity?

Answer 41

Open to bias in analysis as generating themes requires interpretation; open to subjectivity, but analysis can be objective if the steps are made clear.

Question 42

How are interviews valid?

Answer 42

Questions can be explained and explored, so likely to be valid and give ‘real life’ and ‘true’ data.