evaluate questionnaires (20)

Question 1

intro

Answer 1

-a questionnaire, the most common survey type in the UK, is a list of predetermined questions, either online or on paper, designed by a researcher
-questionnaires can use open questions, but primarily use closed questions, which provide limited, predetermined answers (eg. a Likert scale, or a yes/no)
-this means they mainly gather quantitative data, which is preferred by Positivists

Question 2

practical (strength)

Answer 2

-the practicality of a research method refers to how easy it is to conduct, looking at access to locations, funding, time, and ppts
-questionnaires are highly practical as they can be widely geographically dispersed, meaning target populations are easy to access and researchers do not need to be present
-self-completion questionnaires (eg. telephone, postal, email/internet) are highly practical as they are inexpensive. For example, a postal questionnaire is cheap to produce ad give out, and ppts can be easily accessed from a wide range of areas
-an example of a postal questionnaire is Tikly et al, who had access to 30 schools, which is an effective environment for questionnaires to be completed

Question 3

ethics (strength)

Answer 3

-the BSA issued a “statement of ethical conduct” which encouraged researchers to consider factors like harm, deception, privacy and confidentiality of the ppts. Ethical research must consider the impact the research may have on both the pts and the researcher themselves
-questionnaires tend to be highly ethical as they are usually anonymous, which increases how ethical the research is. If a ppt knows that their private information (such as name, age, address) will remain confidential, they are much more likely to take part in the questionnaire and give honest answers. Anonymity is especially important when the questionnaire focuses on a sensitive subject matter

Question 4

theory (weakness)

Answer 4

-Interpretivism is an approach to social research that emphasises the need to understand people’s beliefs, attitudes, and motives towards their actions to better understand society. Interpretivists believe that human behaviour is complex and cannot be reduced to simple case and effect relationships, and therefore prefer qualitative methods of research (eg. unstructured interviews)
-Interpretivists dislike questionnaires as a research method because they gather quantitative data, which gives official statistics rather than detailed analysis. They argue that quantitative data does not allow for verstahen, which is vital for understanding why people may hold certain beliefes
-eg. Haste’s study wanted to discover the extent to which phones reflected the identity of young people in her sample, Interpretivists would argue that qualitative research would have better suited this kind of topic rather than questionnaires

Question 5

reliability (strength)

Answer 5

-reliability refers to the repeatability of a study, so if the study were to be repeated it would provide the same results
-questionnaires are highly reliable as they are standardised, meaning every respondent is asked the exact same questions in the exact same way, meaning it can easily be repeated
-questionnaires also tend to use closed questions, which are highly reliable due to their short, predetermined answers. They are a fast and effective way of gathering official, objective and scientific statistics

Question 6

representatitiveness (weakness)

Answer 6

-representativeness is the extent to which a sample mirrors a researcher’s target population and it’s characteristics
-questionnaires don’t always provide very representative results. Self-completion questionnaires particularly are known for their low response rate. Postal questionnaires tend to get thrown out, telephone questionnaires tend to be ignored, and email questionnaires tend to be categorised as spam
-eg. Hite’s 1991 postal questionnaire on DV was send to a wide sample of 100,000 in magazines across France, America, and Britain, but only had a 3% response rate. This means the sample is not representative of the target population

Question 7

validity (weakness)

Answer 7

-the validity of a research method refers to how detailed and accurate the study results are
-self-completion questionnaires have low validity as there is not an interviewer present to clarify the questions, which may lead to ppts misunderstanding the question, or the researcher misunderstanding the respondent’s answers, lowering the validity of the findings. Questionnaires also lack validity as ppts are restricted in their answers due to the use of closed questions, and ppts may just end up picking whichever answer closest aligns to their beliefs, not explaining why they’ve answered this way
-eg. the British Social Attitudes Survey is an annual survey with a sample over 3000, but it only uses closed questions so we do not know why respondents have chosen those answers