Questionaires- Flashcards
What are closed questions in a questionnaire
Have a fixed number of possibilities e.g tick boxes
Pros of closed questions
Easy to process
The responses won’t be ambiguous if the question is well designed
Cons of closed questions
The answers are limited to the options given
What are opinión scales used for
To show how strongly they agree or disagree
What are open questions
Allow any answers
Pros of open questions
Let people say exactly what they think
Cons of open questions
End up with a wide range of answers and the data is more difficult to process
How to design the question correctly
1) make sure the questions are relevant
2) questions should be clear brief and easy to understand
3) allow for all possible answers to the questions
4) questions shouldn’t be leading or biased
5) questions should be unambiguous
6) people may not answer questions truthfully
What might a leading question look like
Leading the interviewee to answer the question in a specific way
What does it mean if the question is ambiguous
They people might interpret the question differently
For example peoples ideas of a lot, sometimes and often are different
Why might people not answer a question honestly
If the question is sensitive or embarrassing
Pros of questionnaires
Are quick and cheap to make
Shouldn’t be biased
Respondents aren’t under pressure so are likely to be truthful
Lots of ways to distribute them to large numbers
Cons of questionnaires
The distribution of questionnaires can lead to bias depending on the method
They are easy to ignore so could be lots of non responses
Questions might not be understood by the respondent
4 different ways to share questionnaires
Hand it out
Put it online
Send it in the post/by email
Ask people to collect it
What are the adv and dis of handing out the questionnaire
The target population gets the questionnaire but it is very time consuming
Adv and dis of putting the questionnaires online
Data is recorded and collected easily but people without internet access are excluded
What are adv and dis of sending questionnaires by post or email
They are wide reaching but people may not respond
Adv and dis of asking people to collect it
Easy to do nut people with strong views are more likely to take one
What is non response
When people in the sample don’t respond to the questionnaire
How to improve response rates
-Use clear questions that are easy to answer
-Follow up people who don’t respond to the questionnaire
-Provide incentive for them to answer e.g Enter them into a prize draw
-collect each of the questionnaires yourself this way you’ll get most or all of the responses but it’s very time consuming and not practical if the sample is across a large area
What are incomplete responses
Are when people respond to the questionnaire but don’t answer very question
How can you reduce missed answers
Make questions clear and not sensitive
How to deal with incomplete responses
Discard all responses that are incomplete
Follow up people
Replace the missing answer by making an educated guess or substituting a value such as the mean
Analyse the incomplete response to find a cause
What is a pilot study
Where you gets the questionnaire on a small group of people first
What are the advantages of using a pilot study
Help spot questions that are unclear or ambiguous - fixing them should help increase responses rate
Might be an unexpected outcome - answers might refine your hypothesis
Can find problems before the real questionnaire so the money isn’t wasted
Can check your methods of distribution and collection work and can estimate the same and cost of doing the full study
What can sensitive questions do to the data
Distort the data and lead to incomplete responses
