questionnaires

Question 1

practical strength - time and money

Answer 1

quick and cheap method of gathering large amounts of data from many people

Question 2

practical strength - easy to analyse

Answer 2

tend to be made up of closed ended questions and gather quantitative data - easy and quick to analyse

Question 3

ethical strength - informed consent

Answer 3

IC easy to gain as by completing and returning the Q, respondents agree to be part of research

Question 4

ethical strength - anonymity and confidentiality

Answer 4

Qs dont ask respondents for name and gathered info is presented as statistics so identity of respondents is kept hidden

Question 5

theoretical strength - reliability

Answer 5

Qs are standardised so respondents are asked same questions in same order with same choices of responses - method is easy to replicate

Question 6

theoretical strength - objectivity

Answer 6

positivists favour Qs as they enable researcher to stay objective - not personally involved with respondents

Question 7

practical limitation - low response rate

Answer 7

postal Qs in particular have very low response rate - as researcher not present, PPs dont feel obliged to complete it so treat it as junk mail

Question 8

practical limitation - money

Answer 8

to encourage PPs to take part in research, researchers may have to offer incentives such as entry into a prize draw - adds to cost of research

Question 9

theoretical limitation - lack of validity

Answer 9

interpretivists - lack of contact between researcher and PPs means researcher can’t gain full understanding of meanings people attach to behaviour + PPs may misunderstand questions and researcher is not there to explain - invalid answers

Question 10

theoretical limitation - unrepresentative data

Answer 10

low response rate so data is likely to be unrepresentative + questionnaires may not have been answered by target population