Questionnaires

Question 1

what are questionnaires

Answer 1

Questionnaires ask people to provide written answers to pre-set written questions.

Question 2

what type of data does it produce

Answer 2

Quantitative data

Question 3

what are the types of questionnaires

Answer 3

close ended
open ended

Question 4

close ended

Answer 4

respondents much choose from a limited range of possible answers that the researcher has decided in advance such as yes, no or don’t know

Question 5

open ended

Answer 5

Respondents are free to give whatever answer they wish, in their own words and without any pre-selected choices being offered by the researcher

Question 6

what type of data does it collect

Answer 6

quantitative data

Question 7

practical advantages of using questionnaires

Answer 7

1. They are a quick and cheap way of gathering large amounts of data from large numbers of people, widely spread geographically. For example, Connor and Dewsom posted nearly 4,000 questionnaires to students at 14 high schools in their study of the factors influencing the decisions of WC students to go to uni.
2. There is no need to recruit and train interviewers to collect data as respondents complete the questionnaire themselves
3. Data is easy to quantify particularly where pre-coded close-ended questions are used

Question 8

practical limitation

Answer 8

1. Data is often limited and superficial. This is because questionnaires need to be fairly brief - most people are unlikely to complete a long, time-consuming questionnaire
2. It may be necessary to offer incentives to persuade respondents to complete the questionnaire this adds to cost
3. With postal and emailed questionnaires, we cannot be sure that the intended recipient complete the questionnaire and not someone else.
4. They are inflexible, once it is finalised, the researcher is stuck with the questions they have decided to ask and cannot explore any new areas that arise during the course of the research - validity
5. The questionnaire is drawn up in advance, meaning the researcher must already have some knowledge of the subject and a clear hypothesis to test. This makes it less suitable for investigating unfamiliar topics where the researcher has little idea.
6. They are only snapshots - pictures of reality at one moment in time when the respondent answers the questions. They fail to capture people’s attitudes and behaviour change.

Question 9

who favours questionnaires

Answer 9

positivists

Question 10

positivism and questionnaires

Answer 10

Questionnaires are representative, they can be generalised to the wider population. They are reliable, objective and a detached method for producing quantitative data, and testing hypothesis.

Question 11

hypothesis testing

Answer 11

Questionnaires are useful for testing hypotheses about cause and effect between different variables. For instance, using the example of educational achievement, analysis of respondents’ answers could show whether is a correlation between children’s achievement levels and family size. From this, we can make statements about the possible cause of a certain thing based on the correlation made.

Question 12

reliability

Answer 12

Questionnaires are reliable, that is, if repeated by another researcher, the questionnaire should give us similar results. This is because when the research is repeated, a questionnaire identical to the first original one is used, in the same order. It is a standardised measuring instrument, they also allow us to make comparisons over time and between different places

Question 13

representativeness

Answer 13

questionnaires collect information from a large number of people, the results stand a better chance of being truly representative of the wider population than with other methods that study only very small numbers of people like experiments or unstructured interviews. The findings can be generalised from the sample studies to a wider population from which the sample is drawn.

Question 14

reasons why questionnaires are representative

Answer 14

They are large scale - because questionnaires can be distributed quickly and cheaply by post or email over wide geographical areas, they can collect information from a large sample of people.
They use representative samples

Question 15

how can the representativeness be undermined

Answer 15

The representativeness can be undermined by a low response rate, especially if those who do return their questionnaires are different in some way from those who don’t e.g. educated people. If so this would produce distorted and unrepresentative results, from which no accurate generalisations can be made.

Question 16

detachment and objectivity

Answer 16

Positivists favour questionnaires because they are a detached and objective (unbiased) method where the sociologist’s personal involvement with their respondents are kept at a minimum. For example, postal questionnaires are completed at a distance and involve little or no personal contact with respondents.

Question 17

ethical issues

Answer 17

They pose fewer ethical problems than most methods as most of them are completed anonymously. Although they may ask intrusive or sensitive questions which respondents are not obligated to answer, but are still intrusive nonetheless. Parental consent may be required before giving questionnaires are given to kids

Question 18

disadvantages of q

Answer 18

Low response rate
inflexibility
questionnaires as snapshots
interpretivism - detachment, lying, forgetting and rightanswerism, imposing the researchers meaning

Question 19

low response rate

Answer 19

Although questionnaires have the potential to collect data from large, representative samples, low response rates can be a major problem, especially with postal questionnaires, because few of those who receive them bother to complete and return them. Hite’s study of ‘love, passion and emotional violence’ sent out 100,000 questionnaires but only 4.5% of them were returned. A higher response rate can be obtained if follow-up questions are sent and if they are collected by hand but this adds to the cost and time.

Question 20

inflexibility

Answer 20

Once the question has been finalised, the researcher is stuck with the questions they have decided to ask and cannot explore new areas of interest that come up doing research. Unlike with unstructured interviews where the interviewers can ask new questions if they seem relevant

Question 21

questionnaires as snapshots

Answer 21

questionnaires fail to produce a fully valid picture because they do not capture the way people’s attitudes and behaviour change. They are snapshots that give a picture of only one moment in time - the moment when the respondents answers the questions, this contrasts with the moving image of social life that participant observations can provide.

Question 22

why do interpretivists reject questionnaires

Answer 22

They seek to discover the meanings that underlie our actions and from which we construct social reality, they are concerned with validity. For this reason, interpretivists reject questionnaires as they argue that they cannot yield valid data about the meanings of social actors. This is because -
Detachment
Lying, forgetting and trying to impress
Imposing the researchers meanings

Question 23

detachment - interpretivists

Answer 23

Interpretivists like Cicourel argue that data from questionnaires lacks validity and does not give a true picture of what has been studied. They reject positivists’ view of detachment and objectivity. They argue that we can only gain a valid picture by using methods that allows us to get close to the subjects and study their meanings. Ideally, the method should enable us to see the world through their eyes. Questionnaires fail to do this because they are detached for eg - postal questionnaires. The lack of contact means there is no way to clarify what the questions mean to the respondent or to deal with misunderstandings. There is no way of knowing whether the respondent and researcher both interpret the questions or the answers in the same way.

Question 24

lying, forgetting or trying to impress

Answer 24

The validity of questionnaire data depends on the willingness and ability of respondents to provide full and accurate answers. Problems of validity are created when respondents lie, forget or do not understand and do not admit their lack of understanding. For example, in Schofield’s research on the sexual behaviour of teenagers, in a reply to a question ‘are you a virgin’ one answered ‘no, not yet’ Whether they did not understand or were simply being mischievous the data lacked validity. Similarly, respondents may try to please or second-guess the researcher, or impress them by giving respectable answers that they feel they ought to give rather than telling the truth - socially desirable answers. This puts questionnaires at a disadvantage when compared with observational methods since the observer can see for themselves what the subjects actually do rather than what they say they do.

Question 25

imposing the researcher’s meaning.

Answer 25

Interpretivists argue that questionnaires are more likely to impose the researchers own meanings than to reveal those of the respondent.

Question 26

ways questionnaires imposes the researchers meaning

Answer 26

By choosing questions to ask, the researcher, not the respondent has already decided what is important
By using close - ended questions, respondents have to try to fit their views into the ones on offer. If they feel some other answer is important, they have no opportunity of giving it, thus producing an invalid picture of their reality
If we use open-ended questions, respondents are free to answer as they please, but when the researcher brings them together to produce quantitative data similar but non-identical answers may get lumped together in the same categories.

Question 27

sociologist for questionnaires imposing the researchers meaning

Answer 27

Shipman argues that questionnaires imposes a straitjacket that distorts the respondents meanings and undermines its validity

Question 28

using questionnaires to investigate education factors

Answer 28

1. Operationalisation of concepts
2. Sampling and sampling frames
3. Access and response rate
4. Practical issues
5. Anonymity and detachment

Question 29

Operationalisation of concepts

Answer 29

This involves turning abstract ideas into a measurable form. This can be difficult when creating questionnaires for pupils. Because their grasp of abstract concepts is generally less than that of adults, it may be difficult to turn sociological ideas like deferred gratification or cultural capital into language that pupils will understand. This may produce answers that are based on respondents’ misunderstanding of what the questions mean. Alternatively, there is a danger that the sociologist may have to over-simplify the questions so that they cease to have any sociological value

Question 30

samples and sampling frames

Answer 30

Schools keep large lists of pupils, staff and parents. These can provide accurate sampling frames from which the sociologist can draw a representative sample, schools have ready-made opportunity samples of pupils and teachers for example, in the form of classes and teaching departments.

Question 31

schools and unrepresentativeness

Answer 31

Schools may not keep lists that reflect the researcher’s interests. For example, the sociologist may wish to take a representative sample of pupils of a particular ethnic group but schools may not keep lists of pupils sorted by ethnic origin, so there is no sampling frame available from which to draw the sample. Even where the relevant sampling frame does exist, schools may deny access to such confidential information.

Question 32

problems with distributing questionnaires

Answer 32

Distributing questionnaires in schools is a fairly easy way to access a large number of potential respondents. However, the researcher will first need to school’s permission to give them out. Parents are harder than pupils or teachers to locate and contact, so using the school to distribute questionnaires is an effective way to overcome this difficulty - students can take them home.

Question 33

younger children and questionnaires

Answer 33

Younger children are more open to peer group pressure and it is difficult to prevent pupils who are completing questionnaires that have been distributed in class from discussing responses - threatens validity
A questionnaire that does not involve the researcher being present when it is completed may help to overcome the problem of status difference between adult researchers and younger respondents. On the other hand, a questionnaire usually has the appearance of a formal document that pupils may find off-putting.

Question 34

access and response rate

Answer 34

Schools may be reluctant to allow sociologists to distribute questionnaires because of the disruption to lessons that it may cause or because the questions may be too sensitive that they oppose it.

Question 35

response rate and schools

Answer 35

Questionnaires are conducted in schools, response rates can often be higher than in other areas. This is because, once the head has given their consent and given their authority behind the research, teachers and pupils may be under pressure to cooperate. The head may also authorise time to be taken out of lessons so that questionnaires can be completed - this may lead to higher response rates which may produce more representative data. Another reason why response rates might be higher is that pupils, teachers and parents are accustomed to completing questionnaires issued by schools such as student satisfaction surveys. On the other hand, teachers are often too busy to complete a lengthy questionnaire and this may reduce the response rate.

Question 36

practical issues and schools

Answer 36

Q’s are very useful for gathering large quantities of basic factual educational information quickly and cheaply. For example, rutter used q’s to collect large quantities of data from 12 inner London secondary schools. From this, rutter was able to correlate achievement, attendance and behaviour with variables such as school size, class size and a number of staff, which would have been difficult to do with more time-consuming methods like interviews or observations.

Question 37

data generated - rutter

Answer 37

The data generated by Q’s is often limited and superficial. In Rutter’s study, the data provided correlation between variables such as class size and achievement but not explanations for these correlations

Question 38

younger children - practical issues

Answer 38

Written Q’s involve participants being able to read and understand the questions. Thus they are unsuitable for those who cannot read or write reasonably well such as young children or those with learning difficulties. They also have shorter attention spans so Q’s need to be brief if they stand a chance of being completed. This limits the amount of information that can be gathered. Children’s life experiences are narrowers and their recall ability is lower than adults, this means that many children esp those of pri sch age do not know the answers, this reduces its validity

Question 39

teachers - practical issues

Answer 39

If the Q is delivered class by class, its purpose and questions may become known throughout the school long before everyone uses it. This may affect the responses given by later participants and reduce their validity. Teachers are well-educated and will almost certainly have had an experience of completing questionnaires. They may be able to analyse the pattern of questions and recognise the researcher’s aims and intentions - rightanswerism - they may adjust their answers accordingly - invalid data

Question 40

anonymity and detachment - schools

Answer 40

questionnaires are useful when researching sensitive educational issues like bullying, where their anonymity may overcome pupil’s embarrassment or fear of retribution from bullies. This may produce higher response rates and pupils may be more likely to reveal details of their experiences of being bullied. This may produce more valid data than face-to-face structured interviews.

Question 41

interpretivists and rapport

Answer 41

Interpretivists emphasise the importance of developing rapport with research participants and so they reject questionnaires as a means of researching pupils. Because the lack of contact with respondents makes rapport difficult to establish, young people may be less likely to give full and honest resposes

Question 42

formal looking

Answer 42

Questionnaires are formal and official-looking documents and pupils may equate them with school and teacher authority esp if they’re completed in class like a test. As a result some pupils, particularly those in anti-school SC may refuse to cooperate or take the activity seriously - invalid / uncomplemented data. Students in pro-school SC may try to impress teachers with rightanswerism. Q’s are easy to make anonymous, teachers may feel able to set aside concerns about their careers and so give honest answers to sensitive questions such as their attitudes to pupils.