questionnaires

Question 1

what is a close ended questionnaire?

Answer 1

• where respondents must choose from a limited range of possible answers that the researcher has decided in advance, such as ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘don’t know’, rather like multiple choice questions
• each possible answer is given a code, enabling researchers to count the number of respondents choosing each of the available answers

Question 2

what Is an open ended questionnaire?

Answer 2

• where respondents are free to Gove whatever answer they wish, in their own words, and without any pre selected choices being offered by the the researcher

Question 3

advantages of questionnaires

Answer 3

1. practical advantages
2. reliability
3. hypothesis testing
4. representativeness
5. ethnical issues

Question 4

practical advantages

Answer 4

• they are quick and cheap way of gathering large amounts of data from large numbers of people, widely spread geographically, especially postal or online e.g, Connor and dews posted nearly 4,000 questionnaires to students at 14 higher education institutions in their study of factors influencing w/c pupils to go to uni
• no need to recruit and train interviewers or observes tp collect the date, because respondents completed and revue the questionnaires themselves
• the data is usually easy to quantify, particularly where precoded, close ended questions are used, and can be processed quickly by a computer to reveal the relationships between different variables

Question 5

reliability

Answer 5

• questionnaires are seen as a reliable method of collecting data. that is, if it is related by another researcher, the questionnaire should give similar results to those gained by the first researcher, there are two reasons for this:
• when the research is repeated, a questionnaire identical to the original one is used, so new respondents are asked exactly the same questions, in the same order, with the sae choice of answers, as the original respondents
• with postal or online questionnaires, unlike with interviews, there is no researcher present to influence the respondents answers (different researchers might influence respondents to give different answers)
• the reliability of questionnaires also means that if we do find differences in the answers that respondents give, we can assume that these are the result of real differences between the respondents and not simply the result of different questions
• a related advantage is that they allow comparison, both over time and between different societies. b asking the same questions, we can compare the results obtained in two different societies or at two different times

Question 6

hypothesis testing

Answer 6

• questionnaires are particularly useful for testing hypotheses about cause and effect relationships between different variables. for instance, usual the example of educational achievement, analysis of respondents answers could show whether there is a correlations between Childress achievement levels and family size. we might find, e.g, that most low achievers come from large families
• from this analysis, we can make statements about the possible causes of low achievement and predictions about which children are most likely to underachieve
• because questionnaires enable us to identify possible causes, they are very attractive to positivist sociologist, who take a scientific approach and seek to discover laws of cause and effect

Question 7

detachment and objectivity

Answer 7

• positivist also favour questionnaires because they are a detached and objective method, where the sociologists personal involvement with their respondents is kept to a minimum. e.g, postal questionnaires are completed at a distance and involve little or no personal contact with respondents. for this reason, positivist see them as a good way of maintaining detachment and objectivity

Question 8

representativeness

Answer 8

• because questionnaires can 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
• in addition, questionnaires tend to pay more attention to the need to obtain a representative sample. for these reasons, the findings of questionnaires are more likely to allow us to male accurate generalisations about the wider population from which the sample was drawn

Question 9

Ethical issues

Answer 9

• questionnaires pose fewer ethical problems than most other research methods. Although questionnaires may ask intrusive or sensitive questions, respondents are generally under no obligation to answer them
• nevertheless, researchers should gain respondents informed consent, guarantee their anonymity and make it clear that they have no right not to answer any form of the questions that they do not wish to

Question 10

Disadvantages of questionnaires

Answer 10

1. Practical problems
2. Low response rate
3. Inflexibility
4. Questionnaires as snapshots
5. Detachment
6. Lying, forgetting and ‘right answerism’
7. Imposing the researchers meaning

Question 11

Practical problems

Answer 11

• the data from questionnaires tends to be limited and superficial - because they need to be fairly brief, since most respondents are unlikely to complete and return a long, time consuming questionnaire. This limits the amount of information that can be gathered from each respondent
• although questionnaires are a relatively cheap means of gathering data, it may sometimes be necessary to offer incentives to persuade respondents to complete this form. This will add to the cost
  With postal and online there are two additional problems, the researcher can not be sure:
• whether the potential respondent has actually received the questionnaire
• whether a returned questionnaire was actuary completed by the person to whom it was addressed

Question 12

Low response rate

Answer 12

• although they have the potential to collect large, representative scalpels, very low response can be a major problem, especially with postal. This is because few of those who receive a questionnaire bother to complete and return it. E.g, hites study of ‘love, passion and emotional violence’ sent out 100,000 questionnaires, but only 4.5 of them were returned
• higher response rate can be obtained if follow up questionnaires are sent and if questionnaires are collected by hand. However, this adds to the cost and time
• the problem of non repose is sometimes caused by faulty questionnaire design. E.g, a questionnaire that uses complex language may only be completed by the well educated
• the danger with a low response rate is that those who return their questionnaires may be different from those who don’t e.g, people in busy full time work may fail to respond, whereas the unemployed or socially isolated with time may be more likely to complete.
• those with strong views on a subject are more likely to respond than those who have little knowledge or interest in it

Question 13

Inflexibility

Answer 13

• questionnaires are a very inflexible method. Once the questionnaire has been finalised, the researcher is stuck with the questions they have decided to ask and cannot explore any new areas of interest should they come up during the research
• this contrast with more flexible methods such as unstructured interviews, where the researcher can simply ask new questions if they seem relevant

Question 14

Questionnaires as snapshots

Answer 14

Questionnaires are snapshots. They give a picture of social reality at only one moment in time: the moment when the respondent answers the questions.
- questionnaires therefore fail to produce a fully valid picture because they do not capture the way people’s attitudes and behaviour change. This snapshot contrasts with the moving image of social life that participant observation can provide

Question 15

Detachment

Answer 15

• interpretivists such as cicourel argue that data from questionnaires lack validity and does not give a true picture of what has been studied. They argue that we can only gain a valid picture by using methods that allow us to get close to the subjects of the study and share their meanings. Ideally, the method should enable us to put ourselves in the subjects place and see the world through their eyes
• questionnaires fail to do this because they are the most detached of all primary methods. E.g, postal questionnaires involve no direct contact between researcher an respondent
• this lack of contact means there is no way to clarify what the questions mean to the respondent or ti 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 16

Lying, forgetting and ‘right answerism’

Answer 16

• all methods gather data by asking questions depend ultimately on their respondents willingness and ability to provide full and accurate answers. Problems of validity are created when respondents give answers that are not full
• e.g, respondents may lie, forgot, not know, not understand, or try to please or second guess the researcher. Some may give ‘respectable’ answers they feel ought to give, rather than tell the truth
• these problems put 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 17

Imposing the researchers meaning

Answer 17

• a valid method is one that gives a truthful picture of peoples meanings and experiences. Yet interprevists argue that questionnaires are more likely yo impose the researchers own meanings than to reveal those of the respondent
• by choosing which questions to ask, the researcher, not the respondent, has already decided what is important
• if we use closed ended questions, respondents than have to try to fit their views into the ones on offer. If they feel some other answer to be important, they have more opportunity of giving it, thus producing an invalid picture of their reality
• on the other hand, if we use open ended questions, respondents are free to answer as they please, but when the researcher comes to code them to produce quantitive date, similar but non identical answer may get lumped into the same category
• as shipman says, when the researching categories are the not respondents categories, ‘pruning and bending’ of the stat is inevitable.