Questionnaires

Question 1

What are social surveys?

Answer 1

A technique to gather large scale information systematically about a particular target population. It generally takes the form of a questionnaire which may be self completion or administered as a structured interview

Question 2

Key stages in social survey/questionnaire

Answer 2

Aim and Hypothesis formation
Operationalising concepts
Questionnaire design
Administering questionnaires
Questionnaires and validity

Question 3

Examples of questionnaire based research

Answer 3

Cumberbatch gave young people questionnaires about horror films that they had seen. Large numbers of children reported seeing films he included on the list that did not exist. This could have been due to social desirability bias.

O’Connell cities a health study that asked individuals to describe their bowel movements. This raises the question of individuals being honest

Question 4

Strengths of using questionnaires

Answer 4

Quick and cheap (P)
No need for training for self completion (P)
Quantitative data is easy to analyse (P)
Tend to be reliable (T)
Positivists say objective as researcher is not involved (T)

Question 5

Weaknesses of questionnaires

Answer 5

Answers may be incomplete or hard to read (P)
Data tends to be limited (P)
Low response rates (P)
Volunteer bias (P)
May lack validity (T)
Subjective? (T)