Questionnaires

Question 1

What is it?

Answer 1

-A self-completion method where ppts are required to answer a list of standardised questions.
-Can be closed or open-ended, but usually closed= quantitative data collected.
-Researcher isn’t present

Question 2

Practical issues

Answer 2

-Data is often limited + superficial, bc questionnaires need to be brief + most people are unlikely to complete long, time-consuming questionnaires
-May be necessary to offer incentives to persuade ppts to complete it= costly.
-Response rate is often poor e.g Hite sent 100,000 but only 4.5% responded, specifically for postal questionnaires.
-Won’t be useful for researching certain groups e.g. criminals or underachieving pupils.
-Inflexible

Question 3

Practical advantages

Answer 3

-Quick + cheap- can get data widespread geographically= more representative
-Easy to conduct
-Data is easy to quantify
-No need to recruit + train interviewers as ppts complete it themselves.

Question 4

Positivists view on questionnaires

Answer 4

-They like scientific approaches
-Questionnaires produce representative findings that can be generalised to the wider population.

Question 5

Evaluation of practicality

Answer 5

-Response rates can be improved by providing incentives.
-Hite still got 4500 responses which is still a lot compared to other methods.

Question 6

Ethical advantages

Answer 6

-Minimal ethical concerns
-You can gain informed consent automatically by the ppt completing the questionnaires.

Question 7

Ethical disadvantages

Answer 7

-Not a good method for sensitive topics

Question 8

Evaluation of ethicality

Answer 8

-Many issues sociologists investigate are sensitive so how actually useful is this method.

Question 9

Theoretical advantages

Answer 9

-Reliable= easy to replicate + verify results due to standardised questions
-Representative.

Question 10

Theoretical disadvantages

Answer 10

• Can’t develop a rapport
• Can’t achieve verstehen
• Validity, won’t know if ppt has truly understood the question e.g. Schofield asked ‘are you a virgin?’ + the ppt responded ‘no, not yet’
• Rejected by interpretativists

Question 11

Eval of theoreticality

Answer 11

• Census is highly representative but most sociologists don’t have the ability to force people to complete it

Question 12

Examples in education

Answer 12

Tikly et al:
-Sent postal questionnaires to 30 schools to obtain data on the exclusions, attendance of Caribbean + African pupils in high sets
Connor + Dewson
-4000 questionnaires to find the reasons why w/c students want to go to uni
-Demonstrates a quick + cheap way of reaching large groups of people

Question 13

Examples

Answer 13

Hite
-100000 surveys sent to study women’s attitudes towards sex + love, only 4.5% returned, 4500
Schofield:
-Asked are you a virgin?, ppt responded ‘no not yet’, shows lack of understanding