//Questionnaires Flashcards
What are the theoretical issues with questionnaires?
Validity
Reliability
Representativeness
Why do positivists prefer questionnaires?
- they are valid.
- they produce quantitative data which means it can easily be analysed.
- easy to test a hypothesis.
- easy to compare data across results (reliable)
- objective (fact)
- reliable
- close ended questions - makes it limited or biased because participants may feel obligated to give a particular answer (right answerism)
Why don’t interpretivists like questionnaires?
- they are reliable
- no meaning to the results
- low validity because people may not understand the question
- they have to impose their own meaning, which is risky (unreliable conclusions)
- smaller samples (more open-ended questions) - may not be representative
What are the practical disadvantages with questionnaires?
Low Response Rate
Limited and Superficial
Biased Samples
What are the practical advantage of questionnaires?
Cost-efficient
No training/rapport required
Quick
What are the ethical issues with questionnaires?
Right to Withdraw
Confidentiality
Personal Questions
Explain why low response rates are a practical disadvantage.
Postal questionnaires may get a low response rate - This is because people may not have enough time to fill out the questionnaire and mail it back. This means that the sociologist may only get one type of response which means the results are then not representative and therefore cannot be generalised.
Explain why limited and superficial results are a practical disadvantage.
This means that if a lot of close ended questions are used the participant may not be able to say everything they want to say. - this leads to an unrepresentative sample.
Explain why biased samples are a practical disadvantage.
Related to question wording/may give participants an incentive to answer the questions - this leads to the data being unrepresentative and therefore not generalised. Participants may lie.
Explain why the right to withdraw is an ethical issue.
Participants can refuse to answer any questions or refuse to fill out the questionnaire if they feel the questions are too personal or inappropriate.
Explain why confidentiality is an ethical issue.
Sociologist can guarantee to the participant that their identity will be kept secret so that the answers they give cannot be traced back to them.
Explain why personal questions are an ethical issue.
If participants feel as though the questions are too personal, they may refuse to answer them. They are in their right to do so, however, this leads to unrepresentative results.
Explain why reliability is a theoretical issue.
Close ended questions - this means the results will be limited but replicable.
Explain why validity is a theoretical issue.
Participants could lie in their results or not understand the question - this affects the data because it means the data is unrepresentative.
Explain why representativeness is a theoretical issue.
Large sample is need to be representative (for example, if you wanted to find out about the effects of divorce on children, you would sample 100 children whose parents have suffered a divorce and then make a generalisation about all children without actually sampling them all.) - This affects a sociologist’s ability to carry out a questionnaire because if they cannot get enough people to fill out their questionnaire, it will not be representative of a wider society.
