THEORY AND METHODS: Research Method: Questionnaires

Question 1

What are 2 well known examples of social surveys the UK

Answer 1

• The National Census: Sent to every household every 10 years and asks for basic information
• British Social Attitudes Survey: Asks people a range of questions to measure opinions on a range of topics like family life, religious beliefs ect.

Question 2

What are the 3 types of questions questionnaires have

Answer 2

• Open
• Close-ended
• Scaled

Question 3

What are advantages of open ended questions

• Practical
• Ethical

Answer 3

PRACTICAL: Cheap and quick

• More familiar to people - its a common method so anybody will be able to do it
• Broad range of respondents = high representativeness

ETHICAL: Less intrusive than other methods like observation

Question 4

What are practical disadvantages with questionnaires

Answer 4

• Low response rates
• Ambiguous questions
• Closed questions pose an imposition problem (the risk that the researcher might be imposing their view on the respondents rather than getting at what they really think)
• Open questions can be time consuming to analyse
• May be necessary to use incentives
• Data may be limited and superficial as they are usually very brief
• Once the questionnaire has been finished, its finalised they can’t explore any new areas of interest
• Give a picture of social reality only at that one moment and fail to produce a genuine picture - as Cicourel agrees
• Respondents may not be frank or give answers in full

Question 5

ethical disadvantages

questionnaires

Answer 5

• Potentially sensitive topics can cause some distress and due to no researcher being present there will be no comfort provided
• Recording of information must be kept in accordance with GDPR regulations
• May disclose immoral or illegal activities

Question 6

What are some theoretical disadvantages of questionnaires

Answer 6

• Closed questions lack validity due to fixed responses
• Open questions may lack reliability
• Positivists and Interpretevists disagree on the type of questions to use

Question 7

What are some practical disadvantages of online questionnaires

Answer 7

• Researcher can’t be sure if the paper has been received
• Also can’t be sure if it was genuinely completed by the person targeted
• Might not reach everyone as not everyone would have access to technology (unrepresentative results)

Question 8

Low response rate

• Study
• What is the problem with low response rates
• How can a higher response rate be achieved
• But what problem does this then cause

Answer 8

STUDY: HILES study found with 100,000 questionnaires sent out, only 4.5% of them came back
LOW RESPONSE RATES: Pose danger if the ones returned are different group from the questionnaires which haven’t been returned, which produces distorted and unrepresentative results

HIGHER RESPONSE RATE: Achieved with follow up questionnaires and collecting them by hand
PROBLEM: Is that this adds to the cost and time

Question 9

What are some practical advantages of questionnaires

Answer 9

• Quick and cheap to gather data from large amounts of people
• Can even gain information geographically with online questionnaires
• No need to recruit or train interviewers to collect data
• Data is easy to quantify and can be processed quickly by a computer to reveal relationships between variables
• Fairly high repeatability but if differences are found, it can be assumes the differences are a result of real differences between respondents, not questions
• Can discover cause and effect relationships
• Are detached and objective
• High representativeness

Question 10

What are some ethical advantages of questionnaires

Answer 10

• Pose few ethical issues

- Although they may be intrusive, respondents are usually under no obligation to answer them