Research Methods: Questionnaires

Question 1

What are the practical advantages of Questionnaires

Answer 1

Quick and cheap means of gathering large amounts of data from large numbers of people, widely and geographically especially if a postal or online questionnare is used.

Helen connor and sara dewson posted nearly 4,000 questionnaires to students at 14 hgiher education instituions.

Question 2

What are the reliability advantages of questionnaires

Answer 2

• if repeated by another researcher repeated similar results would be found.
• when the re searcher repeated a questionnaire is identical to the orginal one used, same choice of answers same order etc
• there is no researcher present to influence the respondents answers, questionnaire is a fixed yardstick that can be used to obtain the same results.
• 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 comparisons, both over time and between different societies. By asking the same questions, we can compare the results obtained in two different societies or at two different times.

Question 3

What are the hypothesis testing advantages of questionnaires

Answer 3

• Particularly useful for testing cause and effect relationships between different variables.
• this is very attractive to positivists

Question 4

What are the representative advantages of questionnaires

Answer 4

Because questionnaires can collect info from a large number of people they can be more likely to be able to represent the wider population.
researchers who use questionnaires tend to pay more attention to the need to obtain a representative sampple. they allow for more accurate genrealisations about the wider population from which was the sample was drawn

Question 5

What are the ethical advantages of questionnaires.

Answer 5

although they may ask sensitive questions respondents are genreally not obliged to answer them
researchers hsould gain the respondents consent guarentee their anonymity and make it clear they do not have to answer any questions that they do not wish to

Question 6

Practical issues in quetsionnaires

Answer 6

• data limited and superficial due to needing to be fairly brief since most respondents do not have the time to spend ages on the questions, limiting the amount of info gatered.
• may be needed to offer a prize draw or incentice to get people to do it
• wiht postal and internet questionnaires the researcher cannot be sure if the respondent recived it or whether it was completed by whom it was addressed.

Question 7

What are the issues of low response rate in questionnaires

Answer 7

very low response rates can be an issue esspecially in postal questionaries because not many people return them.

shere hites study of love passion and emotional violence in america was sent to 100,000 but 4.5 per cent of them were returned,

a higher response rate cna be obtained if follow up questionarres are sent out and if uestionarres are collected by hand
if the questionnaire has complex language, is aimed at people that are busy with work or socially isolated response rate can vary

Question 8

What are the disadvantages of inflexibility of questionnaires

Answer 8

once questionnaire has been set the researcher cannot alter or explore the reasons why of questions/answers recieved. contrasting with unstructure interviews

Question 9

Disadvantages of questionnaire being a snapshot

Answer 9

they give a pocture of social reality at only on moment in time. the momment when the respondent answered the questions. there fore they fail to produce a fully valid picture because they do not capture the way rhat peoples attitudes and behavior change

Question 10

what are the disadvanatges of detatchment in questionnaires

Answer 10

interpretivists such as cicourel argue that data from questionnaires lack validty 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.

they fail to do this ecause they are the most detatched of all primary methods. e.g lack of contact means to the respondent or to deal with misunderstandings. there is no way of knowing whether responder and researcher intepret questions in the same way.

Question 11

What ate the disadvantages of lying, frogetting and ‘right answerism’ of questionnaires

Answer 11

problems of validity occur when respondents give answers that are not full or frank.
respodents may lie forget not know not understand or try to second guess the researcher. some may give respectable answers rather than tell the truth.

Question 12

What are the disadvantages of imposing the researchers meanings in questionnaires

Answer 12

interpretivists argue that questionnaires are more likely to impose researchers own meanings that they reveal to those of the respondent.

• By choosing which question to ask the researcher has already decided what is important. if we used closed-ended questiona, respondents then have to try fit their answer into those available.
• if open ended questions are used respondents are free to answer but reasearcher comes to code them to make quantitative data similar but nt iswntical answers may get categrised together.