Self reporting data: Questionnaire design

Question 1

What is a questionnaire?

Answer 1

Respondents record their own answers. The questions are predetermined (i.e. structured). They are provided in written form and there is no face to face contact with another person

Question 2

What are some positives of questionnaires?

Answer 2

• Self report methods are a means of finding out what people think and feel. This is not true of other methods you will study, such as observation
• Can be easily repeated so that data can be collected from large numbers of people relatively quickly because they can all do it at the same time
• Respondents may feel more willing to reveal personal/ confidential information in a questionnaire than in an interview because they feel more anonymous

Question 3

What are some positives of questionnaires?

Answer 3

• People dont always tell the truth. This may be because they simply don’t know what they think about a particular topic or dont know how they would behave in a particular situation. Or their lack of truthfulness may be because they don’t want to look foolish or unlikeable so they present themselves in way that makes them “look better”- this is called social desirability
• The group of people involved may be biased because only certain kinds of people fill in questionnaires- literate individuals who are willing to spend time filling them in

Question 4

What is a closed question?

Answer 4

Has a fixed number of possible answers. Closed questions provide quantitive data, i.e. answers that can be counted.

Question 5

What are some positives of closed questions?

Answer 5

• Easy to analyse because data is in numbers (quantitative data) which can be summarised using averages as well as simple graphs. This generally makes it easier to draw conclusions, for example because you can make comparisons
• Answers are more objective because they are more likely to be interpreted in the same way by any researcher

Question 6

What are some negatives of closed questions?

Answer 6

• May not permit people to express their precise feelings because the researcher determined the choice of answers. Therefore, data collected may be low in validity and tend not to uncover new insights
• Oversimplifies reality and human experience because it suggests that there are simple answers - whereas people are likely to actually think several possible answers would reflect their views

Question 7

What is an open question?

Answer 7

Invited responsent to porvide their own answers
Open questions tend to produce qualitive data i.e. descriptive data which can’t immediately be counted

Question 8

What is a positive of open questions?

Answer 8

• Provides rich details of how people behave because they are given free range to express themselves. Ppts can express what they actually think rather than being restricted by preconceived categories. This increases the validity of the data collected
• The fact that ppts can provide any answer means that researchers collect unexpected findings. With closed questions the researcher makes decisions about likely answers and this closes off any unusual possibilities.

Question 9

What are some negatives of open questions?

Answer 9

• More difficult to draw conclusions because there are likely to be a wide range of responsents’ answers. Therefore, a researcher may look for patterns rather than using descriptive statistics.
• Interpreting what people mean is likely to be subjective- each researcher may have a slightly different view of what a ppt actually meant

Question 10

What is a ranked scale?

Answer 10

A kind of closed question where responsents are asked to give an assessment of their views using a scale e.g. from 1-5 where 5 represents very positve and 1 represents very negative

Question 11

What is a positive of a ranked scale?

Answer 11

• A reasonably objective way to represent feelings and attitudes related to the topic being researched
• Produces quantitative data which is easy to analyse or represent in graphs. It is also easy to draw straight forward conclusions

Question 12

What is a negative of ranked scales?

Answer 12

• Ppts may prefer to respond in the same way to all questions, regardless of context. For example, a tendency to select high values or to circle a middle value. In order to avoid a response set it is good idea to switch the positive and negative sides of the scale
• Social desirability bias may be an issue in terms of the validity of responses given