Research Methods - Questionnaires
- Created by: xpoppywilliams
- Created on: 02-05-18 11:22
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- Questionnaires
- Closed-Ended Questions
- Respondents must choose from a limited range of answers the researcher has selected
- Often pre-coded for ease of analysis
- Respondents must choose from a limited range of answers the researcher has selected
- Open-Ended Questions
- Respondents are free to answer how they wish
- No pre-selected choices are offered by the researcher
- Respondents are free to answer how they wish
- Practical Issues
- Strengths
- Quick and cheap way to gather large amounts of data
- No need to recruit and train interviewers
- Data is usually easy to quantify and can be computer-processed to reveal relationships between variables
- Limitations
- Data is often limited and superficial
- It may be necessary to offer incentives to persuade respondents to complete the questionnaire
- Cannot be sure whether posted or emailed questionnaires have actually reached the respondent
- Very low response rates are an issue
- Questionnaires aren't flexible
- Researchers cannot probe or explore new areas of interest
- Questionnaires are only a snapshot in time
- Fail to capture changes in attitudes and behaviour
- Strengths
- Theoretical Issues
- Positivism
- Take a scientific approach
- Enable hypotheses to be tested and to identify possible cause-and-effect relationships between different factors
- Questionnaires are reliable - they're a standardised measuring instrument
- Questionnaires are representative
- They're taken on a large scale
- Use sophisticated sampling techniques to ensure representativeness
- Questionnaires are detached and a scientific form of research
- Researcher involvement is kept to a minimum
- Interpretivism
- Seek to discover the meanings that underlie our actions and from which we construct social reality
- Lack of contact between the researcher and respondent fails to produce a valid picture of the respondents' meanings
- Respondents may lie, forget or not understand the questions asked
- They may try to please or second-guess the researcher
- Questionnaires impose the researcher's framework of ideas on the respondent
- May distort the reality and undermine the validity of the responses
- Positivism
- Closed-Ended Questions
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