Research Methods - Questionnaires
- Created by: izznat26
- Created on: 31-12-20 15:57
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- Questionnaires
- Methods of distribution
- Postal questionnaires - mail/email
- Self-completion - respondent can take away to complete and return in their own time
- Face-to-face with a researcher present
- Closed Questions
- fixed responses
- yes/no
- Likert scale
- usually precoded answer possibilities
- can be turned into quantitative data - favoured by positivists
- lower in validity because of fixed responses
- Imposition problem
- researcher decides answers that can be chosen from - limits respondents voice
- fixed responses
- Open Questions
- creates qualitative data - favoured by interpretivists
- allows respondents to provide unique answers
- can be used to explain motivation behind people's actions
- researcher can understand why people behave in certain ways
- can be used to explain motivation behind people's actions
- lower in reliability beacause of the variety of responses people could give
- Recent trend in combination of both open and closed questions so that researchers can gather quantitative data on opinions and ask follow up questions to understand the reason behind a response
- Practical
- cheap and easy to produce
- can be widely distributed
- don't take up lots of respondents time
- 'Right-answering' Respondents may answer based on what they think the researcher will want them to say
- often have a low response rate
- makes them expensive and time consuming if only a small amount are being returned
- questions have to be created carefully
- can't be too ambiguous nor should they lead to a specific conclusion
- cheap and easy to produce
- Ethical
- less intrusive than other methods
- could cause distress to respondent if talking about sensitive subjects e.g. domestic violence, crime, parenting style e.t.c
- usually no researcher present to build a rapport with respondents
- data must be kept secure to ensure confidentiality
- anonymity might make respondents more honest with answers
- Theoretical
- Positivists favour quantitative data produced by closed questions
- Interpretivists favour qualitative data produced by open questions
- Favoured by positivists on the whole because it's a detached and objective method
- Methods of distribution
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