Questionnaires

?

Questionnaires

Advantages

  • They're quick, cheap and they can reach a lot of respondents
  • They're reliable because of standardization of questions
  • They're easy to analyse with computer programmes
  • There's no interviewer to affect peoples answers
  • Patterns can be easily spotted and comparisons can be made

Disadvantages

  • Respondents may not tell the truth
  • Questions may be misleading or mean different things to different respondents.
  • They may not actually measure what they are intended to measure
  • Postal questionnaires have a low response rate.
  • Not always representative
  • Open ended questions make it harder to quantify the data.
  • Questions cannot be explained to the respondents if they do not understand.

Evaluation

While the questionnaires may be useful for large populations, they should be used along with other methods such as structured or unstructured interviews - a method called triangulation - which provides more valid and reliable answers due to the combined strengths of each, which can outbalance the limitations of each, in different ways. 

Comments

No comments have yet been made