Questionnaires

• Questionnaires are a list of questions which can be distributed by the post, hand, email etc
• questionnaires may be used in formal or structured interviews
• Closed questions - recipients are to choose answer from a list, can be easily quantified
• Open questions - recipients answer as they wish in their own words - qualitative
• Pro - can be distributed to large representative samples, can be done nationally
• Quick and low cost method and is not time consuming
• little contact between researcher and subjects so there are fewer ethical issues
• anonymity and confidentiality can be confirmed
• Postivists - easy to quantify data and look for trends/patterns
• positivists - method is scientific and standardised reliable and objective
• Response rates can be low
• Room for misinterpretation of questions
• interpretivists - Hawthorne effect, responses may be distorted to please researcher
• interpretivist - Imposition issue, use of closed questions limits choices and reduces validity