Questionnaires

• Strengths:

  • Cost effective
  • Respondents may feel comfortable to reveal personal/confidential information because researcher is not present.
  • Open questions can provide unexpected, more detailed answers which can lead to further research.
  • No special training needed.
  • High reliability for closed questions.
  • Reduces experimenter bias found in interviews.
• Weaknesses:

  • Participants may lie on a questionnaire to present themselves positively ( demand characteristics - social desirability).
  • Sample can be biased due to who is willing to fill it out.
  • Questionnaires using closed questions limit the responses -> easier to analyse.
  • Can take a lot of time to design.
  • Can only be filled out by those who can read and write.
  • Response bias.
• Types of Closed Questions:

  • Likert scales
  • Rating scales
• Likert Scales:

  • Must be carefully constructed as an odd number of response options may cause the middle value to be selected more regularly - even numbers would force participants to make a choice.
  • Response bias - if statements are all worded favourably then people may agree or disagree constantly. - You can reverse the statements to overcome this.
  • Have an equal number of agree and disagree options.
  • Change the order of agree/disagree responses so participants don't mindlessly choose the same option each time.
• Writing good questions:

  • Don't use double negatives and/or double-barrelled questions.
  • Don't use leading questions which make one answer more attractive than the other.
  • Questions need to be written so they are easy to analyse.
  • Include some irrelevant (filler) questions to distract the respondent from the main purpose of the questionnaire.
  • Start with easy questions
  • Carry out a pilot study - Test the questions on a small group of people.
• Questionnaires:

  • Set of written questions designed to collect information.
  • Always pre-determined (structured).
  • Can discover what people think or feel (No guessing work like observations).
  • Can provide either qualitative or quantitative data.
• Two types of questions:

  • Open -> Up to respondent how to answer, usually produces qualitative data.
  • Closed -> Limited in how to respond, usually produces quantitative data.