Questionnaires

• Questionnaires:

  Ask people to provide answers to pre-set questions, the questions can be closed ended (answers are pre-coded for easy analysis) or open ended (allowing respondents to answer in their own words). In most questionnaires, closed ended questions are used.
• Practical Strengths:

  They are a quick and cheap way to gather large amounts of quantitative data from a geographically dispersed sample. No training or recruitment of interviewers is required as questionnaires are self-report methods. Data is easy to quantify, especially when answers are pre-coded, making the relationships between the variables easy to identify.
• Practical Limitations:

  Data is often limited and superficial; questionnaires are fairy brief to ensure that more people take the time to respond. It may be necessary to offer incentives to persuade participants, this is costly. Questionnaires are only snapshots of a moment in time, they fail to capture the ways a respondent's attitude and behaviour changes.
• Practical Limitations:

  With postal and emailed questionnaires, it cannot be sure whether the respondent received the questionnaire due to the detachment. Researchers cannot be sure that the intended recipient has filled out the questionnaire and not someone else. Low response rates; unless collected by hand which adds to the cost and time. Non-response may be caused by a faulty questionnaire design, one that uses complex language can only be completed by the well educated.
• Practical Limitations:

  They are inflexible once finalised meaning that the researchers cannot ask or explore any new areas of interest that arise during the course of their research. As the researcher has to write questions in advance, it means that they have to have knowledge of the subject and a clear hypothesis, therefore this method cannot be used for investigating unfamiliar topics where the researcher is more unaware.
• Theoretical Issues: Positivists

  Take a scientific approach and believe that using questionnaires in research achieves the main goal of scientific sociology. They produce representative findings which can be generalised to the wider population. They are reliable, objective and detached methods which can test hypotheses and develop causal laws of social behaviour.
• Theoretical Issues: Positivists

  Hypothesis Testing- questionnaires allow researchers to test their hypotheses and identify cause-and-effect relationships between different variables. They establish correlations as they produce quantitative data, allowing for generalisations. This process is similar to that of the natural sciences, meaning laws of cause and effect are established through controlled testing.
• Theoretical Issues: Positivists

  Reliability- Positivists see reliability as important as it enables findings to be checked and confirmed or falsified by others. If the result is replicated and produces the same results, researchers can be more confident that the findings are true. As the questionnaire is a standardised measuring instrument, like a thermometer, enabling reliability. If different results arise, it can be assumed that the differences are due to the respondents as the questionnaire remains the same. Comparisons can then be made across different societies, ages, gender, etc.
• Theoretical Issues: Positivists

  Representativeness- findings can be more easily generalised to the wider population, as Positivists are macro or structural theorists, their aim is to make generalisations about how the wider social structures influence our behaviour. Questionnaires achieve this as: they are large-scale, as they access a more geographically dispersed sample they are more likely to be more representative of the wider population; and they use representative samples as they are often used alongside more sophisticated sampling techniques.
• Theoretical Issues: Positivists

  Representativeness- However, representativeness can be undermined by a low response rate, especially if the only respondents who have returned their questionnaires are untypical of the wider population (for example the well educated, stay at home parents). This produces distorted and unrepresentative results, from which no accurate generalisations are possible.
• Theoretical Issues: Positivists

  Detachment & Objectivity- Positivists claim that scientific research should be objective and detached, the scientist's subjective values and opinions should be separated from their research to ensure it doesn't 'contaminate' the findings or affect the subjects responses. Arguing that as questionnaires are the most detached, they should be used as the researchers involvement is kept to a minimum. Meaning they cannot consciously or subconsciously influence the answers.
• Theoretical Issues: Interpretivism

  Seek to discover the meanings which underlie our actions, enabling us to construct our own social reality. Their main concern is validity- obtaining an authentic or truthful picture of how actors construct and experience their social reality. Meaning that interpretivists tend to reject the use of questionnaires, arguing they fail to produce valid data.
• Theoretical Issues: Interpretivism

  Detachment- they argue it fails to produce a valid picture of the actors' meanings. Instead, researchers have to use methods which involve greater proximity to gain validity, meaning they can see the world through their eyes, understanding their subjective experience. Lack of contact means that the questions cannot be clarified, this is especially crucial when there are cultural or language differences. Seeing the cost of this detachment is then invalid data.
• Theoretical Issues: Interpretivism

  Lying & Trying to Impress- validity is dependent on the willingness of respondents to produce full and accurate answers. An example of this is Schofield's questionnaire which researched the sexual behaviour of teenagers, asking if the respondent was a virgin, one responded 'No, not yet'. This could have been their lack of understanding or being mischievous which results in invalid data. They may have social desirability bias where they second-guess themselves to appear 'respectable', answering in the ways they think is expected.
• Theoretical Issues:

  Ethics- pose relatively few ethical issues as questions are usually about less sensitive, routine factual topics. When questions are more sensitive, respondents have the choice to not answer them. Though researchers should still avoid causing psychological harm when writing the questions. They need to ensure that they have fully informed consent, and make respondents aware that they have the right to withdraw. Ensuring confidentiality is straightforward as most questionnaires are anonymous.
• Theoretical Issues: Interpretivism

  Imposing Researcher's Meanings- questionnaires are likely to impose the researcher's framework of ideas on the respondent as a pose to revealing the respondent's meanings. Through choosing the questions in advance the researcher has already decided what is most important.
• Theoretical Issues: Interpretivism

  Imposing Researcher's Meanings- this can be done through the type of questions asked. Closed ended means that respondents have to fit their views into the answers offered, and if they feel another point is important, they have no place to express this. Open ended questions still have to be quantified by the researcher. Shipman claims that when researcher's categories and respondent's categories don't align, bending of the data is inevitable.