Questionnaires

• Structured Questionnaires

  Pre-set questions and answers, often completed by self via email, post or face to face
• Structured Questionnaires

  • Favoured by Positivists
  • Use methods/approaches that generate data from which findings can be generalised to the wider population (macro)
  • Are reliable as they argue society should be studied scientifically
  • Attempt to establish social facts
• Government Document


  • Census
  • Crime Survey of England & Wales
• Other Document

  • Hite Report - Women and Love
• Census

  • Government questionnaire which is wide-ranging, compulsory and well-funded
  • Carried out every ten years and sent to all households in the UK
  • Provides information the government needs to develop policies, plans and allocate funding
• Crime Survey of England & Wales (CSEW)

  • Annually invites around 50,000 households in the UK to participate
  • Measures crime by asking members of the public about their experiences of crime over the last 12 months
  • Records all types of crimes experienced by people, including those not reported to the police
• Hite Report

  • Aimed to explore people's sexual behaviour and relationships, focusing on whether individuals were satisfied with their marriage
  • Used a self-completed questionnaire posted to participants
  • Attained less than a 5% response rate, but still a high number of participants
• Practical Strength - Quick and Cheap

  • Structured Questionnaires are a relatively quick and cheap way of collecting data
  • Researchers only need to spend time devising the questionnaire, then they are often posted or mailed
  • No time is needed on training individuals to act as the researcher
  • Less money is spent on the research and no one is needed to act as the researcher
  • Pre-set and often closed-ended questions reduce the time of the participant
• Ethical Strength - Informed Consent

  • Structured Questionnaires require informed consent from participants
  • Participants are fully aware of the purpose of the research
  • Confidential nature means responses remain anonymous
• Theoretical Strength - Gain Large and Representative Sample

  • Structured Questionnaires are quick and easy to complete
  • Large quantities can easily be produced allowing a large sample size to be reached
  • More representative because they can be completed by many respondents as they are less time-consuming and intrusive
  • Positivists support this quantitative method due to the increase in representation
• Practical Limitation - Inflexibility

  • Structured Questionnaires are inflexible as questions and answers are determined in advance
  • Researcher has already decided what is important and how to measure it
  • Impossible to allow interesting leads to emerge
  • Inflexibility narrows and socially constructs the social reality discovered
• Ethical Limitation - Sensitivity

  • Respondents may not feel comfortable answering sensitive questions
  • Sensitive questions can have an impact on the well-being of the participant
  • No researcher is present to provide support during completion
• Theoretical Limitation - Invalidity

  • Pre-set questions and answers make the results gained invalid
  • Answers given are socially constructed and a narrow reality of the participant's true opinion
  • Respondents may lie, exaggerate or give socially desirable answers