AO1 - Questionnaires

• Questionnaires:

  • Form part of surveys, which involve asking a large sample of people for information on a specific topic
  • Involves a pre-set list of written questions or items to which the participant responds
  • The purpose of surveys is to get a good representation of the target population using a large sample - makes it able to generalise results to the rest of the population
• Open questions gain qualitative data

  • Open questions: Questions which participants can answer using their own words, they can express their views of their own behaviour and responses tend to include greater detail
  • Qualitative data: Data which is non-numerical, it provides detailed data with depth, detail and human meaning
• Closed questions often gain quantitative data

  • Closed questions: Questions which mean that participants' responses are fixed, e.g. 'yes', 'no' or rating scales
  • Quantitative data: Data which is in numerical form, only gained from questions where participants answer with a number, e.g. rating scales
• There are 6 things to consider when designing a questionnaire:

  1. Decide on what type of data you want from your questionnaire
  2. Decide on the questions you will need to ask to gain that type of data e.g. open or closed questions - these should be unambiguous and easy to understand
  3. Example questions; Open questions start with ‘describe, explain…….’, closed questions start with ‘how often...’
  4. Include some distractor questions so that participants don't show demand characteristics
  5. Decide on the order of the questions
  6. Carry out a pilot study to identify and resolve any problems