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Research Method

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Research Method

• Method: Ways to collect your research data

• Quality of data: depending on the subjects’ willingness and knowledge

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Participants

• Who?

a. Students? Company employees?

b. Age? (mean or range)

c. Gender?

d. Other information (e.g. experienced internet users; English majors)

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Questionnaire (1)

1. Decide what to investigate2. Decide the participants3. Decide the questions a. the necessity of the questions b. a single question or a series of questions c. how much the participants know about the questions d. the experience that the participants have regarding the

questions e. whether the participants remember the information

regarding the questions f. the amount of time that participants need to gather

information to answer the questions g. avoid repetitive questions and leading questions ( 導引式問

題 , e.g. 「多數醫生認為抽煙對人體有害，您同意嗎？」 )

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Questionnaire (2)

4. Types of questions: true & false questions; multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions

( 敘述 ) ☆

非常同意

同

意

尚

可

不

同

意

非常不同意

Scaling 量表式 : 1 2 3 4 5

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Questionnaire (3)

E.g. 服飾會從何處去採購 ?□ 百貨公司□網路有店面的賣家□市場或夜市□ 採 VIP 預約制的特色品牌服飾店家□其他，請填寫： ___________________

* Open-ended questions

E.g. 你希望課後體藝班的活動有哪些的內容？ ___________________________

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Questionnaire (3)

5. Wording & phrases of the questions: avoid difficult & ambiguous words6. Sequence of questions a. General or specific/technical questions b. Easy or difficult c. Familiar or unfamiliar d. Sequencing: behavior ( 行為資料 ) ＝＞ attitude ( 態度

資料 ) ＝＞ personal information ( 受訪者個人資

料 )

7. Layout of the questionnaire: page number, size of the questionnaire & words

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Questionnaire (4)

8. Pretest: measure the time to fill out the questionnaires & difficulty that participants might have

a. Participants of the pretest (carried out with interviews):

< 50 people; share some characteristics with participants

of the main study b. The appropriateness of the wording of the questions, order of the questions, the length c. Add or delete some questions; revise the questionnaire9. Sending out questionnaires: mailing; one-to-one; on-line

questionnaires

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Questionnaire (5)

• Mailing questionnaires• Advantages a. A wide range of subjects b. Convenience: hiring people to key in the collected data c. Enough time for the subjects to fill out the questionnaire d. Anonymity e. No influence from the researcher

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Questionnaire (6)

• Disadvantages a. Low returning rates b. Low reliability c. Difficulty to get the subjects’ mailing addresses d. The importance of the questionnaire layout to attract the subjects to fill out the questionnaire e. Poor interaction with the subjects (cannot answer the subjects’ questions regarding the questionnaire)

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Questionnaire (7)

• Online questionnaire: E-mail, Newsgroup, BBS, WWW （ e.g.www.my3q.com; youthwant.com.tw）

• Advantages: a. saving time & money b. convenience to preserve data c. no geographical restrictions d. convenience to deal with data• Disadvantages: a. requirement of the subjects’ emails b. requirement of the subjects’ computer literacy c. not sure whether the sampling is representative d. low reliability of the questionnaire data

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Questionnaire (8)

• Ways to raise the returning/filling rate

a. choose participants carefully

b. offer adequate number of questions in the questionnaire

c. provide the subjects with motivations (e.g. money, gifts)

d. have a better quality of the questionnaire

e. state clearly the institution, name, research purpose, & guarantee for anonymity

f. choose a right time

g. remind the subjects in person

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Interview (1)

• Techniques for interviews 1. Preparations before the interview 2. Skills a. establish a friendly relationship b. listen to the interviewee c. interview with questions sequentially and logically d. observe e. remember the main points of the interview (taking notes) f. use good elicitation skills

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Interview (2)

• Procedure

a. Confirm the purpose & review literature (rationale for questions)

b. Decide the interview questions

c. Choose appropriate sampling (representative 代表性 )

d. Choose and train interviewers

e. Conduct interviews & take notes

f. Write up the interview report

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Interview (3)

• Face-to-face interviews (by recording & videotaping)• Advantage a. flexibility: can explain unclear questions/ words b. wider range of subjects: can include illiterate subjects or those who have no phones c. more complete information• Disadvantage a. higher cost b. more time c. influenced by elicitation skills d. a lack of anonymity

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Interview (4)

• Phone interviews

• Advantages:

a. more economic than face-to-face interviews

b. time-economy

c. anonymity

• Disadvantages

a. time limit

b. restriction on question types

c. possibility for the interview to be interrupted

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* Structured interviews ( 結構性訪問 )• Ask concerned/focused questions • Ask all subjects the same questions in the same order

• Use the same words & questions

Interview (5)

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Interview (6)

* Semi-structured interviews ( 半結構性訪問 )• Ask a series of focused questions

• Provide open-ended questions based on the interviewee’s responses for further investigation

• Require the interviewer’s experience

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Interview (7)

1. 你有沒有興趣讓子女參加課後體藝班？2. 你希望課後體藝班的頻密程度如何？

每周一天、三天或五天？3. 你希望課後體藝班的活動有哪些的內容？4. 你認為本幼稚園目前在體藝的培養有何問題需

要改進？

封閉式 封閉式

開放式 開放式

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Comparisons of different data collection methods

方法 個別訪談 電話訪談 郵寄問卷 電腦網路

1.優點 有回饋反應、可反

應複雜問題、面談

者高度參與，故有

機會做進一步探問

(probing)。

速度快、成本較

低、無面對面的尷

尬。

成本低、受訪者可

選最方便時機地

點回答、標準化問

卷易獲得。

回收速度快且資料回

收量大，可跨國調

查、所花費成本最

低。

2.缺點 成本高、沒有匿名

性可言，有時受訪

者會害怕而拒答、

有時間壓力。

樣本恐有偏差、少

掉視覺觀察。

回收率低。 樣本選取恐有偏差

(例如都是網路族)，

無法事後進一步探

問。