AS Sociology – RM Questionnaires

At the end of this topic you will be able to .....

Identify and understand the different types of questions used in questionnaires and the different methods of delivering them,

Evaluate the strengths and limitations of questionnaires, Identify and define the carious sampling methods, Evaluate the strengths and limitations of different sampling

methods.

A quick introduction.... Written questionnaires AKA self completed questionnaires are the most

commonly form of social survey, The biggest survey in the UK is the ten yearly Census of the whole

population which is a written questionnaire, Questionnaires can be distributed to people at home and returned by

post or in person, emailed or completed and collected on the post for example in a classroom or office,

Questionnaires ask respondents to provide answers to pre-set questions: Questions tend to be close ended often with pre coded answers however open

ended questions can also be used, Written questionnaires are a relatively cheap and quick way to collect

information from large samples of people.

Have a think ?

What advantages might there be to the use of questionnaires

as a research method ?

Advantages of questionnaires 1. Practical advantages,

2. Reliability,

3. Hypothesis testing,

4. Detachment and objectivity,

5. Representativeness,

6. Ethical issues

Practical advantages Quick and cheap means of gathering large quantities of data

from a large number of people (Connor and Dewson, 2001),

No need to recruit or train interviewers or observers to collect the data s the respondent complete and return the questionnaire themselves,

The data is a lot easier to quantify specifically when using pre-coded close ended questions which can be quickly processed by a computer.

Reliability Questionnaires are seen as a reliable method of collecting

data. If repeated by another researcher a questionnaire should produce similar results to those gained by the 1st researcher.

So what makes a questionnaire so reliable?1. When research using a questionnaire is repeated it uses the

exact same questions, in the same order as the original respondents,

2. With postal questionnaire the lack of a researchers presence means that there is no influence on the respondents answers as it might occur in an experiment or a social survey.

Reliability On researcher study can be easily can be easily replicated

and checked by another,

Differences found with regards to answers given can be assumed to be to be the result of real differences between the respondents,

The use of questionnaires also enable for real comparisons to be made by comparing the results obtain for the same questionnaires in two different societies.

In your groups...

Discuss and suggest three reasons why questionnaires may be high in

reliability other than the ones discussed already.

Hypothesis testing Questionnaire are useful in order to test hypothesis which

aim to establish a cause and effect relationship,

Can you think of a research ideas in which you might want to establish a cause and

effect relationship through the use of questionnaires ?

Hypothesis testing Example : study on educational achievement and the impact

of family size Analysis of the respondents answers will showed whether there

is a correlation (relationship) between family size and educational achievement,

Based on those results as sociologist we are now free to make statements with regards to the effect of family size and educational achievement, Which methodological perspective would

be in favour of using questionnaires ?

Detachment and Objectivity

Positivist also favour questionnaires because they are detached and objective (unbiased form of research) where the sociologist involvement with the respondents is kept to a minimum,

For this reason they are seen by positivist sociologist as a good way for researchers to remain detached from their participants thus ensuring the objectivity of the research

Representativeness

As questionnaires enable researchers to collect information from a large number of people, the results stand a better chance of being truly representative to the wider population than smaller studies such as experiments,

Researchers who use questionnaires tend to pay more attention to the need to obtain a representative sample thus allowing for more generalisation about the wider population.

Ethical issues

Questionnaires pose less ethical issues that most other research methods however they may ask intrusive and sensitive questions which respondents are under no obligation to answer,

Researcher however even when using questionnaire should ensure that they gain informed consent and guarantee the respondents anonymity as well as make it clear that are under no obligation to answer any questions they do not wish to.

What about the disadvantages ?

Practical problems , Response rate Inflexibility, Questionnaires as snapshots, Lying, forgetting and right answerism, Imposing the researcher’s meaning,CAN YOU THINK OF REASONS WHY

THESE ARE A DISADVANTAGE OF QUESTIONNAIRES ?

Practical Problems Data is limited and superficial, Might require cash/prizes incentives to generate a response,

Postal questionnaires: Uncertainty as to whether the respondent will receive the

questionnaire, Uncertainty as the whether the respondent will send back the

questionnaire, Will it be filled in by the person to whom it was aimed?

Response rates Low response rates which are likely to occur when using a postal

questionnaire (Hite, 1991 – sent out 100,000 questionnaires on the study of love, passion and emotional violence and only 4.5% where returned),

Higher response rates if a follow up questionnaire is sent which then leads to the time and cost issue,

Use of language which is not appropriate to the audience in terms of complexity and might only be understood by the well educated,

Production of distorted generalisation due to the sample of population which is more likely to have time to answer a questionnaire such as the unemployed.

Have a thinkSuggest two reasons why those who

respond to questionnaires request set by magazines, TV programmes, mail or

telephone are unlikely to be representative of the population as a whole

Explain in your won words why non response is a problem for sociologist?

Inflexibility Questionnaire are seen as a very inflexible methods.

What do we mean by that ?Once the questionnaire has been

finalised, the researcher is stuck with the questions they have decided to ask

This means that the researcher would not be able to explore any new areas of interest that might come up during

the study.

Questionnaires as snapshots

Questionnaire are only a snapshot of social reality, The give a picture of social reality at only one moment in time

which is the moment during which the respondent answers the questionnaire,

Questionnaires thus do not provide a valid picture because they can not capture the way in which people's attitudes and behaviour changes.

Detachment Cicourel (1968) argues that data from questionnaires lacks

validity and does not give a true picture of what is being studied,

Cicourel further argued that we can only gain a valid picture by using methods that allow us to get close to the subjects we are studying and share their meanings,

Questionnaires are too detached as they required no social contact between the researcher and respondent,

Thus saying that there is no opportunity for the researcher to clarify the meaning of the questions for the respondent emphasises the issue of interpretation.

Lying, forgetting and “right answerism” All methods that gather data by asking questions depend

ultimately on the respondents willingness and ability to provide full and accurate answers,

Problems of validity are created when respondents give answers that are not full or frank,

Trying to please the researcher by giving the expected answers, lying or just being unsure of the answer will affect the data collected,

These issues will put questionnaires at a disadvantage when compared observational methods in which the observer can actually see what the subjects actually do.

Imposing the researcher’s meaning

A valid method that gives a truthful picture of the people meaning and experience however interpretivist argue that questionnaires are more likely to impose the researchers own meaning than to reveal those of the respondent. Choice of questions which demonstrate that the researcher has

also decided what is important and what is not ? Closed ended questions make it hard for the respondent to fully

express their views as they must match it to what is one offer, thus producing a distorted and invalid picture of reality,

Imposing the researcher’s meaning However the use of open ended questions means that

respondents are free to answer as they please but when the researcher comes to code them to produce quantitative data, similar but non identical answers my get lumped together into the same category.

Shipman (1997)