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Questionnaires - Coggle Diagram
Questionnaires
Disadvantages
Practical problems
data tends to be limited and superficial because they need to be failry breif since most respondents are unlikely to complete and return a long time consuming questionnaire
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although they can be cheap they are often accompanied by incentives such as a cash prize draw which will add to the cost
the researcher cannot be sure whether the potential respondent has actually received the questionnaire or whether a returned questionnaire was actually completed by the person to whom it was addressed
Low response rate
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Hite - study of 'love, passion and emotional violence' in America sent out 100,000 questionnaires, but only 4.5% were returned
response rate can be increased if follow up questionnaires are sent and collected by hand however this adds to time and cost
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those who return it may have different views from those who don't. For example, busy people in full time work may not respond whereas those unemployed or with sociable hours may respond. Similarly, those with strong opinions may respond whereas those who don't will not
Inflexibility
once the questionnaire has been finalised, the researcher is stuck with the questions they have decided to ask and cannot explore any new areas of interest should they come up during the research
contrasts with unstructured interviews, where the researcher can ask new questions if they seem relevant
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Detachment
Cicourel - data from questionnaires lacks validity and does not give a true picture of what has been studied. They argue we can only gain a valid picture by using methods that allow us to get close to the subjects of the study and share their meanings
the most deatched of all primary methods as no direct contact between researcher and respondent meaning no way to clarify questions or deal with misunderstandings
Lying, forgetting and right answerism
respondents may lie, not know, not understand or try to please or second guess the researcher and give respectable answers they think they should give rather than tell the truth
put questionnaires at a disadvantage when compared with observational methods since the observer can see for himself what the subjects actually do rather than what they say they do
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Advantages
Practical advantages
quick and cheap means of gathering large amounts of data from large amounts of people. Connor and Dewson - posted nearly 4,000 questionnaires to students at 14 higher education institutions around the country in their study of the factors influencing decision of working class students to go to university
no need to recruit and train interviewers or observers to collect and return the questionnaires themselves
the data is easy to quantify when closed ended questions are used and can be processed quickly by computer to reveal the relationship between different variables
Reliability
when research is repeated, a questionnaire identical to the original, so new respondents are asked the same questions, in the same order, with the same choice of answers, as the original respondents
with postal or online questionnaires, unlike with interviews, there is no researcher present to influence the respondents answers
if there are differences then we can assume that these are the result of real differences between the respondents and not simply the result of different questions
they allow comparisons, both over time and between different societies. We can compare the results obtained in two different societies or at two different times
Hypothesis testing
using the example of educational achievement, analysis of respondents' answers could show whether there is a correlation between children's achievement levels and family size. We might find, for example, that most low achievers come from large families
we can make statements about the possible causes of low achievement and predictions about which children are most likely to underachieve
because questions enable us to identify possible causes, they are very attractive to positivist sociologists, who take a scientific approach and seek to discover laws of cause and effect
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Representativeness
they can get data from large group of people so results have a better chance of being representative of wider population than with other methods that study only small amounts
questionnaire sociologists tend to pay more attention to the need to obtain a representative sample so more likely to allow us to make accurate generalisations about the wider population from which the sample was drawn
Ethical issues
pose fewer ethical problems than most although they may ask intrusive or sensitive questions, respondents are generally under no obligation to answer them
researchers should gain respondents informed consent, guarantee their anonymity and make it clear that they have a right not to answer any of the questions that they do not wish to
Positivism, interpretivism and questionnaires
positivists favour questionnaires because they achieve reliability, generalisability and representativeness
standardised questions and answers produce reliable data because other researchers can replicate the questionnaire
pre coded responses allow use to produce quantitative data, identify and measure behaviour patterns, and establish cause and effect relationships
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