questionnaires

questionnaires

1. advantages

   • practical
     • quick and cheap
     • large quantities of data from large samples
     • easy to quantify
     • large geographical area
   • reliability
     • set list of questions, restricted answers
     • replicable
     • comparable results
     • no researcher present to influence answers
   • representativeness
     • increases sample
     • findings are more likely to make accurate generalisations
   • ethical
     • respondents have to answer

2. disadvantages

   • practical
     • need to be brief, people don't want to fill out long ones
     • limits amount of info gathered
   • response rate
     • very low, especially postal
     • complex language causes reductions
     • unrepresentative
       • busy people fail to respond
       • people with lots of time are likely to
     • follow ups are expensive and time consuming
   • detachment
     • lacks validity
     • little or no contact
     • questions cannot be clarified
     • might interpret questions differently
   • right answerism
     • lie, forget, not know/understand
     • give socially desirable answers
     • undermines validity

3. definition

   • written or self completed
   • most common form of social survey
   • distributed at home and returned by post
   • ask correspondents to answer pre set questions, closed ended with pre coded answers