Questionnaires

Questionnaires

1. Questionnaires mainly give quantative data

   • 1) Questioannires mainly used closed questions and miltiple choice answer e.g "what's your vourite fish? a. Haddock b. Cod c. Salmon d. Hake
     • 2) Some questionnaires use open ended questions. E.g "what's your favourite fish?"
       • 3) The reliability and validity of a quantitative data, which positivists like.
         • Closed questions give you quantative data, which positivts like.
           • Open ended questions can give you some ingiht into meanings and motives. They give you qualativate data, which interptivts prefer.

2. Advatages of questionnaires

   • 1) Questioannires are easy to administer, and they can colect a lot of data in short time. Closed questions provide quantative data which can be quickly anlysed too.
     • 2) Questionnaires are reliable
       • 4) A large sample can be given questionnaire, so if the sample is representative the questionnaires should produce representative data taht can be used to make generalisations
       • 3) Questionnaires are anonmous and don't require the respondent to sit face to face with an interviewer. This makes them suitable for sensitive topics. For example, the survey of national attitudes and lifestyles was a postal questionnaire rather than a face to tface strauctured interview.

3. Disadvanatges of questioannaires - they aren't very valid

   • 1) Respondents may not tell the truth. They may lie, or they may be mistaken.
     • 2) Questions may be misleading or mean different things to different people. Thus means they may not accurately measure what you want to measure
       • 3) Respondents can't give any extra information, even if it would be really helpful to the researcher
         • 4) Because the respondent fills in the questioannire on their own, there's no one there to explain the questions if the respeondent doesn't undertsand.
           • 5) Postal questionnaires have a low respsone rate. If it's too low it won't be a represetative sample.