Flashcards on Questionnaires (3.4)

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One way of gathering data about people is through the use of questionnaires. Questionnaires ask people to provide answers to pre-set questions. What are the two types of questions that may be asked?	Close-ended questions (respondents choose from a limited range of possible answers) and open-ended questions (respondents are free to answer as they wish, using their own words).
There are number of practical advantages questionnaires offer to researchers. For example, they are a quick and cheap means of gathering large amounts of data from geographically dispersed people. Which pair of sociologists demonstrated this in their research?	Helen Connor and Sara Dewson - they posted nearly 4000 questionnaires to students at 14 HE institutions across Britain when studying the factors influencing the decisions of working-class students to go to university.
Another practical advantage of questionnaires is that there is no need to recruit and train interviewers or observers to collect data. Why?	Because respondents complete and return the questionnaires themselves.
Finally, what is the benefit questionnaires give, particularly when using pre-coded, close-ended questions?	Data is easy to quantify and can be quickly processed to reveal relationships between different variables.
Another advantage questionnaires offer is reliability. What does it mean when a research method is described as 'reliable'?	It refers to methods which, if repeated by another researcher, would give similar results to the original study.
There are two reasons why questionnaires are reliable. What are they?	1. When the study is repeated, the same questionnaire can be distributed, so participants receive the same questions in the same order with the same choice of answers. 2. Unlike other methods, there is no researcher presence to influence participants involved in questionnaires.
How can questionnaires be described?	As a 'fixed yardstick'.
The reliability of questionnaires also means that if differences are to arise, we can assume what?	They are the result of real differences and not simply the result of different questions.
A related advantage to this is that they allow comparisons. Why is this useful?	It allows us to compare the results obtained in different societies or at different times.
Questionnaires can also be seen as beneficial when testing what?	Hypotheses about cause-and-effect relationships between different variables.
From the analysis of answers, patterns can be identified. These can then be used to make what?	Statements and predictions.
Why do positivist sociologists favour questionnaires?	Because they take a scientific approach and seek to discover laws of cause and effect, and questionnaires enable us to identify possible causes.
Another advantage of questionnaires is their objectivity. Positivists also favour questionnaires because they are a detached research method. What is meant by this?	The sociologist's personal involvement with the respondents is kept to a minimum. Sometimes questionnaires can be distributed, completed and returned with no contact at all between the parties.
Questionnaires can collect information from a large number of people. What advantage does this carry?	There is a better chance of the results being representative of the wider population.
Researchers who use questionnaires tend to pay more attention to the need to obtain a representative sample. As such, what can questionnaire findings be used to make?	Generalisations about the wider population from which the sample was drawn.
Finally, questionnaires pose fewer ethical problems than most other research methods. Why?	Although they may ask intrusive or sensitive questions, respondents are generally under no obligation to answer them.
However, to avoid any ethical issues, what should researchers do?	Gain informed consent, ensure anonymity and make it clear that participants can refuse to answer if they so wish.
Despite the advantages, there are also a number of disadvantages, for which they have been criticised. What practical problem arises from the need to keep questionnaires brief?	They may be limited and/or superficial.
While questionnaires are relatively cheap, what cost is sometimes involved when using them?	The need to offer incentives - often monetary - to convince participants to return them.
With postal questionnaires, there are two additional problems. What are they?	1. The researcher doesn't know if the questionnaire has been received. 2. They don't know if a returned questionnaire was actually completed by the person to whom it was addressed.
Although questionnaires have the potential to collect data from large samples, low response rates can be a problem. Why?	Because few of those who receive a questionnaire bother to complete and return it.
When studying 'love, passion and emotional violence', Shere Hite distributed 100,000 questionnaires. How many were returned?	4.5%.
How can a higher response rate be obtained?	By sending out a follow up questionnaire and/or collecting the questionnaires by hand. However, this adds to the time and cost of the study.
Non-response is sometimes due to faulty design. What is meant by this?	A questionnaire that uses complex language may only be completed by the well educated.
What is the danger of a low response rate?	Those who did not return their questionnaire may hold different views to those who did. This produces distorted and unrepresentative results, from which inaccurate generalisations may be made.
Another disadvantage sociologists experience when using questionnaires is inflexibility. Why can questionnaires be described as inflexible?	Because once a questionnaire has been finalised, it cannot be altered at all and researchers will not be able to explore any new areas of interest should they arise.
Questionnaires have also been criticised for being 'snapshots'. What does this mean?	They give a picture of social reality at only one moment in time. They therefore fail to produce a fully valid picture, as they don't capture the way people's behaviour and attitudes change.
Interpretivists like Cicourel argue that data from questionnaires lacks validity and doesn't provide a 'true' picture. Why do they think this?	They believe that we can only gain a true picture by using methods that allow us to get close to the subjects of the study and share their meanings. Questionnaires do not permit this.
Cicourel argues that the lack of contact involved in questionnaires results in what?	Miscommunication - what the researcher means and what the participants thinks they mean may be completely different. The lack of contact means there is no way of clarifying to confirm meanings.
Problems of validity are created when respondents give answers that aren't complete and/or honest. For example, respondents may try to please the researcher by giving the 'correct' answer. What is this called?	'Right answerism'.
Right answerism puts questionnaires at a disadvantage when compared with observation methods. Why?	Observational methods allow the researcher to see what the participants do, rather than having to simply take them at their word.
What is meant when a method is described as valid?	The method is one that gives a truthful picture of people's meanings and experiences.
Do interpretivists regard questionnaires as valid?	No, they believe that questionnaires are more likely to impose the researcher's own meanings than to reveal those of the respondent.
How may questionnaires impose the researcher's meanings?	- By choosing which questions to ask, the researcher has already decided what is important. - When using close-ended questions, researchers may force their opinion into the ones on offer.
Which sociologist argues that when the researcher's categories are not the respondent's categories, 'pruning and bending' of data is inevitable?	Marten Shipman.

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Flashcards on Questionnaires (3.4)

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