Self-Completion questionnaires

Question 1

What is a self-completion questionnaire?

Answer 1

Form of social survey where respondents answer a list of standardised questions without a researcher present

Question 2

What can these questionnaires consist of?

Answer 2

• Open, closed, or a mixture of questions

- Can produce either quantitative or qualitative data

Question 3

Who prefers this type of method?

Answer 3

Positivists, due to the ability to code data and distribute to large numbers of respondents

Question 4

Example

Answer 4

The Census, which is legally required to complete and is conducted every 10 years

Question 5

Drawbacks

Answer 5

• The fact there is no researcher present can impact the response rate and the validity of the research , as we don’t know who is completing them
• Questions can be misleading or difficult to understand, and as there is no researcher this cannot be addressed

Question 6

Benefits

Answer 6

Standardised nature of questions gives higher reliability, as they can be repeated