Research Methods #3: Questionnaires

Question 1

What are Questionnaires, and who are they favoured by?

Answer 1

• Favoured by positivists, written or self-completed questionnaires are a form of social survey and can be distributed in a range of ways - notably, via post, email or handed out in person.
• Questionnaires are typically a list of pre-set questions that are closed-end questions with pre-coded answers.

Question 2

What are the advantages of Questionnaires?

Answer 2

ADVANTAGES

• Practical - questionnaires are cheap and quick
• Quantifiable data
• Representative - reach a geographically widespread research sample
• Reliable - the questionnaire can be easily repeated due to how the questions are pre-set
• Limited ethical issues - the respondent is under no obligation to answer the question

Question 3

What are the disadvantages of Questionnaires?

Answer 3

DISADVANTAGES

• Response rate - postal questionnaires, in particular, obtain a very low response rate, which may hinder the representativity.
• Low validity - People may be more willing to lie.
• Unrepresentative - You are likely to get a certain group of people, for example, the unemployed or elderly that answer the questionnaire as many other people might be too busy, and so you won’t get a particularly representative sample.
• The interviewer isn’t there to ask follow-up questions and explain questions the participants if they don’t understand