Surveys & Questionnaires

Question 1

What are social surveys?

+ what are the two forms of this?

• what is a pilot study?

Answer 1

involve gathering information by asking people questions about their lives, attitudes, opinions & behaviours

+ self-completion: handed, posted or e-mailed to the respondent and they are asked to answer the questions

+ structured interviews: questionnaires that are read out by the researcher who then records the answers

• a practice or trail run of research before real piece of research is carried out

Question 2

What is the design process of a questionnaire?

Answer 2

1) Choose a research topic
2) Determine a hypothesis
3) Operationalise concepts (converting sociological concept into something that can be measured)
4) Decide whether to do face to face or postal
5) Write the questions
6) Conduct pilot study
7) Select a sample
8) Conduct survey

Question 3

What are the two types of question?

+ advantages & disadvantages of each?

Answer 3

1) Open: respondents are free to give whatever answer they want in their own words
+ flexible
+ allows for meanings & motives
+ maximises validity

• more time-consuming
• loses reliability & ease of comparison/analysis
• more demands on respondent

2) Closed: respondents must choose from a limited range of answers
+ reliable
+ easy to quantify
+ quick & cheap

• not valid (respondent must fit their views into the options provided)
• no flexibility
• researcher bias

Question 4

What are some strengths of questionnaires? (PERVERT)

Answer 4

Practical
+ quick & cheap method to gather data from a large group
+ no need to train or recruit people to collect data
+ data is easy to quantify

Ethical
+ can be used to explore embarrassing areas
+ respondents are not obliged to answer
+ usually provide consent, RTW & anonymity

Reliability
+ can be repeated easily with an identical questionnaire
+ easy to make comparisons as we can assume differences are a result of real differences between respondents

Validity
+ no researcher present to influence respondent’s answers
+ detachment & objective form of research

Representative
+ can collect info from a large sample

Theoretical
+ useful for hypothesis testing about cause & effect relationships
+ Positivists favour this method

Question 5

What are some weaknesses of questionnaires? (PERVERT)

Answer 5

Practical
- data is usually limited/brief
- financial incentives may be needed
- not always known if participants received them
- answers may be incomplete or illegible
- low response rates

Ethical
- may open up memories or create anxiety which would not be followed up with help

Validity
- captures a snapshot in time
- respondents may lie, forget, not know/understand or try to please the researcher
- researcher bias within questions & face to face questionnaires
- no meanings & motives explored
- no way to clarify questions
- lack of flexibility

Representative
- self-selecting sample may be an issue
- those who do return are often very different from those who don’t

Theoretical
- difficult to examine complex issues
- Interpretivists dislike this method

Question 6

What are some examples of questionnaire studies?

+ what issues are apparent with these?

Answer 6

(Hite) study of love, passion & emotional violence in the USA
- sent out questionnaires in magazines and only 4.5% were returned

(Connor & Dewson) study of factors influencing decisions of working-class students to go to university
- posted 4000 to students at 14 unis across country

(Rutter) data revealed correlation between class size & achievement
- collected data from 12 inner London secondary schools

(Bruce) examined surveys which found 35% of Christians in the USA had been to church in the last week but church figures indicated only 16% did so

(La Pierre) travelled across USA w a young Chinese-American couple & visited 250 establishments to observe racial discrimination
- afterwards he wrote to all the places visited and 92% said they would not accept Chinese people despite only once being refused service

Question 7

What are some issues with using questionnaires to study education?

Answer 7

• access issues
• over-simplifies correlations
• informed consent (vulnerable groups)
• may not get meanings & motives from students