Social Sciences
Questionnaire
A questionnaire is a research tool used to gather information from individuals by asking them a series of questions. It is a structured method of data collection that can be used to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. Questionnaires are commonly used in social sciences to study attitudes, behaviors, and characteristics of a population.
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eBook - ePubLaboratory Psychology
A Beginner's Guide
- Julia Nunn(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
5Questionnaire design Ingrid SchoonAims
T he aim of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the major stages in Questionnaire design and to demonstrate how to choose and develop a Questionnaire for a research project. Areas covered include: functions of the Questionnaire, Questionnaire planning, modes of data collection, response format, question wording, layout of a Questionnaire, and the criteria used to evaluate the quality of a Questionnaire (reliability and validity).Introduction: The function of a Questionnaire
The Questionnaire is a widely used and well respected instrument in psychological research. The Questionnaire is basically a tool for data collection. The major advantages of the Questionnaire in comparison to other research tools, for example the experiment or the unstructured interview, are its obvious simplicity, its versatility, and its low cost as a method of data collection. No fancy or complicated apparatus is needed to administer a Questionnaire—paper and pencil will do. However, Questionnaires can also be administered via computer-assisted techniques. Or, in cases where one wants to reach a great number of people, or individuals who live in widely dispersed areas, one might consider using a postal Questionnaire. The mode of data collection (see later section) should depend on its appropriateness to the research question and the means and resources at your disposal.Questionnaires are used in large-scale surveys, such as the British Social Attitudes Survey (Jowell et al., 1993), as well as in smaller-scale projects, including psychology laboratory classes. Questionnaires are used to gather facts about individuals, such as their age, gender, level of education, status of employment, their eating habits, etc., or if one wants to assess a phenomenon that is not directly observable, or cannot be experimentally manipulated, for example loss of self-esteem in response to unemployment. The data collected from a well designed Questionnaire is commonly considered to be of good enough quality for generating or testing hypotheses (Cronbach, 1990; Oppenheim, 1992). Questionnaire construction furthermore is employed in the development of psychometric tests that are used for assessing personality characteristics, attitudes, abilities, or aptitudes.
No longer available |Learn moreThe Psychology Research Handbook
A Guide for Graduate Students and Research Assistants
- Frederick T. L. Leong, James T. Austin(Authors)
- 2005(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
8 D ESIGNING S URVEYS AND Q UESTIONNAIRES FOR R ESEARCH R OBERT D. G ODDARD III P ETER V ILLANOVA S urveys and Questionnaires are among the most frequently used research methods of the social sciences (Isaac & Michael, 1983). This popularity is really no surprise given that much of contemporary research, par-ticularly in psychology, involves the study of individuals’ perceptions of and beliefs about themselves, their immediate situation, and the relationship these perceptions and beliefs main-tain with behavior. In this chapter, we provide a design primer to assist students in the develop-ment of survey and Questionnaire instruments for research purposes. We’ve organized the chapter to facilitate your development of a cog-nitive script to understand survey and question-naire design and administration. The chapter begins with an overview of survey methods and a description of the development process. This first section serves to orient you to the methods and provides a context in which to better under-stand the more specific issues and choices that follow. A second section takes up design issues in greater detail and is meant to reflect the vari-ety of technical issues you might face once you’ve committed your project to the use of these methods. The final section reviews some alternatives to Questionnaire methods of data collection. O RIENTATION TO S URVEYS AND Q UESTIONNAIRES Design and Administration What Is a Survey? A survey is a method of collecting informa-tion from people for descriptive or predictive purposes. A survey can be used to gather infor-mation about the nation’s population as a whole (the decennial census of the United States) or to assess the reactions of a sample of consumers to a new soft drink. Surveys can take the form of a Questionnaire filled out by individuals, a one-on-one interview between the subject and the surveyor, or a telephone interview.
eBook - PDF- Carl McDaniel, Jr., Roger Gates(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
73 CHAPTER 4 Andrey Popov/Panther Media GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo Acquiring Data Via a Questionnaire LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Understand the role of the Questionnaire in the acquisition process. 2. Become familiar with the criteria for a good Questionnaire. 3. Learn the process for Questionnaire design. 4. Understand how software, the Internet, and mobile devices are influencing Questionnaire design. 5. Understand the impact of the Questionnaire on data-collection costs. At a high level, Questionnaire or data acquisition form is both art and science. When dealing with Questionnaire specifics, such as how to ask certain types of questions, there is plenty of science in the form of methodological research that has been conducted by academics and marketing research professionals. In this chapter, we will provide both overall guidance on Questionnaire design and best practices for handling specific issues based on the findings of methodological research studies. Role of a Questionnaire Survey research, by definition, relies on the use of questions. A Questionnaire (or data acquisition form) is a set of questions designed to generate the data necessary to accom- plish the objectives of the research project; it is a formalized schedule for collecting informa- tion from respondents. You have most likely seen or even filled out a Questionnaire recently. Creating a good Questionnaire requires both hard work and imagination. A Questionnaire standardizes the wording and sequencing of questions and imposes uniformity on the data-gathering process. Every respondent sees or hears the same words; Questionnaire (or data acquisition form) Set of questions designed to generate the data necessary to accomplish the objectives of the research project; also called an interview schedule or survey instrument. 74 CHAPTER 4 Acquiring Data Via a Questionnaire every interviewer asks identical questions.
eBook - PDFResearch Methods For Business
A Skill Building Approach
- Uma Sekaran, Roger Bougie(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
142 INTRODUCTION In Chapter 7, we have already explained that in business research, three important data collection methods are interviewing, observing people, and administering Questionnaires. We have discussed interviewing in Chapter 7 and observation in Chapter 8. In this chapter, we will discuss Questionnaires and Questionnaire design. A Questionnaire is a preformulated written set of questions to which respondents record their answers, usually within rather closely defined alternatives. TYPES OF QuestionnaireS Administering Questionnaires C H A P T E R 9 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After completing Chapter 9, you should be able to: 1. Compare and contrast different types of Questionnaires. 2. Design Questionnaires to tap different variables. 3. Discuss the issues related to cross-cultural research. 4. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various data collection methods in survey research. 5. Discuss the advantages of multisources and multimethods of data collection. 6. Demonstrate awareness of the role of the manager in primary data collection. 7. Demonstrate awareness of the role of ethics in primary data collection. Visit the companion website at www.wiley.com/college/sekaran for Author Video: Questionnaires. chapter administering Questionnaires 143 Questionnaires are generally designed to collect large numbers of quantitative data. They can be administered personally, distributed electronically, or mailed to the respondents. Questionnaires are generally less expensive and time consuming than interviews and observation, but they also introduce a much larger chance of non- response and nonresponse error. An overview of the advantages and disadvantages of Questionnaires (and other methods of data collection) and a section on when to use each of these methods is provided later in this chapter. Personally administered Questionnaires When the survey is confined to a local area a good way to collect data is to personally administer the Questionnaires.
- Frederic B. Mayo(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
171 CHAPTER 11 Research Techniques— Questionnaires INTRODUCTION The most useful and commonly used form of collecting data in applied research involves Questionnaires. They are prevalent in everyone’s life—how many of you have been asked to complete one recently—due to the breadth of marketing research, polling, and now electronic sampling on many websites. Questionnaires are present in a wide range of applications, from banks asking for customer opinions upon log- ging into online banking, to travel sites such as TripAdvisor engaging its subscribers to produce its annual travel trends survey, to hotel companies offering loyalty points to members for completing surveys, to common website third-party pop-up adver- tisements asking you to take a survey. Although widely used, Questionnaires are not simple to develop, design, and administer. Since selecting a sample and obtaining a decent response rate is also an important aspect of good research, this chapter provides an explanation about the types of Questionnaires, the advantages and disadvantages, and advice about creating and administering Questionnaires. The chapter also contains information about confidentiality, privacy, and permis- sion letters as well as a discussion of incentives to encourage a high response rate. PURPOSES OF QuestionnaireS There are many reasons to use Questionnaires as a method of gathering information for a research project. In situations where you want to compare information across a wide range of respondents, Questionnaires enable you to collect a lot of informa- tion in a relatively short period of time so that you can draw conclusions with some credibility. Because of their standard format and scored items, they provide data that can be analyzed to assess correlations and other statistically significant conclusions.
eBook - PDFResearch Methods For Business
A Skill Building Approach
- Roger Bougie, Uma Sekaran(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
CHAPTER 10 143 Administering Questionnaires LEARNING OBJECTIVES After completing Chapter 10, you should be able to: 1. Compare and contrast different types of Questionnaires. 2. Design Questionnaires to tap different variables. 3. Discuss the issues related to cross- cultural research. 4. Discuss the advantages and disad- vantages of various data collection methods in survey research. 5. Discuss the advantages of multi- sources and multimethods of data collection. 6. Demonstrate awareness of the role of the manager in primary data collection. 7. Demonstrate awareness of the role of ethics in primary data collection. In Chapter 7, we have already explained that in business research, three important data collection methods are interviewing, observing people and administering Questionnaires. We have discussed interviewing in Chapter 8 and observation in Chapter 9. In this chapter, we will discuss question- naires and Questionnaire design. A Questionnaire is a preformulated written set of questions to which respondents record their answers, usually within rather closely defined alternatives. Visit the companion website at www.wiley.com/go/bougie/researchmethodsforbusiness8e for Author Video: Questionnaires. Questionnaires are generally designed to collect large numbers of quantitative data. They can be administered personally, distributed electronically or mailed to the respondents. Questionnaires are generally less expensive and time-consuming than interviews and observation, but they also introduce a much larger chance of non-response and non-response error. An overview of the advantages and disadvantages of Questionnaires (and other methods of data collection) and a sec- tion on when to use each of these methods is provided later in this chapter. PERSONALLY ADMINISTERED QuestionnaireS When the survey is confined to a local area, a good way to collect data is to personally administer the Questionnaires.
eBook - PDFResearch Methods in Interpreting
A Practical Resource
- Sandra Hale, Jemina Napier(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
However, surveys are more commonly associated with questions: both in the form of oral questions in an interview and written questions on a Questionnaire. In this chapter, we will concentrate on the written Questionnaire. Chapter 4 discusses interviews and other ethnographic methods. One of the entries in The Macquarie Dictionary for the verb ‘to survey’ is ‘. . . to collect sample opinions, facts, figures or the like in order to estimate the total overall situation’ (Delbridge et al. 2003, p. 1891). There are three key terms in the above definition: sample, estimate and total. A survey will not ‘survey’ everything or everyone; it will only survey a sample. A sample is a fraction of the whole population. From the information collected from the sample, an estimate will be made about the situation of the total population. A census is a Questionnaire that aims to collect information from the whole population. A national census does this, normally every four years. In this chapter, we will discuss surveys, and not census. Later in the chapter, we will learn that the type of sample and the way the sample is chosen will determine how accurate or representative of the whole population the estimate provided by the survey is. 3.3 When to choose Questionnaires as a research method Before you embark on the design of a Questionnaire, you need to decide if that is the best tool to answer your research questions. The first point to consider is that with any type of Questionnaire, you are asking people’s opinions about different issues, and that is all. You cannot ascertain whether what they say is true. So, for example, if you want to find out how well interpreters perform under different conditions, you will not obtain a very reliable result by asking them to tell you in a Questionnaire. This is because their answers will be purely subjective and will not be measured against any valid instrument.
eBook - PDFResearch Methods For Business
A Skill Building Approach
- Uma Sekaran, Roger Bougie(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
CHAPTER 10 143 Administering Questionnaires LEARNING OBJECTIVES After completing Chapter 10, you should be able to: 1. Compare and contrast different types of Questionnaires. 2. Design Questionnaires to tap different variables. 3. Discuss the issues related to cross-cultural research. 4. Discuss the advantages and disad-vantages of various data collection methods in survey research. 5. Discuss the advantages of multi-sources and multimethods of data collection. 6. Demonstrate awareness of the role of the manager in primary data collection. 7. Demonstrate awareness of the role of ethics in primary data collection. In Chapter 7, we have already explained that in business research, three important data collection methods are interviewing, observing people and administering Questionnaires. We have discussed interviewing in Chapter 8 and observation in Chapter 9. In this chapter, we will discuss question-naires and Questionnaire design. A Questionnaire is a preformulated written set of questions to which respondents record their answers, usually within rather closely defined alternatives. Visit the companion website at www.wiley.com/go/bougie/researchmethodsforbusiness8e for Author Video: Questionnaires . Questionnaires are generally designed to collect large numbers of quantitative data. They can be administered personally, distributed electronically or mailed to the respondents. Questionnaires are generally less expensive and time-consuming than interviews and observation, but they also introduce a much larger chance of non-response and non-response error. An overview of the advantages and disadvantages of Questionnaires (and other methods of data collection) and a sec-tion on when to use each of these methods is provided later in this chapter. PERSONALLY ADMINISTERED QuestionnaireS When the survey is confined to a local area, a good way to collect data is to personally administer the Questionnaires.
eBook - PDFPractical Research Methods in Education
An Early Researcher's Critical Guide
- Mike Lambert(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Nonetheless, their merits are many, with issues of time and scale chief among them: Questionnaires often allow researchers to collect large amounts of data from sizeable groups of respondents in a relatively short amount of time. The large datasets which can be generated from standardized questions give researchers the option of using statistical means of analysis and representation, and where the sample size is both large and diverse, they offer the additional possibility of analysing and comparing par- ticular sub-groups which may be of interest, defined, for example, by gender, age, profes- sional roles, location or nationality. Whether or not statistical means of analysis are applied, it is nearly always possible to analyse and present findings succinctly and clearly using fig- ures and percentages, for instance: ‘Eighty per cent of respondents agreed that university students should sit exams’. Questionnaires can also be particularly useful when the aim of the research is to capture a surface impression of the extent to which groups of people agree or disagree on an issue, or to establish the range of thoughts and views in relation to certain topics, for example: ‘Fifteen out of 20 respondents felt that exams were stressful, while only five suggested they were an enjoyable challenge’. 2 Brendan Bartram As such, Questionnaires are an ideal tool when we are confident of a high return rate, and they often work particularly well in combination with interviews, which allow Questionnaire data to be fleshed out with greater depth and detail. One factor often considered to facilitate a higher number of returns is related to an important ethical consideration: the anonymity and confidentiality that Questionnaires offer. Well-designed versions usually highlight this feature in an attempt to encourage completion based on honest and frank responses, with respondents confident that their personal views will not be identifiable.
eBook - PDF- Malcolm Williams(Author)
- 2002(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
Finally, when considering the content of Questionnaire the researcher is rarely a pioneer. Others have usually been there before and for many topics there are well-tested questions that can be used in a variety of con-texts. Not only does the researcher benefit from the development work of others, but the standardization of certain questions permits comparison between studies. In the past few years a number of question ‘banks’ have been established, often containing well-tested questions from large government surveys. A good example is the UK Centre for Applied Social Surveys (CASS) question bank at http: / /qb.soc.surr ey .ac.uk/ . This contains a huge range of questions on crime, demography, households, social class, etc. Most surveys will also contain ‘face sheet information’, sometimes called ‘classifying’ or ‘personal’ data (Oppenheim, 1992: 109). This is back-ground information on the attributes of respondents that allow compari-son both across the survey and between surveys on the variables operationalized from the research question. Face sheet variables usually include sex, age, ethnicity and social class. In Western societies these are key defining variables and often can explain important differences in atti-tudes and attributes. Views vary on where face sheet information should be placed. To start off with a battery of such questions may seem irrele-vant or intrusive to the respondent and it is usually better to place them at the end of the Questionnaire. However, when using quota sampling, in face-to-face interviewing, the researcher needs to ask at least some of these questions to establish whether the respondent is suitable for the sample (‘in scope’), see Chapter 4. Making Sense of Social Research 106 Appearance Though content is of primary importance, what a Questionnaire looks like will often make important differences to its completion.
No longer available |Learn more- Theresa White, Donald McBurney(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
A major function of surveys is to dispel myths. One such myth is that women whose children have grown up and left home suffer a kind of depression called “ the empty nest syndrome. ” Lillian Rubin (1979) surveyed 160 women in this situation and found that, rather than being depressed, virtually all of them experienced a sense of relief. The results of other sur-veys surprise us, such as by indicating how highly related physical punish-ment and aggression are in children. An international survey of mothers and children from six different countries showed that in general, as physical punish-ment increased, so did anxiety and aggression in the children (Lansford et al., 2005). Because survey research is technical and complex, we give only a brief overview here. Nevertheless, it is important to have an idea of the techniques because survey research is used so often. How a Questionnaire Is Designed Designing a Questionnaire is a surprisingly complex procedure that involves a great many considerations. It shares many of the other considerations of research design in addition to the concerns that are inherent in any written or oral form of communication. Frequently, researchers use existing ques-tionnaires, rather than designing their own instruments. Thus, they avoid redesigning the wheel and they can compare their results with those of previous studies using the same instrument. For example, one useful source is the Mental Measurement Yearbook ™ (Buros Institute of Mental Mea-surements), which reviews more than 2700 standardized tests, including many Questionnaires. The Measures of Social Psychological Attitudes series (e.g., Robinson, Shaver, & Wrightsman, 1991) also reviews and lists numerous measures of subjective well-being, self-esteem, social anxiety, depression, and so forth. The considerations listed in the following sections will be helpful, whether you design your own Questionnaire or select an existing one.
- Stephen Gorard(Author)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- Continuum(Publisher)
While a Questionnaire should not be pompous or use long technical words inappropriately, it is probably best to stick to a relatively formal style throughout to encourage a serious frame of mind in the respondent. Sometimes the use of offensive language is the result of naivete or ignorance. Sometimes it is due to cultural or national differences. I have seen a question for teachers in the UK refer to a 'retard' or retarded pupil, and another for adults asking whether they were 'low class'. In both cases fashions in terminology had changed and made both questions seem unpleasant in tone. Be careful. Be up-to-date. I have seen questions use analogies and terminology from the drinking of alcoholic beverages in instruments for a general population 120 Quantitative Methods in Social Science including Moslems. Why take the risk? Don't turn people away by your use of language. This chapter has concentrated on the design of a survey instrument. For more on general survey design see Thomas (1999), Czaja and Blair (1996), Hakim (1992), Oppenheim (1992), Payne (1951) or Sudman and Bradburn (1982). See Bernard (2000) for examples of more esoteric survey designs. Chapter Six continues by describing some simple statistical techniques for analysing the kinds of data collected from a survey.
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