Questionnaires

What are some practical advantages of questionnaires?

• not expensive

• not time consuming

• possible to easily distribute online/via email

What are some practical disadvantages of questionnaires?

• access

• gatekeepers

What are some ethical advantages of questionnaires?

• detachment

• reduced bias

• reduced influence of researcher

• anonymity

• protection from harm

• reduced participant stress

What are some ethical disadvantages of questionnaires?

• the imposition problem

• deatchment

What are some theoretical advantages of questionnaires?

• larger, representative sample sizes

• reliability

• representative

• objective

What are some theoretical disadvantages of questionnaires?

• low response rate

• reduced representativeness

• sampling bias

• lying, forgetting & ‘right answerism’

• potential lack of reliability

the imposition problem

the risk that the researcher's own views, frameworks, and questions might influence or distort the responses of the respondents as the researcher has chosen what responses are available

open questions

questions to which respondents are free to give whatever answer they wish in their own words

closed questions

questions with a limited range of answers that have been decided in advance by the researcher