Questionnaires

Questionnaires

Involve a pre set list of written questions to which a participant responds

Psychologists use questionnaires to assess thoughts and feelings

Interviews and questionnaires can

Either be used as a technique as part of another type of research study such as lab study or it can be used by itself as a research method

Why choose a questionnaire

It is designed to collect information about a topic or topics

You can collect the same information from a large number of people relatively easily

You can ask people directly with a questionnaire

Open questions

Does not have a fixed range of answers and respondents are free to answer in any way they wish

Tend to produce qualitative data that may be difficult to analyse because there are a wide range of different responses

Closed questions

Offers a fixed number of responses

Produce quantitative data - easy to analyse but it may lack the depth and detail associated with open questions

Strength - Cost effective
Strength - data can be collected without the researcher being there

Can gather large amounts of data quickly because they can be distributed to large numbers of people

The researcher doesnt have to be present in the case of the questionnaire which reduces the effort involved

Strength - data is easy to analyse

Produces data that is usually straight forward to analyse if it is mainly comprimised of closed questions

Data can be used to make comparisons between groups of people using graphs and charts as well as statistical tests

Weakness- responses given may not always be truthful

Respondents may be keen to present themselves in a certain way and this may influence their answer

Form of demand characteristic called social desirability bias

Weaknesses

If a questionnaire is structured poorly there may be leading questions causing respondents to answer in a particular way

May be a sample bias as only certain people fill in and return questionnaires

Questionnaires rely on a respondents ability to report accurately- an individual may not have sufficient insight into their own behaviour to be able to record it accurately

Different questions may be interpreted differently by different participants