Methods in Context – Questionnaires

THEORETICAL ISSUES:

  • Concepts like ‘deferred gratification’ or ‘cultural capital’ in questionnaires might be an issue for pupils because:

    • Abstract concepts that aren’t easily understood by pupils.

  • With terms like these, the sociologist should:

    • Operationalise them.

  • This might cause a problem because:

    • No longer very sociological – less academic.

  • It’s easy to gain a representative sample:

    • Can distribute it to many people in many areas.

  • A researcher may not be able to gather the sample they require as a school may keep this information confidential:

    • Contact details.

    • Ethnicity.

    • Class.

    • Gender.

  • Schools might be reluctant to distribute questionnaires in class because:

    • Interference with the school day.

  • This would result in:

    • It being less representative due to lower response rate.

  • Groups may not complete the questionnaire as they see it as a task from the teacher, such as:

    • Anti-school subcultures

  • Head teacher permission would avoid these issues.

  • This might happen if questionnaires are completed in front of peers in class:

    • Answers out of peer pressure, conformity.

  • This causes an issue with the:

    • Validity

  • Questionnaires are good for:

    • Teachers:

      • More efficient method.

      • Sympathetic to research.

    • Pupils:

      • Anonymous.

    • Parents:

      • Easier to get it to them via pupils.

  • Questionnaires are bad for:

    • Teachers:

      • May not have the time because they’re overworked.

    • Pupils:

      • Might not understand it.

    • Parents:

      • Might not get filled in/returned.

  • Word of the researcher and questionnaire travelling around the school would reduce validity because:

    • Creates social desirability bias.

  • Teachers are more able to guess the aims of a questionnaire because:

    • Have more experience with questionnaires.

    • More educated.

ETHICAL ISSUES:

  • The school need to give permission for questionnaires to be handed out because:

    • Pupils are a vulnerable group and informed consent is needed from gatekeepers who follow special codes.

  • Questionnaires are good for researching sensitive areas like bullying because:

    • They’re anonymous.

  • Pupils might not be sure that anonymity will be kept because:

    • See the researcher as a teacher.

    • Therefore won’t be truthful,

  • They’re ethical for teachers because:

    • They can give informed consent.

  • The sociologists that would reject the use of questionnaires as they don’t involve building a rapport with the pupils are:

    • Interpretivists

    • Feminists

  • They think this is a good idea because:

    • Rapport will increase validity.

    • Removes power imbalance/power and status.

PRACTICAL ISSUES:

  • It’s easy to gather samples for questionnaires because:

    • Schools keep lists

    • They’re easy to distribute

    • There’s lots of schools which are easy to find

  • The setting will make questionnaires easy to distribute because:

    • There’s lists of pupils

    • Registers

  • The most difficult group to distribute to is:

    • Parents

  • A solution might be:

    • Send questionnaire home with pupil.

  • The issues with the solution might be:

    • Might not be given to parents

    • Might not be returned to school

  • The sociologist can make a questionnaire seem less formal with:

    • Keeping it short

    • Filler questions (non-sociological)

  • The problem with data gathered from questionnaires is:

    • Not very qualitative – only quantitative.

    • Not very detailed.

    • Limited data.

  • Drawing correlations from questionnaires might be an issue because:

    • Can’t make correlation with cause and effect.

  • Questionnaires are a particular problem for younger children, or those with learning difficulties, because:

    • Their ability to read and understand.

SOURCE:

  • Rutter used questionnaires to gather large quantities of data from 12 inner London secondary schools.

  • From this he was able to correlate achievement, attendance, and behaviour with variables such as school size, class size and number of staff.

    • It would’ve been very difficult to do this with more labour-intensive methods such as interviewing or observation.