Methods in Context - Questionnaires 20 mark Question

> “Material deprivation is a widespread problem throughout the United Kingdom today. Some pupils experience material deprivation in their home background and this can have a negative effect in their educational achievement. For example, a lack of income with which to buy educational resources, or having to live in cramped conditions, can affect academic performance. Some parents may feel that they have failed if they cannot provide adequate income for their family.”
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> “Sociologists may use questionnaires to investigate material deprivation in pupils’ home backgrounds. To use questionnaires effectively sociologists need to identify and gain responses from parents, but accessing a suitable database of contacts may prove difficult. Parents may also not be willing to discuss such a sensitive issue as material deprivation. On the other hand, substantial quantitative data may be generated by using questionnaires, allowing sociologists to identify patterns and draw conclusions.” \n

__**Applying material from Item A and your own knowledge of research methods, evaluate the strengths and limitations of using questionnaires for the study of material deprivation in pupils’ home backgrounds. (20 marks)**__

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Positivists are more likely to prefer questionnaires over interpretivists and this is because questionnaires provide, reliability, representativeness and are more scientific. Questionnaires are also more quantitative which means that it allows positivists to see any patterns in the data.

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One practical advantage of questionnaires being used to study material deprivation in pupils’ home back grounds is that they are quick to fill out. Because questionnaires are quick to fill out, working class parents are going to be more likely to answer the questionnaire as working class parents are more likely to be busy as they may have more than one job in order to provide for their family and so it would take a small amount of time to answer the questions. This is an advantage of questionnaires in this context as it adds to the representativeness of the results from the questionnaire. Also, in addition to this, questionnaires have good anonymity, and this will again increase the likelihood of working class parents filling out the questionnaire because if they cannot be identified, then they are more likely to give an honest and true answer despite the sensitive subject. This will add to the validity of the results of the questionnaire.

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A practical disadvantage of using questionnaires to study material deprivation is that there can be difficulty in accessing specific parents. This is seen in the text where it says, “To use questionnaires effectively, sociologists need to identify and gain responses from parents”. This is a disadvantage because the parents that are going to be more likely to respond and answer questionnaires are middle class parents as they are more likely to be able to work less to be more involved in their childs education, where as working class parents are going to be less able to answer the questionnaires as they may have multiple jobs to provide for their family, therefore meaning they will have less time to complete it. This therefore will cause a lack of representativeness in the results as it is likely to be mainly middle class parents that are responding.

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Another practical disadvantage of using questionnaires to study material deprivation is that the subject of material deprivation is one where parents are likely to feel uncomfortable talking about. This is seen in the text where it says, “Some parents may feel that they have failed if they cannot provide adequate income for their family… Parents may not be willing to discuss such a sensitive issue”. Working class parents are also less likely to answer the questionnaire because they may feel as though they are being judged when their answers to the questions are being read after. Because of this, working class parents are more likely to impression manage and lie on the questionnaire so that they can look better and the true reality of their situation is not known.

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An ethical advantage of using questionnaires to study material deprivation is that there will always be informed consent when the questionnaires are conducted. The reason for this is because of the nature of questionnaires as it is not possible to conduct a questionnaire on someone when they have are not aware that they are completing a questionnaire and so have not given their consent to the researcher. In addition to this, questionnaires being used to study material depriavtion will have no deception as if the researcher had tried to deceive the participants, then it would not work as the questions and the topic of the questions will easily give the question

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Another advantage of using questionnaires to study material deprivation is that questionnaires are very reliable. Questionnaires are reliable in the sense that they can be used to study material deprivation at this point in time, and then if a researcher would then like to study material deprivation again in the same way at a later point in time, then the same questionnaires using the same questions can be distributed. This is then an advantage because due the reliability of questionnaires, it then also allows positivist researchers to compare the findings of when the questionnaire was first done and then when the questionnaire was secondly done to find any patterns in the data. Also to add to this, questionnaires do not require the researcher to be trained in any sort of way as they are simply distributing questionnaires fpr the participants themselves to complete. This is a practical advantage as it reduces the cost of the study.

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In conclusion, due to questionnaires mainly being quantitative and so being good in reliablity and representativeness, the questionnaires should also be paired with an unstructured interview to gain the extra validity from the untstructured interview that the questionnaires were lacking in.

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