‘The Pros and Cons of Questionnaires Ieiseasy tconsruct a questionnaire. With a word proceso its pouible to put togeeher in an evening something that Jools quite reapectale: Aer all, we Know what quetioa naires look lke: hardly @ week goes by without some such coming our way. Journalist often make them up (dhe term is exact oillin space in a magazine, with ts such as ‘Are You A Party Bore? Jnge Your Own Socal Clas They may be quite Amuning to fil in and noone takes them serio, feast all their originators But many soalled “research! question: aires are put together ina no more inpresve fashion ‘Yet developing a questionnaire dha will yield worthwhile lta i diicule And i has tobe sd here thatthe quality of the data emerging ftom even an adequately developed ‘questionnaire i not wonderfal. More on that later. The fssential point that good research cannot be but on poorly collected datas and even i the data are intended for tothing more than the oblivion ofa master's degree dissera ‘ion everything that allows fom them sans Ava ais for practical ation, poorly collected data il he wa lime and rnoney, and le the name of reveaeh "The great popularity of quetionnaie that they provide 4“quich fs’ for research methodeogy no singe metho has been 90 much abused, Thi is pity, Because questionnaires hae thie place as one method, of mest value when usedDeveloping Questionaire tandem with other methods, This mutinethd approach reallile questions is important, because one approach is rarely adequate; and af the result of diffrent metheds converge (agree, oF Bt together) then we can have greater ‘confidence in he finding Why questionnaires? Questionnaires are just one of a range of ways of getting information from people (or answers to our research qu: tions, usually, but not always, by asking questions Ince lenally, one ofthe weakest of questionnaire is that they Seek to yet answers just by asking questions. "Table 1. presents this range schematically; this needs to be sto here you read on From Table I you can see that questonnaires are atthe “aeuctared end ofthe continuum, By this s meant that the rotarcher determines the questions that ate asked andthe range of aneer that can be given, OF course, dhe respon lent has acheter: you, agrrdangr, ticking one answer but of four or five, and soon. But the researcher ha lca decided on the posible anwwers all he or she wants 10 find ‘out is hich answers are selected, This makes it very tty lor the researcher and easy to analyse. Tees also be boring and Sistratng for the respondent although this depends to some extent on the amount of development work the researcher ‘put into che questionnaire efor it was distributed However, its obvious that fall the questions and ll the possible anmwers are determined in advance, the element of Aiseovery is much reduced (unless there is @ very unex pected pattern to the anrwers selected). You don’t know twhac lies Behind the responses selected or, more impor- tantly, answers the sespotdent sight have given had they been free to respond as they wished. Tt is partly for ths 2 i i er poeDeveloping Questionaire - reason that questionnaire data are necessity supertiil you only have the answer to goon, More or leas structure For most people doing smallscale esearch in their spare time, the most nstructered methods are impractical. But Sociologist and socal anthropologists who want to find out how different cultures (or sub-cltures) work have to se these methods. Tn doing s0 hey immerse dhemseles in the ‘ale’ culture hey look and they listen, and they sometimes ask questions. The formal stricture of an interew or {questionnaire would he both unacceptable ard intrusive, as well ar practically imposible, In the street culture. of Chicago or Liverpool as inthe river ibe ofthe Amazon, the artialty of mack methods is staringly obvious. But chat should make us eet on the constraints that such methods Impose anyway. Interviews andl questionnaires are sell-con- Seious thing. Ave the answers you are getting what people really think? When teachers fil questionnaire atthe end fan in-service training couse do they say the same things a8 ‘hey doin the informal atimosphere of the stallroom? Ammer chat are given axa resul of the mithod wed are nfs ht metho In short, there is tension here: betcen the oxginlity and discovery and validity of the verbal data, ad the conomy of time and effort and money in gathering the data. The only answer compeoinise; but that compromise has tobe kept in mind ‘Open and closed questions, What thete tems mean can be inferred fom what ha gone Defre bat, to make the distinction explicit, clued question The Pr at Cons Quatanaies isone where the pease annwers are predetermined: Mest quetionnaires and structured interviews) a eOmet tnielyofloed questions. Avery simple example it WA Of the filling newspapers do yon rad atleast ome © Wath? Ultowed by a lst of four or five). Sometimes thee fat “other category as well An oer question version of this Wick mewpapes do on red a ett ocr asec? where the respondent hae to think and serie inthe anne). Het tshere the anor is Eatual one and fey predictable close question x probably better But when the answers are in terms of opinions, boi or judgement, asia range of answer is much les Hkely to be represeatative. More than that, reearchers commenly find themselves resorting to techniques that force responses ito predetermined cat sories ‘Open questions are only occasionally ued in question naires because they are more difclt to analyse (andl more troublesome to answer). However, we should note here tht careful esructired interviewing prior to che question tae being constructed can menn tha nat of che probable ‘answers are idee. T argue below that apen questions can lead to a greater level af discovery but that their number and kitd has to be restricted to justify the ‘cost For and against questionnaires In research we have to balance the gains and lomes in anything we choose o do. Boxes 1 and 2 summarize the pros and cons of questionnaires, As you run your eye down {hes in Box Tit seems to present an unaguable case. Let us take each poinin turn, 1, Low cast tine and money. "This is the overwhelming Argument, You can send outa thonsand questionnaires 5