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Research Methods in the Social Sciences

Research Methods in the Social Sciences . Designing a questionnaire. Social Survey .

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Research Methods in the Social Sciences

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  1. Research Methods in the Social Sciences Designing a questionnaire

  2. Social Survey • A social survey can be defined as a technique for gathering statistical information about the attributes, attitudes or actions of a population by administering standardised questions to some or all of its members (Buckingham & Saunders, 2010: 55 – in Giddens & Sutton)

  3. Questionnaire Design • A basis of a good questionnaire is the formulation of questions which give ‘maximum opportunity for complete and accurate communication of ideas between the researcher and the respondent’ (Cannell and Kahn, 1968: 553). They argue that this has 3 aspects: • communication process • language, frame of reference • conceptual level of questions • Oversimplified or over difficult questions will lower respondent rate. • Conceptual level – may share same vocabulary but have different conceptual levels. Frame of reference refers to the fact that words may be interpreted from different points of views or perspectives. Question wording is often considered to be the number one problem in survey research.

  4. Activity • What are the skills and attributes of a questionnaire interviewer? • What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of interview?

  5. What can be asked in a survey? • Behaviour • Attitudes / beliefs / opinions • Characteristics • Expectations • Self-classification • Knowledge

  6. What cannot be asked in a survey?

  7. Issues with questions • Respondent Recall • Ability to recall accurately declines over time • Telescoping • Respondents compress time: over-report recent events, under-report distant events • Social Desirability Bias • Giving normative responses • Recent Effect • Always choosing last option in answer choices • Floaters • Respondents don’t have knowledge or opinion, but answer anyway • Order Effect • Some questions asked before others influence the answer to later questions

  8. Avoiding Direct & Insensitive questions • Direct: have you killed your wife? • Casual: do you happen to have murdered your wife? • Numbered Card: read off the number on this card which corresponds with what became of your wife? • Everybody: as you know, many people have been killing their wives these days. Do you happen to have killed yours? • Other People: Do you know any people who have killed their wives? [pause] How about yourself?

  9. Sensitive Issues

  10. Activity • What type of questions have you designed? • Open (unstructured & free response) • Closed (fixed response) • Try to re-word to change from open to closed & vice-versa

  11. Types of Survey • Mail Questionnaire • Telephone Interview • Face-to-Face Interview • Web Survey • What are the pros & cons of each?

  12. For Next Week • Think about your two questions • Who are you going to ask? • How will you find them?

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