Questionnaire Evaluation
What is a questionnaire?
A questionnaire is a list of questions handed out to a wide variety of people to help collect data on a wide variety of topics. In terms of data collection it is important to specify exactly what you want from the question as otherwise it will come off as unclear to the person completing the survey and you won't get the type of answers you are looking for. These sorts of errors can be avoided using different methods or forms of questionnaire questions such as tick boxes however the question itself still needs to be considered. "In market research the term 'questionnaire' is used to refer both to questionnaires intended for self completion by survey participants and to survey instruments intended to be administered by an interviewer , either in a face-to-face interview or by telephone." (Ian Brace, 2008, "What is a questionnaire?", questionnaire Design, pg2). questionnaires in terms of market research either come as sent out survey for users of a website to complete for example or can be done in person however it is important to note that face-to-face surveys will be slower if fast data collection is required as you would be collecting from each individual person one by one. "The questionnaire is the medium of communication between the researcher and the subject,"(Ian Brace, 2008, "What does it do?", questionnaire Design, pg4). The idea of the questionnaire is to bridge the gap between the researcher/ creator and the subject or consumer allowing for the researcher to understand and create a product that suits what the consumer wants.
How to distribute questionnaires?
Questionnaires can be difficult to get out there to people a good idea would be to ask around local businesses to spread them out to their employees in their free time as this would build up local connections, another idea would be to ask the subject at the end of the survey to pass it on to a friend when they have finished however you are unlikely to see much in the way of returns from this as it is difficult to get someone to go out of their way to do something in that might be difficult after already doing the survey for you. Getting the surveys back to you will also be a challenge and will make you think carefully about your questionnaire. People will be unwilling to complete something that looks overly complicated and confusing during their free time, this means you will need to take an interest in it's appearance. Sending out mass surveys through many different mediums can work through the power of quantity however it would be quite time consuming in sending them out unless you have a method of sending them out quickly.
(Bill Gillham, 2000, "Getting them out and getting them back", Developing a questionnaire, Pg45-pg 47)
Qualitative and Quantitative sampling
Quantitative sampling takes into consideration the fact that whatever data is being collected is taken from a very large group for example thousands of people who enter a shopping center. The person collecting the data can't simply collect data from thousands of people as it would take weeks and weeks for them to complete. The point of quantitative sampling is not to sample an entire shopping centers worth of people but instead to survey around 10% of the amount, this means when those numbers are scaled up to meet the full amount of people going through the shopping center they would be a representation of what the full amount would be like. The issue with this method is that the data you are receiving from quantitative research only represents 10% and does not fully show you the correct data. The data you receive is for not wasting time and getting a fairly accurate amount of data but it does not show the full story, as in the other 90% there could be significant outliers or in the 10% you take it has a majority that prefer one thing but in the other 90% the majority prefer the other, this would lead your data collection to be providing the wrong information. Quantitative research is great for collecting on a large number of people as large data collection in a lot of circumstances is not feasible however it can still provide incorrect information which the researcher must be aware of. (Dr E. Dhivyadeepa , 2015, "Sampling in quantitative research", Sampling techniques in educational research, Pg8)
Qualitative research is taking smaller clusters of people and surveying them over a larger number of people. This type of researching takes a lot longer than that of quantitative as although the group is smaller it is a more precise form of survey, questions can often be more targeted and a s a result the answers you will receive are more specific for the researcher. Oral qualitative surveys can provide more in depth answers providing the researcher with much more targeted responses. The idea of such surveys is to "not generalize to a context or population" (Dr E. Dhivyadeepa , 2015, "Sampling in qualitative research", Sampling techniques in educational research, Pg11) This means that the questions asked by the researcher can be more specific to the cluster of people that they have chosen. The benefit to this type of research is that the researcher can ask questions they need answers to and be more direct when dealing with a specific type of subject however the downsides are that you won't get a good idea of what an entire audience is interested in and it will take a long time.
Strengths, weaknesses and are questionnaires effective?
It is no doubt that a questionnaire, in my mind, is a very effective way of gaining knowledge on both a large and small group of people. They are a strong tool in data collection due to their versatility as they can be as specific or as wide as a researcher wants them to be. The researcher can ask any question they need an answer to and as long as the question is structured in an easy to understand manor it is likely that they will receive such an answer from the subject. A questionnaire can be difficult to reach many people and it relies heavily on subject assistance and if none of the subjects take an interest in your survey it will have been pointless. It is also important to focus your questionnaire on specific questions as otherwise it will be to broad and the information you will get as responses will not be very useful for you. Questionnaires in terms of gathering data are very effective at gathering data for the researcher but they must be done right, it is pointless in being indecisive when deciding on questions otherwise to responses will be fluffy and not very useful.
Limitations of questionnaires
The major limitations of questionnaires comes from the fact that as a researcher you need to limit yourself to the best questions and that you must decide how specific you want to be in your questionnaire. You must choose appropriate questions to suit the questionnaire you are making and not include to many as to bore the subject, if this is the case you won't get as many responses. You must also decide whether you intend for quantitative or qualitative as this will change how detailed your questions will be, this is a vital decision as it is a trade off between asking detailed questions but on a smaller audience or asking more general questions on a larger audience. This is a limitation as one questionnaire can't do both if it aims to succeed, it will simply take to long to ask a large amount of people detailed questions. There are better ways to gather a large amount of information from sources such as group interviews, doing this would allow you to ask various questions and record the discussions from the multiple subjects.
Conclusion
In conclusion I believe that questionnaires are a vital way for us to gather and record data, they can be incredibly useful but still have their drawbacks. It is important for us to recognize when to use questionnaires and when to find alternatives such as group interviews. Questionnaires allow a researcher to receive information from a large group of sources which can help us change something to suit the audiences interest. In terms of media these sorts of questionnaires can be used to see what the audience is interested in genre wise as well as what would work and what wouldn't. Questionnaires need to be mindfully used however as asking random questions or limiting yourself to a small audience may not be useful for a researcher trying to understand what all their audience is interested in.
reference list
(Ian Brace, 2008, questionnaire Design)
(Bill Gillham, 2000, Developing a questionnaire)
(Dr E. Dhivyadeepa , 2015, Sampling techniques in educational research)
Comments
Post a Comment