Sociological Methods Advantages

Sociological methods -Topic 5- Questionnaires

DISADVANTAGES

Practical problems:
The data from questionnaires tends to be limited and superficial because they need to be fairly brief since most respondents are unlikely to complete and return a long, time-consuming questionnaire. Limits the amount of information that can be gathered from each respondent
May sometimes be necessary to offer incentives (entry into a prize draw) to persuade respondents to complete the form
The researcher can’t be sure whether the right person has received the questionnaire, or cannot be sure if the returned questionnaire was actually completed by the person to whom it was addressed

Response rate:
Very low response rates can be a major problem because few of those who receive a questionnaire bother to complete or return it
Researchers who use questionnaires tend to pay more attention to the need to obtain unrepresentative samples. For these reasons the findings of questionnaires are more likely to allow us to make accurate generalisations about the wider population from which the sample was drawn
If follow up questionnaire are sent and if questionnaires are questioned by hand, this adds to the cost and time.
The problem of none response is sometimes caused by faulty question design.
Each respondent may give different thought to each question.
Inflexibility:
Questionnaires are a very flexible method
Once a questionnaire has been finalised the researcher is stuck with the questions they have asked to decide and cannot explore any new areas of interest should they come up during the course of the research
Questionnaires as snapshots:
Fail to produce a fully valid picture because they do not capture the way people’s attitudes and behaviour changes
This snapshot contrasts with the moving image of social life that methods like participants observation can provide
Detachment:
Questionnaires like validity and do not give a true picture of what has been studied
Postal questionnaires involve no direct contact between researcher and respondent this lack of contact means that there is no opportunity to clarify what the questions mean to the respondent or to deal with misunderstandings
Serious problem where there is language difference between researcher and respondent

Lying, forgetting and right answerism
All methods that gather data by asking questions depend ultimately on their respondents, willingness and ability to provide full and accurate answers
Some may give respectable answers they feel they ought to give other than tell the truth

Imposing the researcher’s meanings:
By choosing which questions to ask the researchers, not the respondent, has already decided what is important and what is not
If we use closed-ended questions, respondents then have to try and fit their views into the ones on offer
On the other hand if we use open-ended questions, respondants are free to answer as they please but when the researcher comes to code them to produce quantitive data similar but none identical answers may get lumped together into some kind of category