...Sociological Research Skills Name of Method Research Methods Questionnaires Brief Outline of Method A questionnaire is a list of written questions that can be completed in one of two basic ways Firstly, respondents could be asked to complete the questionnaire with the researcher not present. This is a postal questionnaire and (loosely) refers to any questionnaire that a respondent completes without the aid of the researcher. Secondly, respondents could be asked to complete the questionnaire by verbally responding to questions in the presence of the researcher. This variation is called a structured interview. Although the two variations are similar (a postal questionnaire and a structured interview could contain exactly the same questions), the difference between them is important. If, for example, we are concerned with protecting the respondent’s anonymity then it might be more appropriate to use a postal questionnaire than a structured interview. Questionnaires are restricted to two basic types of question: Closed-ended (or “closed question”) is a question for which a researcher provides a suitable list of responses (e.g. Yes / No). This produces mainly quantitative data. Open-ended (or “open question”) is a question where the researcher doesn’t provide the respondent with a set answer from which to choose. Rather, the respondent is asked to answer "in their own words". This produces mainly qualitative data. Strengths / Uses of Method Weaknesses / Limitations of Method 1. The...
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...some of the basics of designing a good questionnaire. Many research projects and dissertations demand the collection of primary data from individuals. Questionnaires are often the best way of gathering such information and views. However, a badly designed questionnaire may get only unusable responses or none at all. This Advice Sheet offers guidance on avoiding the pitfalls, and ensuring a successful result. What do you want to know? 1 Maximise success …. 1 Who to ask …. 1 Clear instructions …. 2 Questions …. 2 Order & layout …. 3 Email vs Print .... 3 Piloting …. 4 Further reading …. 4 What do you want to know? Before you even write the first question, it is important that you have a very clear idea about what you want your questionnaire to achieve. Write down your research goals, and think about what information you need to elicit from respondents to meet those goals. Think also about how you are going to analyse each question to get the results you need. Remember there is a difference between things you need to know, and those it would be nice to know. Eliminate unnecessary lines of questioning at the planning stage. Maximise your chances of success The aim of questionnaire design is to a) get as many responses as you can that are b) usable and accurate. To maximise your response rate: • Give your questionnaire a short and meaningful title • Keep the questionnaire as short and succinct as possible • Offer incentives for responding if appropriate • Be creative – use...
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...a couple things. First I’m going to talk for about 20 minutes about this topic of using emotion to learn English faster and to speak English better and how can you use your emotions, how can you change your emotions quickly and easily? So I will talk for about 20 minutes. During that time I will not be answering questions so you can type your comments in the chat. It’s okay. I’ll look at them sometimes. But I won’t be reading questions and I won’t be answering questions, in the beginning. After I finish talking about the topic then you can enter your questions in that chat box right at the bottom there. So if you notice, you know, there’s got the window here. We’ve got our window with, you know, it’s Effortless English Club and then slash webinars. That’s where probably most of you are. And I’m typing it in right now, webinars and we hit enter and then you see, you know, they’ve got this big window for the web stream and then underneath we’ve got our chat box and you can see we’ve got moderators, that’s me, viewers and then we’ve got a bunch of guests. So we’ve got a bunch of people. Then under that there’s a little box and you can type your comments or your questions in the box and then you hit send and it’ll ask you to register. The first time you do this you’ll need to register and then after that you can, you know, continue adding stuff. So that’s how it works. That’s the technical stuff. One more thing before we start and right now you’ll notice the video quality is so-so...
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...Are Marriages For Expensive and Elaborate Now a day’s marriage has become one of the most expensive things to do. In Bangladesh it is very easy to get married for rich people, but when it comes for middle class or lower middle class people its gets too hard for them. It creates a pressure on them. They have to save money for so long to get married in a proper way. In Bangladesh this marriage ceremony begins with exchanging the ring between bride and groom. Then bridal shower, wedding ceremony, wedding reception and goes on. So to complete this a family needs at least a good amount of money which is too hard for the job holders or middle class people. We live in a country where 40% of people suffers from poverty but people spend minimum 10 to 15 lakhs while getting married. So getting married in Bangladesh is expensive. In a wedding ceremony (The) first day of the ceremony is called the bride’s Gaye Holud. In our culture we believe that turmeric paste makes the skin soft and make bride more beautiful for the wedding day. This is the main reason this day is called Gaye Holud which means “apply body turmeric paste to the skin.” This day everyone wears yellow cloths. Then another function is called the Gaya Holud for the groom. This is the same thing for groom’s side. Then the final wedding day. The wedding ceremony is arranged by the bride’s family. Everyone wear very colorful clothes. Bride wear red outfit with heavy gold ornaments. Once the ceremony is completed then the...
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...set of prepared questions that are close-ended and already have pre-coded answers. One reason why researchers choose to use structured interviews is because they are cheap, quick and easy to do. This is because by going out and actually trying to interview the public it is quicker to get a response from the participants and also its quicker to find out whether or not someone is willing to take the time and answer the participants questions. It is also cheaper as you don’t need to spend a lot of time to get resources together in order to conduct this researcher as you can just go out into a town and stop people to ask whether or not they have some spare time to answer some questions. This also makes it easier for the researcher as they just need to have questions ready in order to be able to ask participants what they want to know. Also by using structured interviews researchers are able to get large numbers of people in order to get a higher response rate as they are able to interview more people. By having large numbers of people to interview researchers will be getting representative data, this means that the answers which the researchers get will be generalizable. However by having a higher response rate from the interviews will not be getting very reliable data as by using structured interviews to conduct research they have close-ended questions which then restricts the interviewee which means that they have to choose an answer from limited pre-coded answers. Also this can...
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...for gathering data, where questions in a questionnaire are designed to be answered asynchronously, i.e. without the presence of the investigator. A goal must be set, before developing the questionnaire, as developer would like to have relevant reasons before starting working on something. Targeting the participants is another important element of collecting data through online questionnaire. In many ways questionnaire is similar to interviews as questions could be open or closed. Since interviewer is not present or in a word nobody is available to interpret the questions for the participant, making the questions clear and data collection efficient -- questions need to be clearly worded. Skilled people are needed to design a questionnaire especially to gather valid and reliable data. Easy and difficult aspects of creating and conducting an online questionnaire: First, I would explain the easy aspects of creating and conducting an online questionnaire. Online questionnaire is very effective when targeting a large number of people in terms of gathering valuable information. There are two ways of doing online questionnaire: email questionnaire and web based questionnaire. Email questionnaire is not that effective and hard to reach a maximum number of participants. On the other hand web-based questionnaire can reach any region in the world, target a culture or a group of people and collect data from them. Creating a web-based questionnaire is easy, especially survey type of...
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...Item Analysis Item Analysis allows us to observe the characteristics of a particular question (item) and can be used to ensure that questions are of an appropriate standard and select items for test inclusion. Introduction Item Analysis describes the statistical analyses which allow measurement of the effectiveness of individual test items. An understanding of the factors which govern effectiveness (and a means of measuring them) can enable us to create more effective test questions and also regulate and standardise existing tests. There are three main types of Item Analysis: Item Response Theory, Rasch Measurement and Classical Test Theory. Although Classical Test Theory and Rasch Measurement will be discussed, this document will concentrate primarily on Item Response Theory. The Models Classical Test Theory Classical Test Theory (traditionally the main method used in the United Kingdom) utilises two main statistics - Facility and Discrimination. * Facility is essentially a measure of the difficulty of an item, arrived at by dividing the mean mark obtained by a sample of candidates and the maximum mark available. As a whole, a test should aim to have an overall facility of around 0.5, however it is acceptable for individual items to have higher or lower facility (ranging from 0.2 to 0.8). * Discrimination measures how performance on one item correlates to performance in the test as a whole. There should always be some correlation between item and test performance...
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...applied to the uniform probability distribution. Answer: False Difficulty: Medium Goal: 1 2. Areas within a continuous probability distribution represent probabilities. Answer: True Difficulty: Medium Goal: 1 3. The total area within a continuous probability distribution is equal to 100. Answer: False Difficulty: Easy Goal: 1 4. The total area within any continuous probability distribution is equal to 1.00 Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Goal: 1 AACSB: REF 5. For any continuous probability distribution, the probability, P(x), of any value of the random variable, X, can be computed. Answer: False Difficulty: Medium Goal: 1 6. For any discrete probability distribution, the probability, P(x), of any value of the random variable, X, can be computed. Answer: True Difficulty: Medium Goal: 1 AACSB: AS 7. The uniform probability distribution's standard deviation is proportional to the distribution's range. Answer: True Difficulty: Medium Goal: 2 8. For any uniform probability distribution, the mean and standard deviation can be computed by knowing the maximum and minimum values of the random variable. Answer: True Difficulty: Medium Goal: 2 9. In a uniform probability distribution, P(x) is constant between the distribution's minimum and maximum values. Answer: True Difficulty: Easy Goal: 3 10. For a uniform probability distribution...
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...complex grading policy that NSU follows, which is none other than the conflict between grade and learning. Students face dilemma while giving priority to learning over grades and I expect them to end up giving more priority to grades. Now, the question is why I have been so pessimistic about their will to learn. I have been studying in NSU for nearly two and a half years and till now, all the conversations I heard is related to grades. Before taking a course, students ask about the most liberal faculty who takes the course. Do they follow books or slides? Do they take make up exams? Do they curve the grades? I mean the word learning is all that is missing. Nobody feels the anticipation of doing something new in a course. Nobody is thrilled to learn something new or to explore themselves. All that matters is doing the course with least possible effort and a liberal faculty who gives good grades. From the beginning of my life at NSU, I have been wondering why grades and learning cannot go side by side. Why do students have to face dilemmas between them? It has to be the complex grading policy of NSU which does not let students have enough space to think about what they learn and keep them busy fighting to get good grades. Students never get to come out of the dilemma even after fighting hard for grades. What keeps them chasing is whether their grades acts as a mirror of what they have learnt so far or not. If they fail to keep the knowledge after doing the courses, their grades...
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...on points to consider when writing questions and how to format self-completion questionnaires. You may also want to look at: • Survey Design and Analysis We have produced a series of guides which covers four broad areas: • • • • Surveys Performance management Collecting and using data Statistical processes The series of guides is available electronically on our website, www.dataunitwales.gov.uk/guides We also provide advice, guidance and training support relating to each of the documents in the series. For further information contact: Local Government Data Unit ~ Wales 029 2090 9500 or visit our website: www.dataunitwales.gov.uk ISBN – 978-1-907073-02-1 Published 2009 Published by: Local Government Data Unit ~ Wales 3–7 Columbus Walk, Cardiff, CF10 4SD Telephone: 029 2090 9500 Email: enquiries@dataunitwales.gov.uk Web: www.dataunitwales.gov.uk © Local Government Data Unit ~ Wales, 2009 (Data Unit) This material can be reproduced as long as the Data Unit is acknowledged as the original author. Any queries should be sent to the Data Unit at the above address or via e-mail: enquiries@dataunitwales.gov.uk B Questionnaire Design Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Types of surveys 1 3. Types of questions 2 4. General question design guidelines 3 5. Factual question design guidelines 8 6. Non-factual question design guidelines 10 7. Sensitive question guidelines 13 8. General questionnaire...
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...had been turned off and the blinds were closed so that the learners could clearly read my presentation. When the presentation was over I turned the lights back on so that they could read and complete my feed back with adequate lighting. I ensured that I was at facing all my learners and that the learners were facing the Smart Board. This was to ensure that when I was addressing the learners then could see and hear me clearly and vice versa. This layout also helped when feeding back or answering questions. ‘In a presentation, the main thing is that the presenter and his or her visual aids can be seen, (Truelove 2006, p147)’. ‘People should be sitting fairly close to each other, ideally in a circle. (Truelove 2006, p151)’. This also ensured that whilst observing the presentation learners were sat comfortably and facing both the Smart Board and myself, minimising the need for too much movement and disruption. ‘The discussion leader controls the discussions by asking questions that are replied to by group members directing the response to the leader. (Truelove 2006, p152)’. ‘Look at your audience from the beginning. Smile at them. Do not, however, fix on one ‘friendly face’, but rather scan the audience. This creates empathy, and also lets you read their reaction to what you are saying. (Truelove, 2006, p137)’. The room was all also set at a control temperature so that the learners were comfortable and not over or under heated. This helped ensure they were focused on my...
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... MEASUREMENT IN MARKETING RESEARCH GENERAL CONCEPT MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS 1. In the text, Maritz Research offers criteria for customer-satisfaction scales. Which of the following is NOT one of the criteria? a. be reliable b. be valid c. apply to a specific product or service d. be easy for respondents to relate to e. be symmetrically unbalanced Answer: (c) Difficulty: (Difficult) Page: 268 2. What are the basic question-response formats? a. unprobed, probed, and neutral b. open-ended, closed-ended, and skip patterned c. open-ended, closed-ended, and scaled-response d. closed-ended, continuous, open-ended e. open-ended, probed, general Answer: (c) Difficulty: (Easy) Page: 270 3. The question "What was your reaction to the Sony CD player advertisement you saw on television?" is an example of which response format? a. unprobed, open-ended b. unprobed, closed-ended c. scaled-response d. ad reaction measurement e. probed response Answer: (a) Difficulty: (Easy) Page: 271 4. If a researcher wanted the respondent to simply answer an open-ended question with no additional information, he/she would likely use a(n): a. open-ended, unprobed format b. open-ended, probed format c. closed-ended, probed format d. continuous response format e. general format Answer: (a) Difficulty: (Easy) Page: 271 5. Which of the following encourages the respondent to...
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...compress a lot of information into as few pages as possible. Be that as it may, Rock is, in my opinion the best music genre on the charts. There is so much information on Rock that I will have to have questions I want to find the answers to about the music. My first question will be, "What instruments are commonly used in a rock band?" This will not be hard to answer as it is a very easy question that has a definite answer. The next question will be, "Who were the first artists to produce Rock music?" This is also an easy question were I will discuss the first Rockers. Continuing on, my next question will ask, "How was the term Rock and Roll' created, and by who?" This may turn out to be a hard question to answer because I am sure there a multiple answers. "Has Rock become more or less popular since its inception?" will be my next question. For this question I will have to look for a survey or poll of some type and present its data. My final question will be, "How has the Music been changed over the years and who changed it?" This will also be an easy question, albeit a long answer. For that question I will be referring to Alternative and Grunge Rock, my preferred form of the music. For my information I will mainly be using the internet. I also may get some of my answers from a dictionary or encyclopedia. My main sources on the internet will be the online encyclopedia at wikipedia.org, and anything I can...
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...to find out how decisions are made within the family when purchasing breakfast foodstuffs, a formal questionnaire may restrict the discussion and prevent a full exploration of the woman's views and processes. Instead one might prepare a brief guide, listing perhaps ten major open-ended questions, with appropriate probes/prompts listed under each. Formal standardised questionnaires: If the researcher is looking to test and quantify hypotheses and the data is to be analysed statistically, a formal standardised questionnaire is designed. Such questionnaires are generally characterised by: prescribed wording and order of questions, to ensure that each respondent receives the same stimuli prescribed definitions or explanations for each question, to ensure interviewers handle questions consistently and can answer respondents' requests for clarification if they occur prescribed response format, to enable rapid completion of the questionnaire during the interviewing process. Given the same task and the same hypotheses, six different people will probably come up with six different questionnaires that differ widely in their choice of questions, line of questioning, use of open-ended questions and length. There are no hard-and-fast rules about how to design a...
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...Cleyder Blanco April 2, 2014 Research method Analysis Survey Here is my question from my survey How you feeling about prostitution? Do you think prostitution should be legalized? Why the people choose to be a prostitute? Most of the answers was similar at all the research that I been funded it is not really change my emphasis because the entire people think the same thing, so almost of the answers was similar, but without that, I got some common reasons. For the first question was really controversy because most of them think that prostitution is like a job where the prostitute can use the body to produce too much money selling they body. But at the same time it is morality wrong. Others think that prostitution is an easy way to find illegal money to support them family. Prostitution never goes away it will be around in one form or another forever. That make me feel like prostitution never goes to have an exactly answers because it have to many complainant to say about it, however, I will spend the rest of my life doing survey and I never going to have the same answer, therefore they may have some common words but not the same sentence about prostitution. To the prostitute prostitution is really hard to talk because all then had been maltreated, and put in this kind of life for to many reasons. The two principal are money and they parents. For the second question most of the people agree with prostitution should be legal because prostitution should never go...
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