Type Bryman Alan author names here Social Research Methods Chapter 11: Asking questions Slides authored by Tom Owens.
Download ReportTranscript Type Bryman Alan author names here Social Research Methods Chapter 11: Asking questions Slides authored by Tom Owens.
Type Bryman Alan author names here Social Research Methods Chapter 11: Asking questions Slides authored by Tom Owens Open questions • Advantages – Respondents answer in their own terms – Allow for new, unexpected responses – Exploratory - generate fixed answer questions • Disadvantages – – – – Time-consuming for interviewer and respondent Difficult to code More effort required from respondent Interviewer variation in recording answers Pages 246, 247 Bryman: Social Research Methods, 4th edition Closed questions • Advantages – Quicker and easier to complete (better response rate and less missing data) – Easy to process data (pre-coded) – Easy to compare answers (intercoder reliability) • Disadvantages – Restrictive range of answers: no spontaneity – Difficult to make fixed choice answers exhaustive – Respondents may interpret questions differently Pages 249, 252 Bryman: Social Research Methods, 4th edition Types of questions • • • • • • • Personal factual questions Factual questions about others Informant factual questions Attitudes Beliefs Normative standards and values Knowledge of a subject Pages 253 Bryman: Social Research Methods, 4th edition Designing questions: general rules • Remember your research questions • Decide exactly what you want to find out • Imagine yourself as a respondent – How would you answer the questions? – Identify any vague or misleading questions Pages 254 Bryman: Social Research Methods, 4th edition Things to avoid….. • Ambiguous terms: ‘often’, ‘regularly’, ‘frequently’ • Long questions • Double-barrelled questions: may be different answers to each part • Very general questions: because they lack a frame of reference • Leading questions: hinting at a preferred response • Asking two questions in one • Negative terms: ‘not’, ‘never’ - especially double negatives Pages 255-258 • Technical terms, (jargon and acronyms) Bryman: Social Research Methods, 4th edition Things to make sure of….. • Do the respondents have the requisite knowledge? • If you just want a yes/no answer, have you given more possibilities? • Have you an equal number of positive and negative responses to a question to avoid bias? • Are you relying too much on the respondent’s memory? • Have you thought through whether you should include “don’t know” options? Pages 258, 259 Bryman: Social Research Methods, 4th edition Common mistakes when designing questions • Excessive use of open questions • Excessive use of yes/no questions • No instructions about how to indicate answers (tick box, circle, delete?) • Overlapping categories • More than one answer may be applicable • Answers do not correspond to the question Tips and skills Pages 259, 260 Bryman: Social Research Methods, 4th edition Vignette questions • Present respondents with a scenario • Ask them how they would respond or what they think the characters should do • Anchors opinions and choices in a concrete, specific context (may be easier to answer) • Useful for sensitive topics – Less threatening: imaginary characters suggest social distance from respondent Pages 261-263 Bryman: Social Research Methods, 4th edition Piloting and pre-testing questions • Check that the research instrument works – – – – Gain practice in using the interview schedule Does each question flow smoothly on to the next? Identify vague or confusing questions Remove any questions that receive uniform responses • Open questions can generate fixed choice answers for closed questions in the main research • Be careful that people who help with your pilot study are not included in the final sample Pages 263, 264 Bryman: Social Research Methods, 4th edition Using existing questions • • • • • Common practice in survey research Questions have already been piloted Known properties of reliability and validity Helps you to draw comparisons with other studies ‘Question banks’ – Repositories of questions used in previous surveys – Consult the UK Data Archive Pages 264 Bryman: Social Research Methods, 4th edition