QUESTIONNAIRES

                                                          QUESTIONNAIRES

Definition of the method/technique 

A questionnaire is a research instrument that consists of a set of questions or other types of prompts that aims to collect information from a respondent. A research questionnaire is typically a mix of close-ended questions and open-ended questions. Open-ended, long-form questions offer the respondent the ability to elaborate on their thoughts. Research questionnaires were developed in 1838 by the Statistical Society of London. The data collected from a data collection questionnaire can be both qualitative as well as quantitative in nature. A questionnaire may or may not be delivered in the form of a survey, but a survey always consists of a questionnaire.

 

Characteristics of the method/technique

Your survey design depends on the type of information you need to collect from respondents. Qualitative questionnaires are used when there is a need to collect exploratory information to help prove or disprove a hypothesis. Quantitative questionnaires are used to validate or test a previously generated hypothesis. However, most questionnaires follow some essential characteristics:

● Uniformity: Questionnaires are very useful to collect demographic information, personal           opinions, facts, or attitudes from respondents.

● Exploratory: It should be exploratory to collect qualitative data. There is no restriction on           questions that can be in your questionnaire. 

● Question Sequence: It typically follows a structured flow of questions to increase the                 number of responses.

Main uses of the method/technique 

Questionnaires can be structured in different ways depending on the purposes that researchers want to achieve. For example, if an investigator wants to collect exploratory data, he needs to design a qualitative questionnaire. 

Advantages and disadvantages of using the method/technique Advantages:

Some of the advantages of a questionnaire are that researchers can spend less time collecting data from a bigger population and this can be done through an email, message, etc. so investigators can get data quickly. Another advantage is that the implementation of this tool does not have any cost if the researcher delivers them in an electronic format. Also, people feel more comfortable answering questionnaires than answering an interview. Finally, people can answer these questionnaires in an anonymous way.

Disadvantages:

Even though there are some benefits when using questionnaires, there are also some disadvantages to consider. For example, sometimes, people do not provide dishonest answers or leave some questions without response. Also, some questions are difficult to analyze. Lastly, sometimes answering this type of survey produces fatigue for people when they see there are a lot of questions.