Social Research Methods Alan Bryman Social Research Methods Chapter 11: Asking questions Slides authored by Tom Owens

Open questions Advantages Disadvantages 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 2

Closed questions Advantages Disadvantages 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 3

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 4

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 5

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 Technical terms, (jargon and acronyms) Pages 255-258 6

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 7

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 8

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 9

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 10

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 11