Questionnaires and surveys are used to collect numeric data on attitudes and self-reported behaviour. In the main, closed questions should be used, supplemented with a small number of open questions where required. Different methods can be used to collect responses to questionnaires and some of their strengths and weaknesses are listed below.
Self-completion
Self-completion methods are the most common ways to collect data from questionnaires or surveys. These are best done with mainly closed questions.
Interviewer led
Interviewer led questionnaires or surveys are more commonly conducted where there are a greater number of open-ended questions. This helps to ensure the quality of responses in these answers as the interviewer can ask for more detail where required.
Advantages
- Quick, simple and relatively cheap to administer
- Closed questions are easy to collect, compare and analyse the results
- Open questions can be used to collect more detailed information
- Can collect the views of a large number and range of participants
- Anonymity of questionnaires may improve response rate for sensitive questions
- Anonymity of questionnaires may improve the response from shy individuals who may not respond to other collection methods
- Minority groups can be represented fairly
- Analysis of coded responses is relatively straightforward and can provide powerful statistical evidence for the effectiveness of the programme
Drawbacks
- A low response rate can result in a biased sample (although this can be minimised)
- Closed questions can restrict response categories and limit the depth of the evaluation
- Pilot surveys are required to develop appropriate response categories for closed questions
- Categorising and coding responses to open ended questions is time consuming
- Development of effective questionnaires requires specialist knowledge and can incur high costs if attempted from scratch
- Questionnaires can limit response rates by being perceived as 'boring'
- No cues available as to the honesty of respondents' answers
- Literacy skills required for responding can exclude some individuals
- Lack of concentration and/or understanding in younger respondents can produce flawed data
- Too many open questions can increase the time needed to analyse the results
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Strengths |
Weaknesses |
| Internet/Online and Post |
- Relatively cheap to administer
- Anonymity may improve response to sensitive questions
- Questionnaire can be completed when convenient
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- Low response rate can result in biased sample
- Risk of incomplete questionnaire or someone other than sampled person completing questions
- No signals available as to honesty of respondent
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| Telephone |
- Quickly reach many people over long distances
- Less expensive than face-to-face
- Less time consuming than face-to-face
- Fast mode of data collection
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- Limited interview length
- Respondents without telephone are impossible to reach
- Call may come at an inconvenient time
- Visual aids can not be used
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| Face-to-face |
- Obtain richer and more detailed responses to open-ended questions
- Observation of non-verbal responses possible
- Best for control of field sampling
- Best for complex topics and issues
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- Time consuming
- Most expensive method to administer questionnaire
- Specialised fieldworker skills needed
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