However some problems with this are people may not fill them in properly as they are influenced of what people may think if they put their real answer or they may not properly understand the question causing confusion. When researchers design the questionnaire they think they know what is important but respondents cannot provide information that is not requested and for this reason it is difficult to develop a hypotheses. There is less than 50% response rate for postal questionnaires. The answers that the respondents reply with may be incomplete, illegible or incomprehensible thought making it very difficult and closed questions may seriously limit what respondents want to say. Because questionnaires only give a certain set of answers the respondents wanted answer may not be there.
Official statistics are statistics produced by local and national government, government agencies and organisations all funded by the government. This also produces quantitative data; the advantages of this are published statistics are readily available and cost little or sometimes nothing to use and many government surveys are well planned and organised with detailed questionnaires or interview schedules so they meet the standards of sociological research. Surveys are often conducted regularly, for example on a fortnightly, monthly or annual basis. This can allow for comparisons over time and the identification of trends. Sometimes official statistics are the only major source of information on a particular topic.
But there are also disadvantages such as political bias as some statistics are used to put the government in a favourable light. Sometimes crime statistics do not reflect the actual light of the crime because so many crimes go unreported. Validity is a problem with official statistics. There may be bias or error on the part of the person taking report. Official statistics take a long time to analyse and put together.
Structured interviews are questionnaires which are read out by the interviewer who then records the respondent’s answers. The advantages of this are they are very suitable for simple, straightforward, ‘factual’ information such as a person’s age, gender and occupation. And structured interviews are more likely to produce comparable data as all of the respondents answer the same questions and the researchers will be able to directly compare their responses and identify similarities and differences. Because structured interviews are more formal than other types there is less chance of an interviewer bias. Structured interviews have the advantage of having a trained interviewer on hand to make sure that the questionnaire is completed according to the instructions and to help with any hard questions.
There are also disadvantages of structured interviews like they can place strict limitations on respondent’s answers. This is especially true to closed questions forcing respondents to choose between pre-set answers and not answering in their own way so they do not have the chose of saying what they mean. It is expensive to produce compared to other alternatives. Structures interviews will only give you a certain set of questions matching the answers you have asked but no extra unlike unstructured interviews.
The main problem of Quantitative research data is validity as people may lie or say the wrong answers so people think they are better than they actually are. The results won’t be accurate then and will be hard to come up with a truthful analysis.
But you can also get qualitative data by such things as participant observation. This gives researchers the opportunity to observe people in their natural setting instead of more artificial contexts of the laboratory or the interview allowing researchers to see what people do as opposed to what they say they do. There are many advantages of this such as you get a clearer idea of people lifestyles and people cannot lie like they do in questionnaires as not much can be hidden. The observer is less likely to influence the group, especially if group members are unaware of their presence.
There are some problems with this such as cost as it involves personal cost in terms of time and money and some researchers even spend years researching it. It is often unsystematic as there are no fixed procedures and things happen and the observer tags along and many people change their behaviour to look ‘cool’ or different to they actually are. Another disadvantage is generalisation as the researcher can’t be everywhere observing large numbers of people so it is not possible to generalise from the findings. Researchers are more likely to impose their own interpretations and meanings onto behaviour they observe.
Unstructured interviews are also a form of qualitative data were there is few if any pre-set questions, though researchers usually have certain topics they wish to cover. The advantages of this is that they are more suitable for sensitive topics e.g. relationships, family backgrounds as people seem to open up more than in a structured interview as they feel more comfortable. People often find interview situation better than being approached by researchers. Another advantage is meanings and attitudes as researchers see unstructured interviews as more suited to discover meanings, values, attitudes, opinions and beliefs, as they can explore these areas without the limitations of pre-set questions. The participant is not required to give explanations and justifications for every decision taken. There is less pressure on the expert and he/she can be spontaneous with the answers.
The disadvantages of this is interviewer bias as it is unavoidable as to some extent the interviewer will affect the responses of the respondent and social desirability as people like to present themselves in a favourable light so they may emphasise socially desirable aspects of their behaviour and attitudes in the presence of the interviewers. Validity is also a big disadvantage as you have to think about if the respondents are lying or is their memory hazy or faulty. A problem with unstructured interviews is that they can lead into all sorts of directions resulting in data from one interview to the next can vary considerably. It is difficult to code and quantify much of the qualitative data produced by unstructured interviews. You must be secure in your understanding of the important issues to direct the interview.
An open ended question is a question which asks the respondent to answer a question in their own words. They give the respondent more freedom and they become more open as there is room to express their opinion. Allowing them to say things in their own way and they are more suitable for data on attitudes and values where respondents are required to express how they feel. There is no bias due to limited response ranges
The disadvantages for open ended questions are that when it comes to coding it can be difficult and time consuming. Also many researchers see closed questions as suitable for simple, factual data such as age, gender and income level where open ended questions are mostly unsuitable. Answers must be interpreted carefully before the researcher is able to say what the respondent really meant. You may not be able to make sense of what the respondent actually meant. The researcher may misinterpret the response.
The main problem for qualitative research data is reliability as if another researcher did the same experiment would they get the same results as others. And if a group of researchers all researched the same topic would they all get different results? If so which should we believe.
Researchers often combine quantitative and qualitative data in their research to get a fair and accurate result even thought quantitative is often more accurate than qualitative. The major difference between qualitative and quantitative research is the underlying statement about the role of the researcher. In quantitative research, the researcher is ideally an objective observer that neither participates in or influences what is being studied. In qualitative research, however, it is thought that the researcher can learn the most about a situation by participating and/or being immersed in it.
