Assess the strengths and limitations of using questionnaires to investigate how cultural and material factors affect educational attainment.

Authors Avatar by allyson_02 (student)

A.L.

Assess the strengths and limitations of using questionnaires to investigate how cultural and material factors affect educational attainment.

A questionnaire is a set list of questions. Positivists see questionnaires as useful because they produce statistical data which correlations and cause and effect relationships can be drawn. Positivists in particular see questionnaires because they produce statistical data from which correlations and cause and effects relationships can be drawn.

Advantages of using questionnaires are very useful for getting large quantities of basic educational information quickly and cheaply.  The pupils are geographically scattered group. It is easier to research a large sample size of pupils. This can easily be done by posting the questionnaires to them. Positivists see this as useful because they want to be able to make generalisation by using a representative group. It can be particularly useful when researching sensitive issues. Their anonymity may overcome pupils' embarrassment such as questions about financial support etc.  As a result, the response may be more likely to be higher to reveal details of their experience.  However, it depends on whether the pupils and parents are reassured that their anonymity will be safeguarded. Yet this reassurance may be difficult to achieve because a questionnaire is a detached method, where there is little or no personal contact with the researcher.

Join now!

Also, questionnaires are particularly useful for testing hypothesis about cause and effect relationships between different variables. For instance, analysis of respondent's answers could show whether there is a correlation between children's attainment and adequate housing and income. We might find, for example, pupils who lac material necessities such as adequate and housing and income tend to be low achievers.  From this analysis we can make statements about the possible causes of low achievement and predictions about which children are most likely to under achieve. Because questionnaires enable us to identify the possible causes, they are favoured by positivist as they ...

This is a preview of the whole essay