Compare and Contrast Questionnaires and Interviews as Sociological Research Methods

Compare and Contrast Questionnaires and Interviews as Sociological Research Methods Sociologists can use many types of experiment when conducting research, all of which have many advantages and disadvantages. One form of research a sociologist could take is a questionnaire. Positivists are more likely to use this type, as they prefer large scale or 'macro' research, involving a lot of people. This is because they believe that doing large scale research gets a more varied answer, and a more representative conclusion as the group being studied is much more varied. A questionnaire collects quantitative data, as it is mostly expressed in numerical form. Within a questionnaire, many different types of question can be used. For instance, a sociologist could just use simple closed questions, such as a person's name or the year they left school. They could also use multiple choice questions, category questions, where the participant must choose more than one option, or open questions. Within these questions, the respondent is able to go more into depth with their answers. An example of a famous questionnaire was the 'Bristol Stool Chart' questionnaire. Within this, the majority of Bristol's population was sent a questionnaire asking them how many times they went to a toilet during the week. They were then asked to record the shape, size, consistency and texture of their faeces.

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Business Studies
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Research Methods - the strengths and weaknesses of unstructured interviews.

Transfer-Encoding: chunked Unstructured interviews: In sociology, there are two contrasting approaches to conducting research. This method is mainly used by interpretivists because it shows a developed understanding (verstehen) of an individual persons behaviour which they believe can only be explored via methods that produce qualitative data to allow them to find insight and meaning, which can be provided by using unstructured interviews (UI). However, positivists who would use a quantitative research method such as questionnaires, because they are considered to be easy to analyse, objective, and highly reliable. The practical issues surrounding the use of UI are time because to do just one participant is very time consuming, and at times they usually get off topic thus creating unnecessary information. It is known to be very difficult to manage and organise the large amount of qualitative information gathered and also sociologists may disagree on what the important points in the participant’s interview are. Access to the group of people that the researcher wants to interview might be difficult so if there was a gatekeeper it would be much easier. Due to the difficulty of getting a large sample, a group of researchers may be trained but this will be both costly and time-consuming. Another issue is the ethical side of the research. The participants must be given the

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Compare and contrast the effectiveness of questionnaires and interviews in sociological research.

George Amos 12K - Sociology Compare and contrast the effectiveness of questionnaires and interviews in sociological research. When sociologists wish to collect some data about people's behaviour, questions must first be asked. It comes as no surprise to learn that sociologists spend most of their time asking questions of the respondents and collecting the data. But what is the best way to ask these questions? Questionnaires have become an everyday occurrence with most people having filled in a questionnaire at some point in the life span. There are two methods of asking questions; firstly, an interviewer can ask questions of the respondents and record the results, which means that the questionnaire is likely to be filled out correctly, but on the other hand, the respondent may change his or her opinion based on what they think the interviewer wants them to hear. I.e. if the interviewer is a female, a male respondent is more likely to be sympathetic to feminist views. The second method is the self-completion method of answering. Self-completion questionnaires can be either; Posted to respondents, which has the ability to cover a large geographical area but tends to suffer from a large non-response. Another style is when the questionnaire is given to the respondent and the interviewer waits until the respondent is done. This style is good because the interviewer will be

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Computer Science
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Assess the strengths and weaknesses of interviews, as a research method

Assess the strengths and weaknesses of interviews, as a research method Interviews are a face to face conversation (generally between two people), usually involving a set of questions. There are two extreme types of interviews; unstructured and structured. However, between the two, there is a third known as a semi-structured interview. Structured interviews involve the interviewer following a set of questions, without the addition of anything that isn't written down. The interviewer is given strict instructions and is told to complete each interview in the same order, word for word. The practical advantages for this type of interview are that it is quick and fairly cheap. This is because the interviewer is not allowed to ask any of their own questions and each interview should last about the same length of time. Also, training interviewers is straight-forward and inexpensive, as all they are required to do is follow a set of instructions. Additionally, the results are easily quantified because structured interviews use close-ended questions with coded answers. The practical disadvantages for structured interviews are that it may be time-consuming and may require a lot of money to employ dozens of interviewers and data-inputting staff. Structured interviews are preferred by Positivists, such as Marxists and Functionalists. This is because the response is easy to

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Interviews are the most effective method of research for understanding society. Discuss.

Interviews are the most effective method of research for understanding society. Discuss. Sociologists carry out research to gain information and understanding on a topic that may otherwise be poorly understood; whilst interviews may not be the only way of understanding society they are one of the most effective. For the most part the topics studied by sociologist are taboo topics not openly discussed in society therefore sociologist need to use methods which do not offend but still gather the level and depth of information needed. Interviews gather more information than questions are as with a questionnaire the subject may be tempted to get it out of the way quickly and not add the same depth to the answers it is a two sided discussion which is mostly question and answer giving the subject chance to expand on their answer. Validity is a big part of social studies as if information given is no ecologically valid then the study may be compromised, because the information given comes straight from the source in interviews there is little chance of the information being invalid. An interview can take a long or short period of time to do as the information can be gathered in note form or on a notepad the questions can be run through as quickly or slowly as is needed, the resources needed are relatively easy to gather a notepad and pen and a tape recorder. Interviews can be

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Business Studies
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There are a number of different research methods I can use for my primary research, but I have decided that the methods that will benefit my research are: questionnaires, non-directive interviews and structured interviews.

There are a number of different research methods I can use for my primary research, but I have decided that the methods that will benefit my research are: questionnaires, non-directive interviews and structured interviews I am going to begin with a pilot study before going onto my interviews. By doing this I should be able to obtain some valuable information which I will be able to put into numerical form e.g. pie charts, statistics and percentages. This is a big advantage as I will be able to compare data easily and it will give me a better understanding of what teenage girls feel about the pressures of dieting. Questionnaires are also a cheap, efficient and fast method for obtaining large amounts of information, which is helpful to me, as I do not have much time to carry out my primary research. Potentially, information can be collected from a large portion of a group, but this potential is not often realized as returns from questionnaires are usually low. For example, postal questionnaires are a relatively inexpensive method of obtaining information but often only a very small percent of the sample return them and those who do often have a special reason for doing so which makes the results untypical as a whole. This is why I have decided not to send postal questionnaires but to give them to girls at my school instead, this way I will be able to make sure that

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Psychology
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Examine the reasons why some sociologists choose to use structured interviews when conducting their research.

Examine the reasons why some sociologists choose to use structured interviews when conducting their research. Sociologists use different types of interviews in their research, these ranging from completely structures to completely unstructured interviews. The difference between them lies in how free the interviewer is to vary the questions and how they are asked. In its simplest form, a structured interview involves one person asking another person a list of predetermined questions about a carefully-selected topic. The person asking the questions ("the interviewer") is allowed to explain things the interviewee (or "respondent" - the person responding to the questions) does not understand or finds confusing. Moreover structured interviews are like questionnaires; the interviewer is given strict instructions on how to ask the questions. The interview is conducted in the same way each time, asking each interviewee precisely the same questions, word for word, in the same order and tone of voice. Both a questionnaire and structured interviews involve asking people a set of prepared questions. In both cases, the questions are usually closed-ended with pre-coded answers. The main difference is that in the interview, the questions are read out and the answers are filled in by a trained interviewer rather than by the interviewee. There are many practical advantages for the use of

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  • Level: AS and A Level
  • Subject: Sociology
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Exit interviews.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Traditionally, exit interviews are conducted with employees leaving an organization. The purpose of the interview is to provide feedback on why employees are leaving, what they liked or disliked about their employment and what areas of the organization they fell need improvement. More recently, the concept of exit interview has been revisited and expanded as a knowledge management tool rather than simply as HR information. Many companies struggle with getting useful information from EIS to develop effective retention strategies, that maybe the reason why cost of turnover is a nightmare for many companies. In this paper, I have analyzed data from various industries. And have tried to compare on the turnover between different organizations and the processes in which EIS is used. Exit interviews, as said by many, is largely a waste of time. Therefore it was necessary to critically analyze EIS processes and turnover. INTRODUCTION The time we live in today is an era of new economic paradigm where gaining a competitive advantage in characterized by speed, innovativeness, short-cycle times, quality and customer satisfaction. Recent decades have witnessed dramatic shifts in the role of human resource (HR). Traditionally managers saw that human resources functions as primarily administrative and professional (Becker, Huselid & Ulrich, 2001). The above mentioned

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Business Studies
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Analysing Qualitative Interviews

Analysing Qualitative Interviews The piece of data I am looking at is an extract from an observational report on a match between West Ham United and Millwall. The extract explores the way the crowd are dealt with, and how they respond to the police presence. The way to analyse this sort of data is by using qualitative analysis. "Qualitative analysis of data involves the non-numerical organisation of data in order to discover patterns, themes, forms and qualities found in interviews"(Adri Labuschagne, the Qualitative report 2003). To analyse the data you must create a table of common themes that occur during the extract. Themes Evidence in Observation Q.1-Theme 1 Chanting Theme 2 Crowds Surging Theme 3 Groups of hooligans gathered together The above were the results recorded for the question, 'Which actions of football supporters might result in fear of crime at a football match'. The important factor with qualitative research is that "categories are added to reflect as many of the nuances in the data as possible, rather than reducing them to a few numerical codes" (Pope, Ziebland, and Mays; Qualitative research 2000). Unlike quantitative data, qualitative data uses all the answers given. This results in more detailed answers rather than a list of cold figures. As Miles writes "Words are fatter than numbers and usually have multiple meanings" (Miles, M.B. and

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: ICT
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Eyewitness performance in Cognitive and Structured interviews.

Memon, A., Wark, L., Holley, A., Bull, R. & Koehnken, G. (1997) Eyewitness performance in Cognitive and Structured Interviews. Memory, 5, 639-655. Eyewitness performance in Cognitive and Structured Interviews Amina Memon[1], University of Texas at Dallas, School of Human Development, Richardson, TX 75083-0688, USA Linsey Wark & Angela Holley Department of Psychology University of Southampton Southampton S017 1BJ U.K. Ray Bull Department of Psychology University of Portsmouth Portsmouth P01 2ER U.K. Guenter Koehnken Institut fur psychologie Universitat Kiel Olshausenstr 40-60 24098 Kiel Germany Keywords: cognitive interview, eyewitness, retrieval, mnemonics, training Abstract This paper addresses two methodological and theoretical questions relating to the Cognitive Interview (CI), which previous research has found to increase witness recall in interviews. (1) To what extent are the effects of the CI mnemonic techniques when communication techniques are held constant? (2) How do trained interviewers compare with untrained interviewers? In this study, witnesses (college students) viewed a short film clip of a shooting and were questioned by interviewers (research assistants) trained in conducting the CI or a Structured Interview (SI), similar to the CI save for the `cognitive' components, or by untrained interviewers (UI). The CI and SI

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Biological Sciences
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