RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

332 QUESTIONNAIRES
Box 15.4
Potential problems in conducting research
1 Gaining access to schools and teachers
2 Gaining permission to conduct the research (e.g. from principals)
3 Resentment by principals
4 People vetting what could be used
5 Finding enough willing participants for your sample
6 Schools suffering from ‘too much research’ by outsiders and insiders
7 Schools or people not wishing to divulge information about themselves
8 Schools not wishing to be identifiable, even with protections guaranteed
9 Local political factors that impinge on the school
10 Teachers’ fear of being identified/traceable, even with protections guaranteed
11 Fear of participation by teachers (e.g. if they say critical matters about the
school or others they could lose their contracts)
12 Unwillingness of teachers to be involved because of their workload
13 The principal deciding on whether to involve the staff, without consultation
with the staff
14 Schools’ or institutions’ fear of criticism or loss of face
15 The sensitivity of the research: the issues being investigated
Size of the
problem
(1–5)
How much
the problem
was solved
(1–5)
negatively and positively worded items in the same
scale, they argue, compromises both validity and
reliability. Indeed they suggest that respondents
may not read negatively worded items as carefully
as positively worded items.
Contingency questions, filters and
branches
Contingency questions depend on responses to
earlier questions, for example: ‘if your answer to
question (1) was ‘‘yes’’ please go to question (4)’.
The earlier question acts as a filter for the later
question, and the later question is contingent
on the earlier, and is a branch of the earlier
question. Some questionnaires will write in words
the number of the question to which to go (e.g.
‘please go to question 6’); others will place an arrow
to indicate the next question to be answered if your
answer to the first question was such-and-such.
Contingency and filter questions may be useful
for the researcher, but they can be confusing for
the respondent as it is not always clear how
to proceed through the sequence of questions
and where to go once a particular branch has
been completed. Redline et al. (2002) found
that respondents tend to ignore, misread and
incorrectly follow branching instructions, such
that item non-response occurs for follow-up
questions that are applicable only to certain
subsamples, and respondents skip over, and
therefore fail to follow-up on those questions
that they should have completed. Redline et al.
(2002) found that the increased complexity of
the questionnaire brought about by branching
instructions negatively influenced its correct
completion.
Redline et al. (2002:7)reportthatthenumber
of words in the question affected the respondents’
ability to follow branching instructions – the
greater the number of words in the question,
the greater was the likelihood of the respondents
overlooking the branching instructions. Redline
et al. (2002:19)reportthatuptosevenitems,