RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

344 QUESTIONNAIRES
compliance to welcome; from easy to difficult,
from motivating to boring, from straightforward to
complex etc.).
Administering questionnaires
Questionnaires can be administered in several
ways, including:
self-administration
post
face-to-face interview
telephone
Internet.
Here we discuss only self-administered and postal
questionnaires. Chapter 16 covers administration
by face-to-face interview and by telephone, and
Chapter 10 covers administration by the Internet.
We also refer readers to Chapter 9 on surveys, to
the section on conducting surveys by interview.
Self-administered questionnaires
There are two types of self-administered
questionnaire: those that are completed in the
presence of the researcher and those that are filled
in when the researcher is absent (e.g. at home, in
the workplace).
Self-administered questionnaires in the presence of
the researcher
The presence of the researcher is helpful in
that it enables any queries or uncertainties to
be addressed immediately with the questionnaire
designer. Further, it typically ensures a good
response rate (e.g. undertaken with teachers at
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classes). It also ensures that all the questions are
completed (the researcher can check these before
finally receiving the questionnaire) and filled in
correctly (e.g. no rating scale items that have more
than one entry per item, and no missed items).
It means that the questionnaires are completed
rapidly and on one occasion, i.e. it can gather data
from many respondents simultaneously.
On the other hand, having the researcher
present may be threatening and exert a sense of
compulsion, where respondents may feel uncomfortable
about completing the questionnaire, and
may not want to complete it or even start it. Respondents
may also want extra time to think about
and complete the questionnaire, maybe at home,
and they are denied the opportunity to do this.
Having the researcher present also places
pressure on the researcher to attend at an agreed
time and in an agreed place, and this may be timeconsuming
and require the researcher to travel
extensively, thereby extending the time frame
for data collection. Travel costs for conducting
the research with dispersed samples could also be
expensive.
Self-administered questionnaires without the presence
of the researcher
The absence of the researcher is helpful in that it
enables respondents to complete the questionnaire
in private, to devote as much time as they wish
to its completion, to be in familiar surroundings,
and to avoid the potential threat or pressure to
participate caused by the researcher’s presence.
It can be inexpensive to operate, and is more
anonymous than having the researcher present.
This latter point, in turn, can render the data
more or less honest: it is perhaps harder to tell lies
or not to tell the whole truth in the presence of the
researcher, and it is also easier to be very honest
and revealing about sensitive matters without the
presence of the researcher.
The down side, however, is that the researcher
is not there to address any queries or problems
that respondents may have, and they may omit
items or give up rather than try to contact
the researcher. Respondents may also wrongly
interpret and, consequently, answer questions
inaccurately. They may present an untrue picture
to the researcher, for example answering what
they would like a situation to be rather than
what the actual situation is, or painting a falsely
negative or positive picture of the situation or
themselves. Indeed, the researcher has no control
over the environment in which the questionnaire