Assess the Strengths and Limitations of Questionnaires for the Study of Parental Attitudes to Education

985 Words4 Pages
Assess the strengths and limitations of questionnaires for the study of parental attitudes to education (800 – 1000 words) A questionnaire is a list of pre-set questions that are usually closed and coded. They are often used in large-scale ‘social surveys’. They are similar to a ‘structured interview’ but they are self-completed by a respondent. Questionnaires are designed to collect the appropriate date, make the data comparable and amenable to analyse, minimise the bias in formulating and asking questions and to make the questions engaging and varied. There are many strengths and limitations of questionnaires for the study of attitudes to education, which could be practical or ethical issues. Positivists agree with using questionnaires, because they collect quantitative date to identify trends and patterns. They are also reliable because they can be repeated, and they are representative. In contrast, Interpretivists dislike the use of questionnaires, as they believe that they are invalid because they are closed questions that can’t go into detail and they are impersonal due to the lack of depth in answers. Some sociologists often use questionnaires to study issues such as; subject and university choice, bullying and the experience of schooling, achievement and school factors and parental attitudes to education. There are many practical advantages of questionnaires that study parental attitudes of education. Questionnaires are quick to fill out for the participant and are quick and cheap for sociologists to produce. Therefore if there are a large number of respondents that live far apart, then it’s easier to get questionnaires to them and they can be mass produced. It would be cheap to do this because the cost would only stretch to the use of ink, paper and posting charges, unless they were given out within school to take home which would be even cheaper. An

More about Assess the Strengths and Limitations of Questionnaires for the Study of Parental Attitudes to Education

Open Document