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AND ANALYISIS
The pairs of variables in the above examples have separate names. The
variable we manipulate is called the independent variable (IV). The variable we
are hypothesising will alter as a result of our manipulations is called the
dependent variable (DV). The dependent variable alters as a consequence of
the value of the independent variable - its value is dependent on this. The value
of the independent variable is free to vary according to the whims of the
experimenters.
Independent variable
Dependent variable
Newspaper
Voting patterns
Attendance at lectures
Exam marks
Diet
Intelligence
Directional hypotheses
In the examples above, words like "influence"
Question Types
Two main categories of question:
Closed-ended questions
Name: Dichotomous
Description: Question offering two choices
Example: Did you watch television at all
yesterday?
Yes / No
Name: Multiple
Description: Question offering three or more
choices
Example: Which of these shops do you
prefer?
Next / River Island / Gap Top Shop/ Top Man
Boring
Useful :_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:
Useless
Double Decker
Crunchie
Wispa
Mars Bar
Creme Egg
Name: Numeric
Description: Respondent specifies a
Open-ended questions
Name: Unstructured
Example: Why did you enrol for this course at QMC / SCOT?
Description: Words are presented one at a time and respondents give the first word that comes to mind
Example: What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the following?
Interesting
Lecture
Computer
Exam
Challenge
Tutorial
Rewarding
Exciting
Description: Incomplete sentences are presented, one at a time, and respondents are asked to complete the sentence
Example: I sat down at the kitchen table, picked up a fork, then looked at the Chicken and Mushroom flavour Pot Noodles in front of me.
Instructions in Questionnaires
General instructions
Indicate that you are a student at Queen Margaret College / Scottish College of Textiles and that this work is being
undertaken as part of your course. You should also have a letter from your tutor or supervisor to authenticate this.
You should address issues of confidentiality and/or anonymity. You could, for example, include a sentence at the
beginning such as "All of the information you give me will be treated as completely confidential and it will not be
possible for anyone to identify the information you give me when I write up the project report".
(If applicable) indicate how the person was selected to receive the questionnaire.
Indicate how it is to be answered. For example.. "Please answer all of the questions which apply, and leave the
remainder blank"
Question instructions
Ensure that each question (or block of similar questions) has a clear instruction on how to respond.
Indicate the form of the answer (numeric, tick-box, rank etc.) and how many answers are expected, such as "most
relevant", "one only" or "all which apply"
Routing instructions
Where respondents' answers to an earlier question affects subsequent sets of questions, ensure that the route
which they should take is clearly specified. For example, "If YES, please go to Question 15"
Question Order
For the above reasons, it is generally best to keep all questions dealing
with demographic information (such as age) at the end of the
questionnaire.
Print clearly (if computer printout is giving faint printouts, ask the IT staff
whether a new print cartridge can be installed)
Allow adequate space between questions so that you can write down
any comments made (but don't waste too much paper!!)
Write the questions themselves in lower case (i.e. like this writing) ,
INSTRUCTIONS IN UPPER CASE (i.e. capital letters)
Hypothetical questions
A hypothetical question is one in which you are asking respondents to indicate what they think they would do under particular imaginary circumstances. These can't always be avoided in some attitudinal research, but they are difficult to administer and often give rise to unreliable answers
Activity
These are often included in poor questionnaires because the researcher feels strongly about a topic and assumes that everyone will be of the same opinion.
Activity
Problems which tax the respondent's memory too much are likely to lead to non-response or inaccurate replies. For example "What did you have for lunch each day last week?"
Sensitive questions
Income
If you have to ask sensitive questions, the problem can be alleviated somewhat by the use of SHOW CARDS. Put all of the possible responses on a card, preferably mixed up, and ask the respondent to indicate which number relates to their own circumstances. For example,
Can you tell me the number on this card which corresponds to you income group?
7,000 - 12,000
Over 60,000
18,000 - 30,000
Under 7,000
40,000 - 60,000
12,000 - 18,000
30,000 - 40,000
In the show card above, you will note that somebody earning exactly 30,000 would perhaps wonder whether to give answer 3 or answer 7 on the show card. In practice, people are usually able to give their income as an approximation. You should, however, always watch out for questions where the multiple
choice answers are not mutually exclusive and where a respondent will be uncertain about which category he/she falls under. It seems to be a particular problem with age brackets, and you can often see examples of mistakes here in even professionally produced surveys.
Long questions
If your questions are too long and detailed, the respondent may get lost and the responses will relate only to the beginning or the end of the question. W here definitions and qualifications are necessary, use show cards.
Before you "pilot" your questionnaire (see later section of this booklet), try going through the following checklist to spot whether any of these common mistakes apply
to your own questionnaire:
Make sure you haven't included phrases like "Wouldn't you say that.." or "Don't you agree that.."
Avoid using words like "occasionally", "regularly", "often", "in this area". If you were to ask respondents how often they visit the cinema, for example, one person's idea
of "regularly" may be every couple of months, which could be another respondent's idea of "occasionally" and another person's notion of "rarely". Far better to give
explicit categories such as "More than once a week" "Every week" "More than once a month" etc.
Avoid the two extremes of vocabulary (a) technical jargon; (b) slang or colloquialisms
For example:
"Are your lectures and tutorials enjoyable and easy to understand?" Yes / No
You may, of course, find the lectures in a subject easy but the tutorials more difficult, or you may find both easy to understand but do not enjoy them.
As a bit of light relief, here is a summary of how one author suggested we deal with sensitive questions:
BARTON, J A (1958) Asking the embarrassing question. Public Opinion Quarterly 22 pp.67-8
He takes as his example the delicate question of whether a respondent has murdered his wife!
1. CASUAL APPROACH
"Will you please read off the number of this card which corresponds to what became of your wife?"
"As you know, many people have been killing their wives these days. Do you happen to have killed yours?"
"Do you know any people who have murdered their wives?"
Before you deliver any questionnaire, you should "pilot" it (i.e. test it) to check that it is going to function effectively. There are a
number of reasons why it is important to pilot a questionnaire:
Ideally it should be piloted on a group similar to the one that will form the population of your study. It is difficult to give an exact
number for the pilot group, but as a rule of thumb, try to pilot on about 5-10% of your final sample number. The results from the
pilot study, however, should not be included with your final results.
If respondents omit certain questions, you should be able to find out why.
You should then alter your questionnaire to take account of comments made in the pilot study.
Influenced by:
Univariate analysis = one variable (e.g. gender, age) Methods: charts (e.g. bar chart, pie chart) or frequency table
Bivariate = 2 variables (e.g. gender + purchase of computers) Methods: crosstabulations; scatterplots; regression;
comparison of means (but we will only be covering the first two in this module)
Multivariate = 3 or more variables (e.g. income influenced by both education level and gender) - Note: you'll be
relieved to hear that you won't be covering any of these as part of this module)
2. Levels of measurement
Nominal
Ordinal
Interval
Ratio
3. Descriptive or inferential?
Descriptive statistics: summarise patterns in responses (e.g. average age of respondents or number of
respondents who buy a product)
Inferential statistics: provide an idea about whether the patterns described in the sample are likely to apply in the
population from which the sample is drawn ("tests of significance")
Frequency tables
If (a) is excluded from the table, it is essential to include the total number of cases on whom percentages are calculated.
Example
Analysis of degree of agreement/disagreement with statement "Taking part in videoconferenced classes is a really exciting experience"
Answer
Strongly agree
254
Agree
201
27
Neutral
119
16
Disagree
97
13
Strongly Disagree
75
Total
100
Crosstabulation
746
34
10
Crosstabulation = tabular representation of relationship between two (or can be more than two) variables
Table divided into cells with each cell representing the coincidence of a specific value from each variable
The total for each row and each column is given at the end of the row and column. These totals are called the ROW MARGINALS and
COLUMN MARGINALS.
It is normal (but not absolutely essential) for the dependent variable to appear in rows. This is because we may be crosstabulating one
dependent variable by a series of possible explanatory variables.