Sumber :
http://www.usq.edu.au/library/help/postgrad/resmeth.htm
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~kate/qmcweb/q2.htm
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
Name: Likert scale
Description: Statement with which respondent shows the amount of agreement /
disagreement
Example: Assessment by course-work is easier than assessment by examination
Strongly agree
Agree
Name: Semantic differential
Neither agree nor
Disagree
disagree
Strongly disagree
Description: Scale is inscribed between two bipolar words and respondent selects the
point that most represents the direction and intensity of his / her feelings
Example: The degree I am taking is.............
Interesting :_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____: Boring
Useful :_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____: Useless
Easy :_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____:_____: Difficult
Name: Rank order
Description: Respondent is asked to rate or rank each option that applies. This allows the
researcher to obtain information on relative preferences, importance etc. Long lists
should be avoided (respondents generally find it difficult to rank more than 5 items)
Example: Please indicate, in rank order, your preferred chocolate bar, putting 1 next to
your favourite through to 5 for your least favourite.
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Double Decker
Crunchie
Wispa
Mars Bar
Creme Egg

Open-ended Questions
Open-ended questions
Name: Unstructured
Description: Question that respondents can answer in an unlimited number of ways?
Example: Why did you enrol for this course at QMC / SCOT?
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………
Name: Word Association
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?
Lecture
Computer
Exam
Tutorial
Interesting
Exciting
Challenge
Rewarding
Name: Sentence completion
Description: Incomplete sentences are presented, one at a time, and respondents are
asked to complete the sentence
Example: My worst shopping experience while visiting Tescburys happened
when……………….
Name: Story completion
Description: An incomplete story is presented and respondents asked to complete it
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…….
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Advantages & Disadvantages of Closed and
Open-ended Questions
Advantages of Closed-Ended Questions

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Quick to answer
Easy to code
No difference between articulate and inarticulate respondents
Disadvantages of Closed-Ended Questions
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Can draw misleading conclusions because of limited range of options
Researcher / interviewer cannot deal with qualifications to responses e.g.
"Yes, but….." or "It depends" where only Yes/No are given as options
Advantages of Open-Ended Questions
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Greater freedom of expression
No bias due to limited response ranges
Respondent can qualify their answers
Disadvantages of Open-Ended Questions


Time consuming to code
Researcher / interviewer may misinterpret (and therefore misclassify) a
response
Sumber : http://www.swap.ac.uk/docs/events/Bradford7.rtf
Types of Questionnaires and Interviews
The types of questionnaires and interviews in the social sciences are designed to meet
the specific objectives of the discreet research. Typically this centres around the size of
sample balanced with the details required from respondents. If the researchers require
relatively brief information from a large number of people over a wide geographical area
then questionnaires have distinct advantages over interviews. However, if the research
intends to explore the subjective meanings of trauma, then clearly interviews are the more
appropriate method. The following are the types of questionnaire and interviews currently
used by social scientists.
1. Questionnaire impersonally delivered and returned. This is quintessentially a large-scale postal
questionnaire that many of us are familiar with receiving. Often postal questionnaires are from marketing
companies or organisations collecting information for selling financial services. However, health
authorities, police authorities or academic researchers also use postal questionnaires. Postal questionnaires,
as we shall see, are able to reach a very high sample regionally, nationally and occasionally international.
The most famous `questionnaire' in the UK is the government's Census that legally compels UK subjects to
provide a host of details about their lives.
2. Questionnaire personally delivered. For most research, including research by students, it is neither
necessary nor desirable to use postal questionnaires (there are often problems and expense associated in
obtaining lists of names and addresses of respondents). Researchers instead will personally deliver
questionnaires, either pushing them through the letterboxes of a target population or distribute them to
people using a specific organisation. The respondent will then return the questionnaire by using a return
addressed envelope or use a return box located at the agency. For instance, a student may require
information from people living on a particular housing estate, or, they may distribute questionnaires to
people attending a particular project or agency. The advantage of this is that they do not require
expenditure on postage stamps or envelopes and researchers have a degree of control over targeting specific
people, groups or communities.
3. Questionnaire personally collected. Personally delivered questionnaires still retain the problem of nonresponse. The researcher relies on the respondent to return their questionnaire. In order for the researcher to
have some control over the response rate it is sometimes appropriate for the researcher to collect the
questionnaires. This may be done by the researcher calling at a later date or time to collect the
questionnaire at the respondent's home or by returning to a class or session operated by the agency. This
allows the researcher to prompt the respondents to complete and return their answers, thereby improving
the response rate. However, this must be balanced against the time needed to do this and clearly in a very
large survey this is not a feasible option.
4. Telephone interview. It is sometimes easier to not use paper questionnaires that relies on the vicissitudes
of respondents to fill in and return the questionnaire and instead to directly speak to the target population
by telephone. Of course this is premised by the likelihood of a target population having telephones, for
instance, a survey of young homeless people, using telephone interviews will not be a viable option. It may
be difficult to obtain a list of telephone numbers of a target population and randomly calling people in the
hope that they meet the requirements of the research tends to be very haphazard and expensive. Indeed
telephone interviewing is itself expensive compared to postal questionnaires and far more time consuming
for the researcher. Nevertheless telephone interviewing allows the researcher a relatively high degree of
control over the research process and the researcher is able to speak to respondents directly and clarify any
questions or queries the respondent may have on the interview schedule.
A further note on telephone interviewing is that it allows the responses to be recorded directly on to a
computer. This is technically known as computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) and computers
are likely to be used by those people working for marketing companies who ring us up at home.
5. Face- to-face structured interview (standardised or scheduled interview). For many researchers the target
group of respondents are not suited to the above methods of data collection. They may be notorious poor
respondents (young people for instance), or the time schedule may not allow the luxury of time for
respondents to fill in and return their questionnaires, or they may be limited in number and the researcher
needs an almost perfect response rate for there to be a reasonable sample in which to apply analysis.
Therefore researchers interview them face-to-face and are able to directly control the return rate in a
comparatively quick time and are able to answer any questions. The researcher is also able to develop trust
with the interviewees on the aims of the research and be able to re-assure those being interviewed over
questions of confidentiality and ethics.
It is also worth noting that responses could be directly entered onto a computer for analysis. This avoids
the necessity of recording responses twice and saves time on the `data entry' stage. The use of computers in
face-to-face interviews is called computer assisted personal interview (CAPI).
6. Face-to-face unstructured interview (free or focussed or clinical or depth or nondirective interview). This
method of interview is not usually appropriate for survey methods unless the target group is particularly
small, reticent or vulnerable, this may be appropriate for children or other marginalised groups. It is
appropriate for more `qualitative' approaches where more detailed and subjective data is required. It is time
consuming and is extremely exposed to problems of interviewer bias and standardising responses
(interviewer bias will be discussed in another handout).
7. Group interview or group discussion. This method is very similar to number 6 and shares its advantages.
It shares its disadvantages in relation to survey methods but the problems of bias and standardising
responses is compounded.
8. Natural conversation. The direct opposite to number 1 and has no place in survey research.
As you will probably have noticed as you go down the list from 1 to 8 the method is designed to be more
appropriate for more detailed data for individual respondents. However, the gains in detail are set against
the loss of including a higher sample, where postal questionnaires have the clear advantage in reaching the
highest number of people. Crudely speaking the larger the number of people you include in your research
the more confident you can be of generalisation.
Advantages of Interviews and Advantages of Questionnaires
To briefly summarise the above, the researcher needs to arrive at a decision as to what method they will use
in their survey. Essentially, the researcher must choose between conducting interviews or distributing a
questionnaire. The advantages of doing interviews lie in that they have a higher response rate, a higher
validity in that skilled interviewers can probe the respondent for accurate answers (however the interviewer
must never prompt the respondent) and finally the researcher has a better degree of control over the
research process. However, interviews have a lower reliability in that they are prone to `the interviewer
effect' that is where the interviewer effects the answers given. For instance, answers given to male and
female interviewers are often considerably different. The interviewer's age, ethnicity and social class have
been shown to profoundly effect the type of responses received.
In contrast questionnaires are cheaper, have periods of time where the researcher is waiting for responses
that can be used for reflection, consideration and further reading around the topic. Questionnaires have a
higher reliability than interviews in that they do not have the problem of interview effect. However,
questionnaires have problems with non-response bias as they have a lower response rate than interviews.
Researchers using questionnaires do not have the opportunity for probing respondents for clarification of
answers and consequently have a lower validity.
Advantages of Interviews
High response rate
High Validity (probes - not prompts)
Low reliability (interviewer effect)
Expensive
Advantages of Questionnaires
Low response rate (non-response bias)
Low Validity
High reliability
Cheap
Control
Time for consideration