Questionnaires are usually classified into two forms, the “Restricted Questionnaire” and the “Unrestricted Questionnaire”.These two forms of questionnaires differs with one another in some aspects.
The Restricted questionnaire has a set of prepared list of possible answers or responses that should be chosen by the respondents. In such case that the question should be written, it must be in the form of short responses. This type of questionnaire is also called as a close form or a guided response type.
The Unrestricted questionnaire gives the respondent a wider freedom of expression. A respondent can write on his/her own words as his/her answer to the question that was given. The respondent is also allowed to share more informations that he/she wants to provide.
Questionnaires can be administered in group, administered individually or mailed. Group administered questionnaires can be distributed by researchers to a number of respondents in locations such as in offices, churches, and in classrooms or schools. Individually administered questionnaire can be given personally by the researcher to the respondents. The mailed questionnaire is mailed to the respondent’s residence or workplace. This kind of dissemination is usually done when its not practically appropriate to gather information in the location where the respondent is located.
Using a questionnaire in the survey involves both advantage and disadvantage. The advantage is that it provides ease and inexpensive way of collecting data considering that a researcher will not spend so much time doing it. It is also less stressful in the part of the respondents in answering the questions because they can answer it with their convenient time. Mailed questionnaires also allows the respondents to answer the questions without the researchers influence.
The disadvantage in using the questionnaire is that some people are not always serious in answering the questions in the questionnaires. There are also cases where some respondents are not clarified with the exact meaning of some of the questions that were being prepared, and that it could eventually lead into misinterpretation of the questions. It also happens sometimes that the choices in the questionnaires are limited which could lead into bias outcomes of results.
It should also be considered that in writing questionnaires, writing too many questions should be avoided as this could discourage the respondents from answering the questions. Furthermore, the questionnaires must not too lengthy as the lengthy questionnaires requires respondents to spend a lot of time from answering the questions.
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