Our lecture for week 7 was about collecting data by creating surveys and questionnaires, while week 8 was on interviews, tests and scales, and budgetary concerns for your research proposal. I had originally wanted to mail out or do internet surveys, but now I'm not so sure. I must say that I'm a little confused as to which questionnaire approach I should use as I read Robson's comments on questionnaire issues on page 238. He says "A skilled interviewer should be able to achieve good rapport with nearly all interviewees in the face-to-face situation. The self-completion questionnaire has to rely on the quality of its presentation; conversely, the lack of direct contact means that these are better at dealing with sensitive topics." I'm not sure if everyone would consider some of the topics I would like to discuss in my research proposal as sensitive, but I would, given the nature of situation a lot of these kids are in. The constant moving and infrequency of seeing birth parents must be incredibly stressful and hard to deal with at times, and I'm sure a lot of kids act out. Not only that, but the foster parents could potentially be embarrassed by their lack of education and/or their not reading to the children, as these were questions I was planning to ask on the survey.
In Chapter 8, Robson discusses how long it takes to do a small-scale questionanire survey, and I must say that I was surprised that it took three to four months to complete, and that a mailed survey takes even longer because of the multiple different mailings that you have to do. In Box 8.2 on page 233, Robson discusses the advantages and disadvantages to doing surveys and one of the things that comes up under disadvantages is "data may be affected by characteristics of the interviewer and they may unwittingly influence the responses through verbal or non-verbal cues indicating the 'correct' answers." This means that I could influence how they answer their questions without really realizing it, something that I do not want to do. On the other hand, I like the advantage of the interview survey as it "allows the interviewer to clarify questions and encourages participation and involvement, and see whether the survey is being taken seriously." A few pages later is Box 8.3 where Robson makes a comparison of the different types of survey data collection, and face-to-face interviews are the highest cost, but have medium/long lengths of time needed to collect data, and allows for more complex questions to be asked. I also found Box 8.4 Checklist to Help Avoid Problems in Question Wording to be very helpful for the future when I actually sit down and develop my surveys.
I didn't find Chapter 9-10 very helpful as I have pretty much decided to interview surveys, but I did enjoy the part about Likert scales and thought I might conceivably put that in the survey as well. I also liked Dr. Solomon's part in the lecture on putting budgeting info in your research proposal if you ever want to get it grant-funded in the future, which I hope it will be as I think that it is a really valid subject to research on.
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