Language in Use 175-176
This unit is concerned with the way in which our choice of question imposes
limitations both on the kind of answer we can expect to get and on the information
it will yield. In this sense our choice of question imposes a frame upon that
aspect of experience about which we are seeking information. It explores
the problems of writing, using and interpreting results of questionnaires in
order to develop awareness of this inescapable feature.
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[1] This session is devoted to the setting up of a simple questionnaire.
Discuss first with the class some of the preliminary questions which have to
be answered before a questionnaire can be devised:
(a) are answers to be spoken or written?
(b) who are the people to be questioned?
(c) how are they to be approached?
(d) what topics are to be investigated?
Divide the class into small groups. Let each group choose a topic, and draw up a sample list of questions. Suitable topics include habits about smoking, drinking, dating, reading, viewing, means and time of travel to school or job, use of money, holiday preferences.
[2] The aim of this session is to enable the class to discover that
formulating questions which are unambiguous and will yield the required information
is harder than it looks. One member of each group tries out its set of questions
on one of the other groups. The groups discuss the results and use the experience
to reshape their questions. For this session, the results of using their
questionnaire upon people outside the class need to be available to each group.
The first stage is to get each group to write a report of its findings. The
reports must cover the following points:
(a) the information sought
(b) the information obtained, whether sought or not
(c) the information the group failed to get
(d) how the group would seek to get the information in a new questionnaire.
The next stage is to circulate the reports so that the class can discuss them. The focus should be upon (c) above, particularly the degree to which failure may have resulted from the formulation of the questions.
[4] This session is concerned with the main types of questions available.
Attention should be paid to each of the following and the class asked to examine
what kind of answers each might yield and what sorts of enquiry they would be
suited to:
(a) closed-schedule questions, offering a restricted set of possible answers
(b) open-ended questions
(c) yes/no answers to statements
(d) simple factual questions asking when, where, what, why, etc.
(e) questions asking directly for some emotional response.
Turn back to the written reports furnished by [3] and ask the class to pick out a few questions which illustrate the difficulty of obtaining a piece of information accurately, without getting other information as well, or so many qualifications along with it that it is impossible to compare it with other information of a similar kind. An interesting continuation of the work is to explore the effect of trying to re-phrase a questionnaire wholly in yes/no form, especially its effect on the number of questions put. Where the topics studied by the groups are closely related, the class can correlate the results of two or three groups' findings. This will reveal the need to think out the objectives for a questionnaire before formulating any of the questions.