Questionnaires: Getting Straight Answers
Think of questionnaires as your typical survey - they're structured sets of written questions that help researchers discover what's really going on in people's minds. Unlike observations where you're just guessing what someone's thinking, questionnaires let people tell you directly.
The magic happens in how you ask the questions. Closed questions (like tick boxes or rating scales) are brilliant for getting clear, numerical data that's dead easy to analyse - perfect for spotting patterns across loads of people. However, they can be a bit limiting and might frustrate participants who want to explain their answers properly.
Open questions, on the other hand, let people write whatever they want. This gives you those unexpected, detailed responses that can lead to breakthrough discoveries, but they're an absolute nightmare to analyse when you've got hundreds of responses.
Top Tip: The key to good questionnaires is keeping your language simple and avoiding sneaky tricks like double negatives ("Are you not against not banning...") - you'll just confuse everyone, including yourself!
