LCH1061 Academic English (Social Sciences) II

Data Collection Methods

A) Designing Questionnaires

(i) Purpose

Many students hasten to brainstorm questions when they set out to plan a questionnaire survey.
However, the very first step in designing a questionnaire ought to be determining the purpose
for your data collection exercise. What do you want to know through the questionnaire? Your
answer to this question can affect the direction of your brainstorming process. Here are some
examples of survey questions and their corresponding purposes:

Purpose: To find out respondents’ beliefs and attitudes

Example: Do you support the college’s proposal to administer stress tests to all year 1
students?
 Yes
 No

Purpose: To learn about respondents’ behaviours and experience

Example: Have you ever called the college counselling hotline when you feel stressed?
 Yes
 No

Purpose: To check respondents’ understanding

Example: Frequent urination is a symptom of stress.
 True
 False

(ii) Question Types

Next, you should consider how you can elicit the information you need from the respondents.
The following three examples are different versions of the same question. Do you notice how
they are different?

Example A Example B Example C

What is your opinion on the Do you support the college’s To what extent do you agree
college’s proposal to proposal to administer stress with the college’s proposal to
administer stress tests to all tests to all year 1 students? administer stress tests to all
year 1 students? year 1 students?
 Yes
________________________  No Strongly Strongly
Disagree Agree
________________________ 1 2 3 4 5

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All three questions serve the same purpose (i.e. to find out respondents’ attitude on the college
proposal), but they are phrased differently and as a result, the data they generate will be
different. One prime consideration of questionnaire writers is whether or not to provide answer
options to the respondents. In Example A, no choice is given and the respondents can write
down their answers freely. This is what is called an open-ended question. In contrast, in closed-
ended questions, the respondents can only indicate their answers through the preset options
provided, as demonstrated in Example B and Example C.

Activity:

Discuss with your neighbours and complete the following table about advantages and
disadvantages of open-ended and closed-ended questions.
Hint:
• Imagine that you are a respondent. What do you need to do when answering the
questions? How would you feel?
• Imagine that you are a researcher. How can you process the data received?

Advantages Disadvantages
Open-ended
Questions

Closed-ended
Questions

Closed-ended questions may take different forms. In the simplest form, respondents are asked
to choose only one answer out of a range of options. You should take care to check that there is
no overlap among the choices and that the choices already cover all possible answers. In some
other cases, respondents are allowed to choose multiple answers. It is very important that you
include specific instructions; otherwise, no one dares to tick a second box!

Example: What are the possible symptoms of stress? (You can choose more than one.)

 Headache
 Inability to sleep
 Change of appetite
 Sweating
 Other (Please specify: __________________)

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Two other types of closed-ended questions involve the use of rating and ranking scales. Example
C is one typical example of rating questions. Respondents are asked to show their level of
agreement through a five-point Likert scale. Sometimes, questions that share the same scale can
be grouped together to form a matrix question:

Example: Please circle the number that best represents your opinion on each of the
following statements.

Strongly Strongly
Disagree Neutral Agree
Disagree Agree
a. Stress adversely affects my
1 2 3 4 5
academic performance.
b. My parents have high
1 2 3 4 5
expectations of me.
c. I have trouble making new
1 2 3 4 5
friends at college.
d. My health gets worse when the
1 2 3 4 5
assignment deadlines approach.
e. I feel worried about settling my
1 2 3 4 5
tuition fees.

Ranking questions require respondents to order a list of items based on a criterion. Once again,
clear instructions are crucial to making these questions work.

Example: Please rank the following four factors according to their importance to your
tertiary life. (1 = the most important factor; 4 = the least important factor)

___ Achieving high GPAs

___ Expanding your social circle
___ Identifying career goals
___ Joining study abroad programmes

The last type of closed-ended questions that deserves special mention is filter questions. Filter
questions are fairly common in surveys and their major function is to direct respondents to
different following questions based on the answers the respondents have chosen.

Example: 1. Have you ever called the college counselling hotline when you feel stressed?

 Yes
 No (GO TO QUESTION 4)

In the example, the researcher may want to continue to ask questions about the respondents’
experience of using the hotline service. However, these questions are only relevant to those
who have called the hotline before. By setting a filter question, the researcher can tailor

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questions for a specific subgroup of respondents while saving other respondents the trouble of
reading and answering irrelevant questions.

Even though filter questions are useful, you should use them with caution. It is important that
instructions on which item to skip or which item to answer must be written clearly. Regarding
the example given above, when there are a lot of follow-up questions, you can consider printing
them on a new page and give directions like these:

 Yes (Please answer Questions 2-7 on pp. 2-3.)

 No (Please go to p. 4 directly to answer Question 8.)

Furthermore, respondents may easily get confused if filter questions appear frequently in a
questionnaire. To resolve this problem, you can explore the possibility of conducting the survey
online. With the use of computers, respondents can be directed to different parts of a
questionnaire automatically and accurately.

(iii) Principles of Question-writing

There are five basic principles that you should bear in mind when you draft questions for your
survey:

Principle 1. Ask questions that your respondents are able to answer

Except when you deliberately set questions to test respondents’ understanding, you should
always ask yourself whether your respondents are capable of answering your questions.
Examples of questions that you should avoid include:

• Questions that require respondents to recall distant memories

• Questions about something that respondents have not heard about or not experienced
before
• Questions with little relevance to respondents
• Questions that involve complicated procedures or difficult calculation

You should also provide reasonable answer options. Respondents would feel frustrated when
they could not find any choice applicable to them.

Principle 2. Ask one thing at a time

If your question contains two or three parts, respondents may have a different answer towards
each of these. The trouble is that closed-ended questions usually allow one single answer. How
can your respondents combine and reduce their answers to only one choice? As a result, the
responses that you receive may not be valid and it is hard for you to interpret the data. To

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prevent this, you should check your question carefully if it contains the conjunction “and” or
“or”.

Principle 3. Write in a simple, direct manner

When drafting questions for your survey, you should always adopt a clear, concise writing style.
The longer the question that you write, the more likely it is for your respondents to misinterpret
the question. Therefore, it would be best if you can keep each question within one line to two
lines in length. Equally importantly, you should minimise the use of negative words and never
include double negatives in your questions.

Principle 4. Make sure everyone understands in the same way

Since your survey will involve many different participants, you have to ensure that all of them
can get your intended meaning when they read your questions. One area that you should pay
special attention to is your choice of vocabulary. You certainly do not want your respondents to
make wild guesses about words that they do not know. Hence, you should avoid using rare
words, technical terms and abbreviations. If they cannot be avoided for some reasons,
definitions or short explanations must be provided accordingly.

Another source of ambiguity in questionnaires concerns the use of frequency adverbs. It is quite
common to find “always”, “often” and “sometimes” in the answer options. However, different
people may have different ideas about the meaning of these words. It would be more concrete
if you can rephrase them into countable frequency such as “once a day” and “four times per
week”.

Principle 5. Stay neutral and objective in wording

You should refrain from manipulating the survey data by indirectly hinting to respondents which
option they should choose. You should not include any word that shows your attitude;
otherwise, these biased words will lead respondents to favour some particular answers.

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Exercise:

The following five questions are taken from a questionnaire intended to understand tertiary
students’ finances. However, each of them violates one of the principles of question-writing
discussed above. Do you know what is wrong?

1. Which of the following is your current source of income? (You can choose more than
one.)
 Financial support from family members
 Remuneration for part-time employment
 Scholarships
 SFO’s financial assistance schemes
 Other (Please specify: __________________)

2. Do you have an e-banking account and a credit card?

 Yes
 No

3. Are you a wise spender who keeps a record of daily expenditure?

 Yes
 No

4. How many times did you shop online in the past three years?
 0
 1-5
 6-10
 11-15
 16-20
 21-25
 26-30
 Above 30

5. To what extent do you agree that the transportation cost is not insignificant in terms of
your monthly expenses?
 Strongly disagree
 Disagree
 Neutral
 Agree
 Strongly agree

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Activity:

Based on the topic and the purpose of your survey, write five questions for your questionnaire.
Exchange your questions with a partner. Review each other’s questions in terms of the five
principles of question-writing introduced in this section.

(iv) Organisation

Title and Introduction

A questionnaire typically begins with a short title and an introduction. The title includes
keywords of the topic of investigation so that respondents immediately know what the survey is
about. In addition to providing information about the topic, the introduction aims to persuade
respondents to join the survey and tell them how to complete the questionnaire.

Writing Tips: How can you write a good introduction for your questionnaire?

• To help respondents understand the background, you should explain in a few sentences
the topic of your survey and your reasons for conducting the survey. Sometimes it is
also necessary to define important terms so as to ensure correct interpretation of the
questions.

• To encourage respondents to complete the questionnaire, you can emphasise that they
can easily finish it within a short period of time and that their participation is essential
for the success of the project. Some people are concerned about the confidentiality of
their personal information and the potential uses of their data. Therefore, it is useful to
include a few statements addressing these concerns.

• To facilitate the process of completing the questionnaire, you should give respondents
some guidelines about how they should answer the questions in general. Should they
circle the answer or put a tick in the box? Should they choose the one best answer or
mark all that apply? Should they write brief responses or elaborate details? Clear
instructions can minimise your chance of getting invalid responses. As demonstrated in
the previous section, special instructions can be added separately for individual
questions where necessary.

Grouping and Sequencing

One effective strategy to improve the organisation of your questionnaire is to divide it into
different sections in which related question items are grouped together. You can label each
section with an appropriate heading and write a short description. In this way, respondents will
find it easier to respond to the items as all question items in the same section share the same
focus.

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A common mistake that should be avoided concerns the ordering of questions. Imagine that you
receive a questionnaire from a stranger. When you cast your eye over the first few questions,
you find them difficult and complicated. Will you agree to fill in the questionnaire? Most likely
you will walk away immediately! First impressions are extremely important. Therefore, when
ordering the items in your questionnaire, you should consider putting some easy questions first.
Normally the first few questions address some core issues of your investigation, setting the
scene for more in-depth questions that follow. Demographic questions such as gender, age and
education can be saved for the last part of the questionnaire.

Design and Layout

Different sections, questions and answer options should be presented clearly on the
questionnaire so as to minimise the chance of the respondents’ misreading or overlooking any
part. Therefore, you should label sections or questions with numbers and leave adequate space
in between different items. In addition, you should list answer options vertically so as to avoid
confusion. Even when you use an online survey tool, you should pay attention to the readability
of the questionnaire generated. For example, you can check if the choice of font type or colour
is appropriate.

After you finish drafting a questionnaire, what should you do next? The last step of designing a
questionnaire is pilot testing. You can ask a few friends to complete the questionnaire and
comment on things that they find confusing. You can then revise the draft based on their
remarks. Better still, you can trial the questionnaire with a small group of people similar to your
target participants. In this way, you can resolve potential problems before you administer the
questionnaire to your respondents.

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Exercise:

The following questionnaire is drafted for a survey on tertiary students’ sleep habits. Study it
carefully. Point out potential problems on (i) organization and (ii) individual questions. Suggest
how the questionnaire can be improved.

QUESTIONNAIRE

Please delete as appropriate.

1. Do you have any sleep problems?  Yes  No

2. Have you abused sleeping pills?  Yes  No
3. Please consider your situation in the past one week and indicate the extent to which
you agree and disagree with the statement that I believe I got enough sleep by
choosing a number from 1 to 5: _____
4. When did you go to bed last night and when did you wake up this morning?
______________________________________________________________
5. Please consider your situation in the past one week and indicate the extent to which
you agree and disagree with the statement that I found it difficult to wake up in the
morning by choosing a number from 1 to 5: _____
6. Did you wake up in the middle of last night?  Yes  No
7. How many times did you wake up in the middle of last night?  1-10  11-20 
21-30  Above 30 times
8. Why did you wake up in the middle of last night? (You can choose more than one.)
 Having a nightmare  Hearing noise  Going to the washroom  Feeling hot
9. Please consider your situation in the past one week and indicate the extent to which
you agree and disagree with the statement that I felt sleepy during daytime by
choosing a number from 1 to 5: _____
10. Please consider your situation in the past one week and indicate the extent to which
you agree and disagree with the statement that I wanted to take a nap by choosing a
number from 1 to 5: _____

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B) Preparing for Interviews

Questionnaires that require respondents to fill in are made up of mainly closed-ended questions.
The reason is obvious. Few respondents are willing to spare the time to write elaborate answers
for open-ended questions. If most questions that you want to ask your respondents are open-
ended ones, you should consider doing interviews instead.

Interviews are another method of data collection. Whereas questionnaires are ideal for
collecting data from a large group of people within a short period of time, interviews have the
merit of eliciting in-depth data. There are different types of interviews. The following discussion
focuses primarily on in-person interviews involving the use of interview guides.

(i) Drafting Interview Guides

As in the case of designing questionnaires, you should be clear about the purpose of your
interviews. To start with, you should ask yourself why you want to interview a particular
informant and how the information obtained from the interview could contribute to your
research project. For example, in a study on tertiary students’ stress problem, you may want to
seek expert opinion from a therapist who specializes in this area or a student who suffers from
stress. Depending on the focus of your study, the interview questions can range from symptoms
of stress to the most widely adopted treatment. Researching the interviewees’ background and
focusing on your research objectives can help you draft sensible questions.

Most questions in an interview guide are open-ended questions. The wh-words, “what,” “how”
and “why,” are frequently used. These questions enable the interviewees to answer freely and
provide information from their own perspectives. With regard to question-writing and ordering
of questions, some recommendations in the previous section of questionnaires still apply here.
For instance, interview questions should also be concise and tricky questions should come after
simpler ones.

In general, the pre-designed questions listed on the interview guide are to be asked one by one
during an interview. When the need arises, follow-up questions can be asked to clarify unclear
points or pursue interesting ideas raised by the interviewees. You should also note that
interviewing is a time-consuming process. An interview with a list of five to six questions may
take one hour, or more, to complete. Therefore, you should be selective when writing questions
for your interview guide.

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Activity:

Imagine that you are researching the topic of group work. You want to interview your
classmates so as to find out more about the problem of free riding among tertiary students.
Write three open-ended questions for your interview. Exchange your questions with a partner
and suggest how your partner’s questions can be improved.

(ii) Dos and Don’ts of Interviewing

The following is some practical advice on conducting an effective interview:

Dos

• Do inform your interviewee the purpose of your interview. At the initial stage when
you invite a prospective interviewee, you should explain clearly the background of your
research project and the purpose of your interview so that the person can decide
whether or not to accept your invitation. On the day of the interview, you can begin by
stating the information once again so as to help the interviewee stay on track during the
discussion.

• Do ask for permission to record the interview and to quote the interviewee. Not all
people are comfortable with the ideas of being recorded and quoted. However, these
are essential for your research project. If you discover, only on the interview day, that
your informant refuses your request, you will certainly feel frustrated! To prevent this,
you should seek prior consent from your interviewee.

• Do jot notes during the interview. Although you do not have time to write down every
word that your informant says, you should keep writing down some key phrases. The
notes not only inspire you to ask follow-up questions during the interview, but also
facilitate the data analysis process after the interview.

• Do use probes to encourage your interviewee to elaborate. Sometimes you may not be
satisfied with the brief responses from your interviewee. Questions like “Could you tell
me more about this?” or “Could you explain a little more?” can be helpful. As an
alternative, you can simply say “I see. Please continue.”

• Do show that you are listening attentively. When the interviewee is speaking, you
should stay focused. You can smile, nod gently and utter “uh-huh” from time to time.
After all, the interviewee would not be eager to share information to someone who
looks indifferent.

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Don’ts

• Don’t make the interview overly formal. It is important to establish a friendly

atmosphere so that the interviewee feels comfortable talking to you.

• Don’t speak too much. As an interviewer, you should resist the temptation to dominate
the interview. Even when there is silence, you should patiently wait for the interviewee
to pick up the turn.

• Don’t give your own opinion. If your attitude is shown, the interviewee may
deliberately answer in a way so as to please you. As a result, the data may not be valid.

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C) Integrating Primary Data into Writing

After conducting your primary research, you should process the data properly. For example, you
can produce statistics of your questionnaire survey or prepare a transcript of your interview.
The next step is to analyse the data and select some relevant information to be included in your
paper. Many students find it challenging to incorporate their research results into their essays.
One common mistake observed is that zero connection is provided between the primary data
and the essay content:

Ineffective example: Today, Hong Kong tertiary students suffer from high stress. Over 30%
respondents reported taking sleeping pills in the past three months. This
shows that stress is a serious problem.

In this ineffective example, the student writer jumps from the topic of stress to that of sleeping
pills and then back to stress again. No explanation is given about the relationship of the two
topics. No information is provided about the questionnaire survey conducted either. As a result,
the readers would certainly feel puzzled while reading. Try to compare the above text with the
following version:

Revision: Today, Hong Kong tertiary students suffer from high stress. Various studies (e.g.
Davies & Evans, 2010; Smith, 2013; Walker & Thompson, 2015) have found that
sleeping problems are a common symptom of stress. A questionnaire survey
involving 230 students from a tertiary institution in Hong Kong was conducted.
Over 30% respondents reported taking sleeping pills in the past three months.
The fact that more than one-third of the respondents had trouble sleeping is a
cause for concern. Given the close relationship between stress and insomnia,
this finding indicates the seriousness of the stress problem among Hong Kong
tertiary students.

Do you find this revised example much more logical? The relationship between stress (i.e. the
essay content) and sleeping disorder (i.e. primary data) has been clearly explained. Background
information about the primary research conducted by the writer is also provided. In this way,
readers can easily understand the writer’s train of thought. One more point to note is that the
writer is now more cautious when interpreting the primary data. All these help to add to the
persuasiveness of the writer’s argument.

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The following tips can help you better master the skills of integrating research evidence into
your essay:

• The function of the primary data is to illustrate or support a point in the essay. In
general, you should first tell your readers what the point is. Then you can mention the
findings of your questionnaire survey or interview. Finally you should point out explicitly
how the findings are related to the point you make.

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

State the Cite the Explain how the data
point data supports the point

• The first time when you report your own findings you should include a brief statement
introducing the questionnaire survey or the interview you have conducted. For example:

A survey was conducted to understand more about tertiary students’ stress

levels and a total of 100 completed questionnaires were returned. The survey
results showed that …

A face-to-face interview was arranged with Dr. Debby Morrison, the Principal
Clinical Psychologist of the Hospital Authority, in June 2018. During the
interview, Dr. Morrison explained …

• Subsequent mentions of your findings can simply begin with phrases like “according to
our questionnaire survey” and “Dr. Morrison mentioned in our interview that …”.

• Similar to the integral citation of reference sources, you should carefully use reporting
verbs to incorporate your primary data into your sentences. You can refer to your
textbook p. 74 for more advice on the use of academic reporting verbs.

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Exercise:

Assume that you are preparing an essay about tertiary students’ stress problem and you have
conducted an interview with the head of a counselling unit of a tertiary institution. This is part of
your interview notes:

Interview with Dr. Spencer 5 March 2018

▪ More students seeking help from the counselling unit when compared with
10 years ago:
5% of student population in 2007;
20% of student population in 2017

▪ In 2017, over 80% of students seeking counselling suffered from stress

▪ Common causes of stress:

Fear of failure in academic studies;
Difficulties in building new friendships;
Problems in adapting to a new environment;
Financial burden

Write your paragraph below by incorporating some information from Dr. Spencer. The first
sentence is provided to you:

Today, Hong Kong tertiary students suffer from high stress. _____________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________

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References

Babbie, E. (2016). The practice of social research (16th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Bernard, H. R. (2013). Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches (2nd
ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Engel, R. J., & Schutt, R. K. (2013). The practice of research in social work (3rd ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

White, T. L., & McBurney, D. H. (2013). Research methods (9th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
Cengage Learning.

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