Planning and organisationObservation

Observation usually takes place in a planned way. The researcher comes up with different categories for the groups they are interested in assessing, and then records the occurrences of these categories.

Example

A researcher wishes to observe the types of customers who go to the cinema on a Saturday morning. First, the researcher needs to decide how to categorise the types of customers into groups before the date of the observation. For example, these categories could be:

• children
• teenagers or young adults
• couples
• OAPs
• families
• other

Next, an observation sheet is drawn up and tallies are completed for each category when the observation is taking place. The researcher will sit in the cinema and tally the customers as they enter. Alternatively, a researcher could set up a video camera that records the customers who enter the cinema and then tally the categories at a later date.

Advantages of using observations

• Data can be collected where and when the event or activity is happening.
• Observations do not rely on people’s willingness to provide information.

Disadvantages of using observations

• Sometimes people perform differently if they know they are being observed.
• Observations do not help researchers understand why people behave in the way they do.

Questionnaires

Questionnaires are a popular way of gathering opinions and information about experiences. They can be carried out in a number of different ways.

• They can be sent by post to recipients, who are then expected to complete the questionnaires and return them – usually by including a stamped addressed envelope.
• They can be carried out either over the telephone or face to face.
• They can be carried out online through external sites such as Survey Monkey, Survey Planet or Kwik Surveys.

Advantages of using questionnaires

• Face-to-face questionnaires will usually get a higher response rate.
• Postal and online questionnaires allow a larger number of people to be surveyed.
• Many people are familiar with completing questionnaires.

Disadvantages of using questionnaires

• Postal and online questionnaires may have a lower response rate and possibly poorer answers, because there is no interviewer available to answer any queries.
• Face-to-face questionnaires are time-consuming.
• Clear, well-written survey questions are hard to write.

Interviews

Interviews are particularly useful for getting the story behind a participant’s experiences. The interviewer can pursue in-depth information around the topic.

Sometimes interviews are useful follow-ups to questionnaires or observations, as they can be used to further investigate the responses of the interviewees.

There are at least three different types of interview:

• unstructured interviews
• semi-structured interviews
• structured interviews

Unstructured interviews

This is where there are no set questions to be asked, but the researcher may have some ideas of the topics they wish to be covered. The interviewer will usually ask questions based on what the interviewee is saying so they are difficult to prepare for.

Semi-structured interviews

In semi-structured interviews the same open questions are asked to all the interviewees. This makes for faster interviews that can be analysed and compared more easily. However, researchers can still ask other questions or ask the interviewee to expand on something they have discussed.

Open questions provide in-depth information about human behaviour. Such questions usually begin with the words how, what, when, where and why. The purpose of an open question is to understand something better by getting more information from the interviewee. Here are some example questions.

• How do you usually spend your weekends?
• What do you think about the fast food industry?
• When was the last time you donated something to charity?
• Where do you think the Welsh Government should be focusing its financial support?
• Why do you think there is a low voting turnout?

Structured interviews

These are fixed-response interviews in which all interviewees are asked the same questions and asked to choose answers from among the same set of answers. This makes for a much quicker interview that can be directly comparable to other interviews and responses are easily analysed.

Advantages of using interviews

• Useful for gaining insight into a topic.
• Allows participants to describe what is important to them.

Disadvantages of using interviews

• There could be interview bias.
• Time-consuming and expensive compared to other methods.

Focus groups

A focus group typically consists of a small number of participants. There are usually around 6 to 12 members (although there could be fewer people) who are asked open questions in order to convey their thoughts or feelings.

Advantages of using focus groups

• Provide insights into how people think and provides a deeper understanding of the phenomena being studied.
• Provide the ability to capture deeper information more economically than individual interviews.
• Can also pick up on non-verbal communication.

Disadvantages of using focus groups

• Discussion can be dominated or sidetracked by a few individuals.
• Data analysis can be time-consuming.
• The information gathered may not be representative of the population as there are so few participants.