Theme 4: Reflection

During this seminar we discussed the advantages and disadvantages with quantitative and qualitative methods and at the end we focused mostly on pros and cons with qualitative.

Olle Bälter had some interest insights regarding the subject on how to create good questionnaires. It’s not a simple task but with the right knowledge and probably the right experience the results can end up pretty satisfying.

We had group discussions regarding pros and cons with web vs. paper questionnaires and it gave me some insight I didn’t have before. When creating a web questionnaire you have to test it on different web browsers before sending it to the users and therefore avoiding potential technical issues regarding compatibility. I have also encountered these issues while participating in web surveys and it affects the number of users that can participate. Also I learn that you are more likely to receive a greater amount of answers if you choose to send out paper questionnaires instead of using online methods. We discussed this in groups as well and came up with that one of the reasons you receive more answers with paper questionnaires is that it exudes more credibility. One other reason can be that when you receive it directly to your home, in your hand, you don’t forget about it as easily as an email in your inbox.

After the seminar I thought about different surveys I have answered and reflected if I had come across any mistakes made by the creators of the surveys and one particular survey came to mind. I recently participated in a study concerning a pharmaceutical and it included answering questions regarded my personal life, how I felt about myself on others etc. One particular part of the survey focused on questions regarding my partner and myself. The problem was that I didn’t have a partner and there were nowhere possible for me to choose an alternative saying I was single. I had to answer the question so I filled in the alternative “Not true”, on almost all these questions since I couldn’t answer questions about a partner I didn’t have. At the beginning of the study those responsible knew I didn’t have a partner but they said it didn’t partner. The problem is now that the statistics regarding my results will be incorrect since I couldn’t answer some of the questions correctly. At the bottom line, it’s important to consider many possible scenarios before creating a questionnaire, so problems like this won’t occur.