INTRODUCTION
So far, we have largely dealt with the background to your research project in terms of reading and assessing the literature, clarifying the role of theory, completing the conceptual framework and deciding upon a research design. The next stage in most cases is to collect primary data to test your hypothesis, or answer your research question. The next few chapters deal with issues of data collection, beginning in this chapter with an examination of the use of questionnaires in sports research.
Questionnaires are perhaps the most commonly used method in sport- related research. Defined simply, a questionnaire is a standardised set of questions to gain information from a subject. They are often associated with quantitative research designs, when relatively simple measure- ments are required from a large sample group (although you can collect qualitative data using questionnaires, it is not desirable in most cases and other methods are generally more appropriate). Questionnaires generally fall into one of four categories:
■ Discuss the use of questionnaires as a method of data collection.
■ Introduce some of the advantages and disadvantages of using questionnaire surveys in your research project.
■ Outline some of the issues of questionnaire design and admini- stration.
In this chapter we will:
1 Postal questionnaire. The questionnaire is given or posted to the participant, who completes it in his or her own time. The participant then posts the completed questionnaire back to the researcher.
Alternatively, the questionnaire may be emailed to the respondent for completion online.
2 Online questionnaire. Respondents are able to complete the question- naire electronically, and results are downloaded by the researcher.
3 Telephone questionnaire. The researcher questions the participant over the telephone and the researcher fills in the responses.
4 Face-to-face questionnaire. The researcher and participant are in the same location, and the researcher asks the questions ‘face-to-face’.
Questionnaires can be designed for completion either by the researcher (interviewer completion) or by the subject (respondent or self-completion).
Interviewer completion surveys are effectively the same as structured interviews, and the issues associated with this particular technique will be dealt with in the next chapter. This chapter will provide an overview of respondent completion surveys, the type of questionnaire that you are most likely to use.
WHEN IS THE USE OF A QUESTIONNAIRE APPROPRIATE?
The first consideration that you must make is whether a questionnaire is actually an appropriate method to collect the data you need. Once you have developed and focused your research question, considered the relevant concepts (see Chapter 6), and determined your choice of research design, you should be able to list your information needs, that is the information you require to answer your research question (including information needed to account for any moderating variables). Three questions can now be asked:
1 Can I get the information I need using data from a questionnaire?
2 Is a questionnaire the best or most appropriate method, or are other methods more appropriate to collect the data?
3 Are other methods excluded, for example interviews, because of time and cost restrictions?
Questionnaires are appropriate in a variety of contexts, where relatively simple, generally quantitative information is required from a large sample
group. This data can then be summarised through the use of tables or charts, or analysed statistically to answer a research question. Research projects such as the FA Carling Premiership surveys (SNCCFR 1996–2000) are a good example of the use of postal questionnaires. The main aim of this research was to discover a wide range of relatively simple information about English soccer fans, for example measuring variables such as age, gender and spending upon football-related merchandise. Given the number of clubs in the Premiership (twenty in total) and combined attendances of many thousands, interviewing a sufficient number of fans was obviously impractical both in terms of time and cost. Simple observation would not have allowed the appropriate data to be collected. Questionnaires were, however, ideal to collect such a large volume of simple data. If more complex information had been required, however, questionnaires would have been unlikely to be able to yield such information, and other methods would have been more appropriate in such a case.
ADVANTAGES OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY
As you will learn over the next few chapters, each of the methods you may adopt as part of a research project has its own advantages and dis- advantages. In most cases you will have to assess these when considering your choice of method. What you will ultimately need to do, however, is to be able to justify your eventual choice. The advantages of using a questionnaire include the following:
■ Accessibility. The postal or online questionnaire allows you to collect data from a geographically dispersed sample group at a much lower cost than interviewing a similar sample. In addition, as you are not needed to be present to ask questions yourself, using questionnaires allows a larger sample to be investigated.
■ Potential reduction in bias. With a well-designed questionnaire there is little opportunity to introduce bias into the results as may be the case with interviews, for example through the way you respond to an answer, or your body language (see Chapter 9), or simply your presence in observational studies. You should be aware, however, that badly designed questionnaires can lead to bias in your data, hence using a questionnaire does not automatically mean a reduction in bias.
■ Anonymity. The presence of the researcher interested in certain sensitive issues, for example player violence, or the use of drugs, or
cheating in sport, may inhibit the respondent. A postal questionnaire allows anonymity, and may, therefore, improve the validity of your responses in certain cases.
■ Structured data. Questionnaires tend to provide highly structured quantitative data that is easily comparable, either between subject groups, or between the same group studied over an extended time period. Such data is generally straightforward to convert into tables and charts, and to analyse statistically.
■ Increased time for respondents. Respondent-completed question- naires allow the respondent to fill in the questionnaire at a convenient time if necessary, or to be able to go back to the questionnaire at a later time if they recall anything further.
DISADVANTAGES OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE
■ Potential problems over complex questions. The questions have to be clear enough for all participants to understand, as there will often be no opportunity for the respondent to seek clarification, especially in a postal or online questionnaire. If complex questions are required, then you may need to be present to explain them. Thus, to a large extent, you are restricted to relatively simple questions.
■ No control over who completes the questionnaire. Unless you specify exactly who is to fill out the questionnaire, it may be completed by an inappropriate party. Even if you do specify that it has to be completed by a particular individual, it may be that the respondent delegates the task to somebody else without your knowledge.
■ No opportunity to probe. Once the respondent has answered the question there is no opportunity to get him or her to expand upon or explain any of the points that may have been made.
■ Potentially low response rates. Response rates from questionnaires are notoriously poor, and can range from as little as 5 per cent or so upwards. Low response rates may have a serious effect on the reli- ability of the study. Potential means of improving your response rates are highlighted later in the chapter.
USING INTERNET BASED QUESTIONNAIRES
The Internet is becoming a valuable tool for data collection, and offers the sport researcher a number of advantages over more traditional paper-based surveys. Wright (2005) has summarised these as follows:
■ Greater access to certain populations – online surveys may allow you to identify and access certain groups more easily, for example you may be able to access fans of a particular sports team through accessing the team’s forum or messageboard. They also allow you to reach samples at a global rather than national level.
■ ‘Cleaner’ data – Lonsdale et al.’s (2006) study of New Zealand athletes determined that the group sent online questionnaires provided fewer missing values when compared to a control group which was assigned paper-based questionnaires.
■ Time efficiency – as well as being quicker to send out, data is also quicker to analyse in that responses can be downloaded to a database rather than having to be manually input.
■ Cost – the costs of postage and printing are removed through use of online surveys.
There are, however potential disadvantages, and you shouldn’t necessarily see the use of online surveys as a simple solution to overcoming issues of paper-based surveys. You need to consider:
■ Sampling bias – online surveys will generally not involve random samples from the population under investigation. For example, not every fan of a sports team will post on a forum, and the sample may be skewed to younger, more committed fans. One option is to combine online and paper-based surveys, and to compare characteristics from each group of respondents.
■ Potentially low response rates – increasing numbers of ‘spam’ emails may make it difficult to get respondents to open, let alone read the covering email. Lonsdale et al. (2006) have, however, indicated that online questionnaires may actually result in a higher response rate, so the evidence is equivocal.
■ The offer of incentives to overcome low response rates may encourage individuals to fill in multiple responses to increase their chances of winning.
■ Access issues – members of an online community may resent researchers getting in contact and respond by ignoring the message,
moderators of the group may delete the message, or the researcher may encounter abusive responses, especially if they are seen as an outsider to that group.
DESIGNING YOUR QUESTIONNAIRE
Once you have decided that it is an appropriate data collection technique, the second stage of questionnaire-based research is that of the initial design of the questionnaire. A good questionnaire is difficult to design, and takes considerably more time than is often anticipated. Whilst a questionnaire that may seem to have some relevance towards the research objectives is relatively easy to put together, designing questions that actually fulfil all of the researcher’s needs is more time consuming. As Oppenheim (1992, p.7) notes:
Too often, surveys are carried out on the basis of insufficient design and planning or on the basis of no design at all. ‘Fact- gathering’ can be an exciting and tempting activity to which a questionnaire opens a quick and seemingly easy avenue; the weaknesses in the design are frequently not recognised until the results have to be interpreted – if then!
Three questions need to be asked at the beginning of the design stage.
These are:
1 What information do I need to answer my research question?
2 What questions can I ask that will provide me with data that will, when analysed, give me such information?
3 How am I going to analyse the data that I get from such questions to give me the answer to my research question?
Thus, before designing the questionnaire, it is important that your information needs have been clearly identified. As a rule of thumb, you should try to keep the questionnaire as short as possible, yet ensure that it will provide all of the necessary data. Do not be tempted to include questions that are not required, even if you consider them to be interesting!
You should be able to justify the inclusion of each question, and identify how that question will help answer your research question. You also need to think ahead in terms of how you intend to analyse your data, which will
influence you in the type of data that you decide to collect (for example will you need your responses to provide you with ordinal or ratio data).
In terms of the information that you need, you should be guided by the aim and objectives of the research, the literature review and your conceptual framework, which should be related. If the research objectives are detailed and specific enough, then these should provide the starting point.
WHAT TYPES OF QUESTION CAN I ASK?
There are a number of different question formats that you can adopt when designing your questionnaire. The most common formats are described below.
Simple open and closed questions
Closed/pre-coded questions
The respondent is asked to choose one or more responses from a series of choices pre-determined by the researcher, for example:
Q.1 How many competitive matches have you played so far this season?
(please tick one box)
Less than 10 ■■
Between 10 and 20 ■■
21 or more ■■
If the question involves relatively simple information, and you know all of the available responses beforehand, such as a question on the sex of the respondent, then use a closed question. This will provide you with the information in its simplest format, which will be easy to analyse, and provide easily structured data. Such questions are also easier for respon- dents, and take less time than other question formats to complete.
Open questions
Sometimes it is not possible to anticipate all of the answers you are going to receive, or you may anticipate a wide variety of different answers. Here
you will need the respondent to write their answer with no prompting. For example:
Q.2 What, in your opinion, are the attributes of a good sports coach? . . . . . . . . . . . . You can use open questions within a questionnaire to obtain limited amounts of qualitative data, although you need to be careful, as parti- cipants are unlikely to be willing to write down lengthy answers to your questions! Open questions can be harder to analyse, as a wider range of answers can be given by the respondent. The answers to any open questions will need to be coded for qualitative analysis, or converted into numbers if you are going to quantitatively analyse your data (see Chapters 12 and 13 for an overview of data analysis).
THE USE OF OPEN AND CLOSED QUESTIONS
Often, you will have the choice between using open and closed questions. Rather than make an arbitrary choice, you should think about the purpose of your questionnaire. The following guidelines may be of use. Use closed questions if:
■ You require quantitative data.
■ You have a clear idea of all of the likely responses.
■ Responses are likely to be simple.
■ It is important for respondents to answer using a pre-determined set of responses.
Use open questions if:
■ You require qualitative data.
■ You are unsure of the likely responses.
■ Responses are likely to be complex.
■ The respondent’s own words are important.
An alternative approach is combine open and closed questions, so that a number of responses are provided but the respondent has the opportunity to respond in an alternative manner if none of the responses are appropriate, or to elaborate on a particular response. For example:
Q.3 Who was the most important influence on you in your decision to take up your chosen sport? (please tick one box)
Father ■■
Mother ■■
Brother ■■
Sister ■■
Teacher ■■
Other (please state) . . .
Scales
Occasionally you may need to measure a concept using a scale. A scale is a series of questions designed to gain a single measure of a concept, such as an attitude towards or opinion on something. Thus, several questions will contribute to an overall score. A number of different scaling techniques exist.
Likert scales
These are generally used to assess attitudes. A Likert scale allows the respondent to indicate the extent to which they agree with a certain statement. At its simplest level, such a scale may provide a statement and the respondent may be asked whether they agree or disagree. For example:
Q.4 Do you agree that sponsorship of major sporting events is an effective marketing strategy for major corporations?
Agree ■■
Disagree ■■
Often, however, a respondent will be unhappy about being forced into such an extreme choice. Likert scales can be used to measure the extent to which participants agree or disagree with a particular statement, and are useful for questions where there may be no clear responses, such as ‘yes’
or ‘no’. Responses can be scored, for example, if there is a five point scale
(respondents have the option of ticking one of five possible responses) then a response that ticks the first box scores one, a response that ticks the next box scores two, and so on, thus providing ordinal data.
Semantic differential
This format measures the respondent’s reaction to a specified concept using a scale with contrasting adjectives at each end. For example:
Q.5 Just before I start a football game I feel:
Relaxed ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ Anxious
The responses are scored in the same way as for a Likert scale. Semantic differential scales are also useful to assess respondents’ attitudes towards a particular phenomenon without forcing them into an extreme choice.
You should ensure that the two adjectives are related, however. For example, you couldn’t use ‘anxious’ and ‘confident’, as respondents may score highly on both.
USING LIKERT SCALES TO IDENTIFY CORRELATES OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
Heitzler et al. (2006) explored the factors that influenced children aged nine to thirteen years in terms of their participation in physical activity. Based on previous literature, a number of questions (or items) were developed regarding physical activity, such as ‘it would make me feel good about myself’. Rather than simply adopt a yes/no measure, which would have been too simplistic, and forced respon- dents into an extreme choice, the authors used a four point Likert scale for each, whereby respondents were asked to rate each item on a scale of one to four, where one equated to ‘Strongly/Really agree’
and four equated to ‘Strongly/Really disagree’, thus allowing respon- dents a greater degree of flexibility in their responses, as well as a much more useful data set in terms of subsequent data analysis.
CASE STUDY
Other question formats
Ranking
Ranking questions ask the respondent to place responses in order of importance. These are appropriate when you want respondents to consider the relative merits of particular items.
Q.6 Please rank the following sports in order of preference 1 to 3, with 1 signifying the sport you like most, and 3 signifying the sport you like least:
Field hockey ■■
Basketball ■■
Tennis ■■
Ensure that you don’t have too many choices to rank with this type of question. Asking respondents to rank ten items in order is an extremely difficult task.
List questions
These questions allow the respondent to indicate several responses to one question. For example:
Q.7 Which of the following companies have sponsored sports events to your knowledge in the last twelve months? (please tick as appropriate)
General Motors ■■
Ford ■■
Gillette ■■
Coca-Cola ■■
Filter questions
It is important that you don’t alienate potential respondents by asking them to read through and respond to large numbers of irrelevant questions.
Filter questions can be used where appropriate to prevent this. Often some of your questions will be inapplicable to certain respondents. Rather than forcing respondents to read each question and decide whether or not it is relevant, questions which are not applicable can be filtered out using the following format: