The Mechanism Behind a Questionnaire Design Essays

The Mechanism Behind a Questionnaire Design Essays The Mechanism Behind a Questionnaire Design Essay The Mechanism Behind a Questionnaire Design Essay The mechanism behind questionnaire design The questionnaire has been designed to determine if a satisfactory level of customer service is being achieved within the Devonshire spa hair salon booking and reception areas. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative questioning techniques the questionnaire hopes to gain varied feedback from the clientele as Sherman and Webb (1988) as cited in Blaxter et al (2001, p. 64) state; â€Å"Qualitative implies a direct concern with experience as it is ‘lived’ or ‘felt’ or ‘undergone’. In contrast, ‘quantitative’ research, often taken to be the opposite idea, is indirect and abstracts and treats experiences as similar, adding or multiplying them together, or ‘quantifying’ them. ) Quantitative questions, also known as closed questions, 1, 2, 4-12, and 14 are in the format of tick box or multiple choice questions and are included to gain numerical and precise data required as Walsh (2001, p. 7) suggests â€Å"A quantitative study seeks numerical data† Walsh (2001) goes on to say that when the data has been collected statistical techniques are used to gain patterns. This suggests that it is in the quantitative questions in the questionnaire that this numerical data will be found. Qualitative questions also known as open questions 3-6, 13 and 14 are in the style of a written answer and are included to extract more information from the clientele as Holliday (2007) remarks that qualitative questions do not conjure the same type of precision required by quantitative research as it is intent on expanding rather than controlling the answer given. The importance of piloting a questionnaire is great as according to Davies (2007) piloting is crucial because you yourself may not notice something that has more than one possible meaning. During the pilot stage of the questionnaire legible errors were pointed out, also the lack of qualitative questions was highlighted. Using this new information the questionnaire was amended accordingly as agreeing with Davies (2007), Hucker (2001, P. 105) suggests â€Å"When you have been working closely on something it is often difficult to see the errors, mistakes or the confusion you have created. Quantitative data taken from the questionnaire will be presented in a bar chart format taken from the findings produced in the tally chart made as Denscombe (2007) implies that bar charts are an effective way of presenting reoccurring data, and they are often used in small scale research, however, Yang (2007) disagrees and suggests that it is an unnecessary action to compile a bar chart out of few pie ces of information. Qualitative data taken from the questionnaire will be presented as a written discussion as Walsh (2001, p. 0) says â€Å"Qualitative data isn’t so straightforward, and requires a more word based style of presentation† This suggests that more quotations may be used also looking at similarities and differences may be beneficial as to gain a form of qualitative data from qualitative questions as Walsh (2001) goes on to say that when identifying patterns, you need to describe them and converting qualitative data into quantitative data may produce further details to discuss.