Asking questions

A vignette is like a piece of a story, where a family situation might be depicted at a decision point. These are often referred to as ‘scenarios’, which are fictitious, but attempt to portray real decisions in the life of real people. Most ‘soap operas’ are based around this technique, where we wonder from week to week what the characters will decide, and where real fans are at least tempted to offer their advice. In an interview setting, the respondent is shown one of these scenarios and asked for their opinion of the best course of action to be recommended from a fixed list of possibilities. In this way, the vignette question can be seen as another example of a closed question. Answers (a), (b) and possibly (d) in a surrealistic way, may be seen as potential elements of a scenario, but the vignette question is representative of technique rather than content.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 259,260

You must not test out your questions on people who will be in the final sample because they will give biased answers later. Finding out what an expert in the field would think of your questions tends to help with face validity and is clearly a good idea, so if your research concerns air travel, perhaps answer (c) might indicate a useful course of action. A pilot study for a questionnaire, though, will help with bringing to light those questions that are defective for a variety of reasons and with their sequencing and even with the instructions to respondents and interviewers. Most experienced researchers believe it to be an essential step in the research process.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 260,261

An open question is one which a respondent can answer any way they wish, while a closed question forces the respondent to choose from fixed alternatives. Both types of question are useful in research and will be used according to the type of data sought. Most demographic questions are closed, as are Likert-scale questions, for example. All of the answers suggested in this question represent the advantages of open questions, although quantitative researchers generally prefer closed questions for survey questionnaires.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 244

Answers (b), (c) and (d) indicate undesirable features of questions in general but answer (a) relates to the problem with asking leading questions. These are questions, which, unwittingly perhaps, steer a respondent in a particular direction. It doesn’t matter which response a respondent gives to the question, if it can be labelled as leading, all results from it are suspect. Have a look at your answer to question nine, below. If you got the right answer, you have realised the value of piloting your questionnaire, since leading questions might be uncovered at that stage. Perhaps the leading nature of the question will come as a surprise to you, which will tend to perfect your entire design.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 254

Coding is an essential step in research, so that data can be grouped into categories and the results compared, for example. Coding can be done in advance for closed questions, often referred to as ‘pre-coding’. ‘Post-coding’, in contrast, is coding done after the data has been gathered. The frequency with which a particular answer is given is a straightforward computation exercise and, in any event, can be catered for with pre-coding. However, the answers given to open questions can be quite varied and individualistic, so the first task is to categorise them, according to research themes and then assign a number to each category so that quantitative analysis can be performed. This number is the code. When more than one researcher is involved, it is a good practice to produce a coding frame from which each researcher works.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 245

Studying questions that have been asked in previous research helps to understand the manner of phrasing questions for best effect. If you find these questions in a research report, you may well find a discussion on the reliability and validity testing that was carried out. Sometimes, you may be able to ask the same questions to attempt a replication study, although it is usually a good idea to contact the original researchers first.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 262

Closed questions are, indeed, quicker and easier for respondents to complete, making this a real advantage for this type of question over open-ended questions. If the questions have been pre-coded, the responses are easier to process and analyse, making this another advantage. Furthermore, since interviewers may record what they think the respondent means by a particular answer, closed questions tend to reduce the possibility of variability of what is actually recorded. The clear disadvantage of closed questions lies in their very nature – they do not permit spontaneity.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 247-250

A factual question is designed to gather factual data, rather than data about opinions or beliefs. There are three types: (a) concerning the respondent personally; (b) concerning people known to the respondent; (c) concerning entities known to the respondent. Answer (a) to this question actually relates to the first type “personal factual questions”; answer (c) is close to type two, “factual questions about others”; answer (d) does not relate to factual questions at all. We call the third type “informant factual questions” to indicate the “informant” or “informer” role we ask the respondent to play, wherein we ask questions concerning their factual knowledge of, for example, their place of work in terms of its size or ownership and so on. It is true that the respondent may not know the “facts” for certain, so we are then really gathering impressions of facts, rather than the facts themselves.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 250

The problem here is that we may tend to see concepts as virtual synonyms of each other, like “pay” and “conditions of “work”. It is not so much that we might think they are the same but that they might lead together to “job satisfaction”, say. Consequently, we may pose a question like Bryman’s on page 253: “How satisfied are you with pay and conditions in your job?” The author points out that the respondent may well be satisfied with one but not the other and so is unsure of how to reply. Questions should not be overlong, it is true, nor should they be too abstract, but the problems with ‘double-barrelled’ questions are not these, but with the creation of ambiguity and uncertainty on the part of the respondent.
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 253

Closed questions are usually at the heart of survey questionnaires, so it might even be a ‘rule of thumb’ to make sure that you have included them in your own questionnaire. There is a choice between vignette-based and open questions from time to time, although both can be used together in a structured interview. The correct answer here is to keep your basic research questions in mind when composing individual questions, of whatever type. Each question should rest on a separate hypothesis that responses to it will tend to produce data for the basic research concepts. If they don’t, they lead nowhere as far as findings are concerned and you have wasted the respondent’s time as well as your own!
Reference: Bryman: Social Research Methods: 5th Edition Page(s) 252