The postal questionnaire

Most social surveys use a postal questionnaire. These can be closed, meaning that respondents are normally given a fixed number of responses to tick. Some questionnaires use open-ended questions, especially attitude surveys. The postal questionnaire has particular advantages. It is cheap – especially if the sample is large or geographically scattered. It can use larger samples than any other method.

It is reasonably quick in that the bulk of returned questionnaires are usually back within a month.

Questionnaires that use closed questions are customer-friendly and easily quantified.

However, the postal questionnaire suffers from a number of potential problems. A low response rate may call into question the representativeness of the sample.

Researchers can never be sure the right person filled it in. It is inflexible because there is usually no opportunity to probe or observe the social context in which questions are answered. They can only be considered when questions are simple and straightforward. Question design is not easy, e.g. leading and ambiguous questions must be avoided because they undermine objectivity and introduce bias.

Interpretivists don’t like them because both the questions and fixed responses reflect what the sociologist thinks is important. Closed questions don’t allow people to speak for themselves, and don’t allow for the fact that, although people may share similar views, their reasons for doing so may be different.