What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a questionnaire and structured interviews to collect data?

Oh... I remember doing this!





From the top of my head:





Adv: A form of primary data, first hand therefore up to date and reliable and accurate, unlike secondary data which could be outdated. Also, you can choose who your quota is, and the size in order to represent the population. If using quantitative or closed questions, the data is easy to analyse and compare with other figures, and if using open ended questions, you can code the answers and put into categories (i.e. the structured interviews)





Disad: Can be costly to produce the questionnares and very time consuming to gather data. There is no guarantee of reliability of data, and answers could be biased due to respondents lying etc. Also, it is questionable as to whether the sample is representitive of the population as the quota method used may not be accurate enough, e.g. are you only choosing respondents who live in your area, when the study is supposed to represent the population of the whole country?








Hope this helps!!!

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a questionnaire and structured interviews to collect data?
Disadvantages - You still need to reproduce copies of the questionnaire sheet.





Advantages - You can have all the answers in just one piece of paper.