Questionnaire: Weakness
1) Self-administered mail survey
Response rates from mail-in surveys tend to be quite low
Creates a bias as the population is misrepresented
A long delay in participants completing and submitting the questionnaires
Researchers are required to monitor responses and send reminders for completion
Unanswered questions
No clarification can be given if questions arise
2) Group administered
No weaknesses were found with this form of survey questionnaires
3) Survey-online/web survey
Responses can be easily compromised
No clarification can be given if questions arise
Unanswered questions
Sampling bias
incompatible software systems
General
Poorly framed ambiguous questions can lead to meaningless answers
Not suited for issues that require clarification or long written responses
Inflexibility
Dishonest answers
Often tainted with systematic biases that may invalidate some of the conclusions found from the surveys.
Five biases: the non-response bias, sampling bias, social desirability bias, recall bias, and common method bias.
Application to Case study
In relation to the case study of integrating health care aides on pediatric off service mental health units to decrease incidents of escalation in behaviour.
Online/email surveys- can go uncompleted if sent to junk or participant overlooks email.
Participants who are invested in the change are likely to complete the questionnaire, and participants uninterested in change may not complete the questionnaire.