Strong Practices Which Produce Solid Results. Questionnaires

¶ … strong practices which produce solid results. Questionnaires are often used in research to provide raw data to the researcher in order to support or deny his hypothesis. My approach in developing a high quality questionnaire revolves around the purpose of the research. The purpose should be clear cut and not ambiguous. The purpose of the questionnaire needs to answer the following questions: What do I need to know? Why is this knowledge important? What information will be produced as a result of this questionnaire.

It is also important in developing a questionnaire to determine what specifically is being measured. Narrowing down the appropriate audience is also important when developing a questionnaire for research. The question of who is being targeted and all the demographic information associated with that task must be considered in the development.

It is also imperative that the data is collected in a practical manner when designing a questionnaire. Privacy issues must be taken into account as well. The actual layout of the questionnaire needs to be addressed as well as certain biases are apt to creep in to design which may unintentionally affect the outcome of the research. It is most important to be concise and succinct when designing research questionnaires, as confusing the audience may not be in the best interests of the researcher as well.

B.

Dorio's (2005) article " A Few Kind Words Counted More Than My Therapy" does provide some useful information for the general population even though some of the language is hard to decipher. The article deals with a case study of a patient with an earache and explains how symptoms are often understood in a diagnostic setting.

Scholarly articles are often verbose and confusing. A dictionary is often required to help translate words that may be foreign to the lay person trying to understand the author. The most important facet of developing an argument in a scholarly work is to understand the audience and who the article is directed towards. Sometimes articles are not intended for the general public and to water down the terminology is not a necessary tactic to get one's point across. Dario's article does contain some complex language but does not over challenge the reader in my opinion.

C.

The Russell Sage Foundation is dedicated to the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States. The web site: http://www.russellsage.org / provides all the information necessary in order to receive funding for research. This foundation has several programs including the Future of Work, Immigration, Cultural Contract, Social Inequality and Behavioral Economics.

The application process for the Russell Sage Foundation is laid out in clear and concise terms. The foundation has project awards, visiting scholars program awards, small grants in behavioral economics and small grants in consumer finance, each with their own subheading and process designated on their web page. The application processes for each type of grant is very similar. For example, the small grants program in behavioral economics explains that "appropriate projects will demonstrate explicit use of psychological concepts in the motivation of the design and the preparation of the results."

In addition, each program's application process includes administrative data that directs the potential researcher to the appropriate addresses and forms to fill out. Text proposals are limited to 1000 words and budgets are explicitly laid out. Eligibility requirements are also noted, and in this example applicants must be advanced doctoral students or junior non-tenured faculty members who have been out of grad school for two years or fewer. Finally a checklist is provided to ensure that the applicant has included all of the required documents that include the proposal, budget, applicant's CV, fiscal agent letter, letters of recommendation and official transcripts.

D.

Secondary sources of information are more related to opinion or after the fact information based on primary sources of data. These sources include biographers of researchers, criticism and commentaries, journal articles, histories and many other sources that sometimes can be considered primary resources.