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JVLR Personal Project: Communication

Remember to provide EVIDENCE of your work on any skills you write about - how to do know you have made progress?

How to Conduct a Survey

How to Conduct an Effective Survey
 
Survey vs. Questionnaire

We use "Survey" as a verb, meaning to solicit information from a group of people 

  • For example: "I would like to survey a group of students to find out their opinions.

We use a "Questionnaire" to describe the tool used to get responses from the group of people

  • For example: My questionnaire will include various topics."

7 tips for good survey questions

How to Write Good Questions
Coming up with questions to survey a group may seem like a simple task, but in order to receive meaningful responses one has to be strategic with question structure. Political Science Professor Kenneth Fernandez gives seven tips on how to craft clear and useful survey questions.

Evaluating Communication & Social Skills in your process journal

See the range of Communication Skills, according to level of Challenge

Evaluating your use of communication and social skills throughout the PP process

Interviews

How to Conduct a Good Interview

The following is from the "Conducting an Interview" page on The Open University site. 

"If you are planning to carry out interviews as part of a research project, the first things to consider are who you will interview, what kind of information you want to obtain, and the type of interview that will help you to do that.

Types of Interviews

  • Unstructured interview 
    • The interviewer uses at most an 'aide memoir' - notes to jog the memory - rather than a list of questions. The interview may be like a conversation, with the interviewer responding to the interviewee and letting them speak freely.
  • Semi-structured interview
    • The interviewer has a list of questions or key points to be covered and works through them in a methodical manner. Similar questions are asked of each interviewee, although supplementary questions can be asked as appropriate. The interviewee can respond how they like and does not have to 'tick a box' with their answer.
  • Structured interview
    • The interviewer asks the interviewee a series of specific questions, to which a fixed range of answers are possible ('ticking a box'). This is the typical form of interview used in social survey research, and can provide quantitative data, as in a questionnaire."

Kinds of questions

Kvale (1996)* has identified nine types of question asked in qualitative interviews. Keep these in mind when you are composing your interview guide.

  • Introducing questions: 'Why did you...?' or 'Can you tell me about...?' Through these questions you introduce the topic.
  • Follow up questions: Through these you can elaborate on their initial answer. Questions may include: 'What did you mean...?' or 'Can you give more detail...?'
  • Probing questions: You can employ direct questioning to follow up what has been said and to get more detail. 'Do you have any examples?' or 'Could you say more about...?'
  • Specifying questions: Such as 'What happened when you said that?' or 'What did he say next?'
  • Direct questions: Questions with a yes or no answer are direct questions. You might want to leave these questions until the end so you don't lead the interviewee to answer a certain way.
  • Indirect questions: You can ask these to get the interviewee's true opinion.
  • Structuring questions: These move the interview on to the next subject. For example, 'Moving on to...'
  • Silence: Through pauses you can suggest to the interviewee that you want them to answer the question!
  • Interpreting questions: 'Do you mean that...?' or 'Is it correct that...?'

* Kvale S. (1996) InterViews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Interviews, Sage Publications, California