F) Questionnaires

Questionnaires:

• a document that is filled out in writing (or electronically) by the informant
• if distributed to many potential informants without your being present can provide a large amount of data (of which you cannot control every detail)
• data are replicable
• information collected can be tightly controlled and easy to analyze
• subjects have to be selected carefully (random sample or judgement sample)
• ways of distribution:
  • printed copies can be handed out personally or sent by surface mail
  • electronic documents can be sent out by e-mail
  • you can use web-based questionnaires, which may in addition allow a (semi-)automated evaluation of responses, e.g. LimeSurvey (http://www.limesurvey.org/) and SurveyMonkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/)
• example: the "Bamberg Questionnaire" (Maltese version)

LimeSurvey

The Chair of English Linguistics hosts a copy of the application LimeSurvey and you can obtain free server space for your online questionnaire (contact Fabian Vetter, fabian.vetter@uni-bamberg.de).

Please click here to access our copy of LimeSurvey.

A detailed introduction to creating surveys with Limesurvey can be found here.

Question designs:

• open questions
• closed questions
• semantic differential scales, e.g.
  
  Your impression of voice A on the tape:
  

  friendly	__ __ __ __ __ __ __	unfriendly
  unintelligent	__ __ __ __ __ __ __	intelligent
  inactive	__ __ __ __ __ __ __	active

• Likert scales (attitude scales), e.g.
  
  It is important to preserve endangered languages.
  

  1	2	3	4	5	6	7
  strongly disagree			neither agree nor disagree			strongly agree

• ranking schemes, e.g. arrange items in order of importance:
  Sense Of Humor, Creativity, Good Looks, Intelligence, Honesty

• multiple choice, e.g.
  
  

  I have known her ____ three years now.	a) whilst
  	b) for
  	c) since
  	d) besides