Task: Design a questionnaire on a criminological or sociological topic of your choice.
This assignment tests your ability to construct a questionnaire and write a report, justifying your decision-making. Due to the timeframe, you are not expected to administer the questionnaire to anyone. However, you do need to show a sufficient ability to think through the practical issues to make it viable for real-life research. These matters should be discussed in a written report (the questionnaire is excluded from the word count and should be included at the end of the report i.e. after the bibliography).
The QUESTIONNAIRE, which should consist of:
- enough questions to adequately cover the chosen topic
- questions relevant to this topic
- appropriately worded questions
- predominantly closed format options with at least two different scales
- some link to the academic literature on the topic (the report should make this clear)
The report, which should consists of the following:
- A title, clearly stating the main research question guiding the project.
- A statement of the hypothesis being tested and a corresponding null hypothesis in the same format as the following example:
H1: Ethnic minority respondents have higher levels of dissatisfaction in the police
H0: Ethnic minority and white respondents have the same levels of dissatisfaction in the police
- An introduction that outlines the topic of interest and why it is interesting/important
- A mini literature review that shows some engagement with the relevant academic literature.
- A methodology section explaining:
- the benefits and limitations of using questionnaires for as research
- a discussion of the sample and how the survey will be administered to them
- how each questionnaire item relates to the hypothesis being tested
- how quality control is being managed (reliabilitye. the same person would give you the same answer again and again; and validity i.e. accuracy in how concepts are being measured.
- A conclusion summarising the report.
