Define and distinguish between questionnaire and interveiw-schedule.
1. Questionnaire poses a structured and standardized set of questions, either to one person or to a small population, or most commonly to respondent in a simple survery.
2. Structure here refers to questions appearing in a consistent, predetermined sequence and form. The sequence may be deliberately scrambled, or else arranged according to a logical flow to topics or question formats.
3. Questionnaire are distributed through the mail or by hand, through arrangements such as the ‘drop-off’ where a field - worker leaves the questionnaire for respondents to complete by themselves, with provision either for mailing the complete from back to the research office, or for a return call by the fieldworker to collect the questionnaire.
4. A questionnaire administered in a face-to-face interview, or over the telephone (growing in popularity among researchers) is usually termed ‘schedule’. In deciding upon one of these methods, researcher balances the cost, probable response rate and the nature of the questions to be posed.
5. The set of structured questions in which answers are recorded by the interviewer himself is called interview schedule or simply the schedule.
6. Interview schedule is distinguished from the questionnaire in the sense that in the later (questionnaire) the answers are filled in by the respondents himself or herself. Though the questionnaire is used when the respondents are educated, schedule may be used both for the illiterate and the educated respondents.
7. The questionnaire is particularly useful when the respondents are scattered in a large geographical area but the schedule is used when the respondents are located in a small area so that they can be personally contacted.
8. The wording of the questions in the questionnaire has to be simple, since the interviewer is not present to explain the meaning and import of the question to the respondent. In the schedule, the investigator gets the opportunity to explain whatever the respondent requires to know.
