Panasenko O.I. ¹, Prachkevich L.M. ², Buryak V.P. ¹, Kremzer O.A. ¹, Melnik I.V. ¹, Samura T.O. ¹, Gotsulya A.S. ¹, Postol N.A. ¹, Kulish S.M. ¹

¹Zaporizhzhya State Medical University , ²Zaporizhzhya National University

The problems theory and methodology of educational research

The issue of unresponsiveness in pedagogic research tackles two situation: [1]. When a respondent refuses to participate in the research and [2] when a respondent does not answer a single or some questions. There is also another group consisting of respondents who could not participate in the research due to some reasons their control. All of the above cases can distort the outcome of a research project. There are several reasons that may cause this problem. Their scope ranges from the choice of research methods to the layout of the questionnaire. It is difficult to identify the exact reason of people`s unresponsiveness because it may depend an the interplay of several causes. Therefore it is necessary to adjust the characteristics of a research project in such a way that the research will meet the expectations of the research sample. In order to so the scholar must analyse a number of research projects with a similar topic paying special regard to the issue of (un)responsiveness. Unfortunately, not all research reports are informative in this aspect. The next step would be to analyses the research sample from the socio-demographical perspective, in order to discover what the defining characteristics of the people are. Only then can the scholar decide upon the method, place and date of the research as well as delay additional motivational techniques that will boost people`s responsiveness (some suggestions an this topic will be provided later in this paper). Let us mention two methods of conducting a survey [3]. The are known as CAT I and CAP I. The former acronym stands for computer-assisted telephone interviewing while the latter denotes computer-assisted personal interviewing. It us worth noting what in the case of a homogenous research population, unresponsiveness is not very problematic. Additional techniques that are aimed at encouraging respondents to answer the questions can work will only with a part of the research sample. Moreover, these techniques can have a bad impact upon the reliability and quality of the outcome. For instance, using someone`s full mane at the beginning of a survey tackles the person`s need of social acceptance. Furthermore, numerous research projects have shown that various responsiveness-boosting techniques bring varied results, depending on the method of data-collection. For instance, personalized questionnaires and the high status of the research conductor work well in the case of questionnaires that are sent via snail-mail but they do not work that well in the case of online surveys. Because it is difficult to evaluate whether a research population is homogenous or not, it is necessary to carry-out a pilot research project that will allow the scholar to eliminate possible errors in the questionnaire.

The lack of answer to single questions can result from a number of reasons. Each research question has two functions, one apparent and one hidden. One is that a question should elicit relevant information from a respondent; the other is that each question must motivate a respondent to give an answer. Each impolite incomprehensible or irrational question may be left without an answer and might exercise and impact on the attitude of respondent towards the whole questionnaire. It is good to bear in mind respondents do us a favor by devoting their time and effort to answer out questions.

Because if that, the questions must be simple and specific. There are several mistakes that students make while constructing a questionnaire. They often use unexplained acronyms or jargon and make the questions too long. It is advised that a question be not longer than twenty words. This is because long questions usually are difficult to understand and because a respondent may become discouraged when they encounter a very question. There is also the issue of sensitive question. If they are put at the beginning of the questionnaire, they may be unanswered and a respondent may become too discouraged to answer the remaining questions.
The newest analyses show that the rate of responsiveness has decreased considerable in recent years, due to people`s refusal to participate in a study. Recent investigations indicate that people are gradually becoming tired and bored with this kind of activity. In this case, same researchers have developed a situation when people are bound to complete questionnaires. This can be done inter alia by distributing questionnaires during a lecture at a university with the help of the lecturer. Another situation is when a student must complete a questionnaire in order to receive a signature on their sign-off or grade sheet. This solution, however, raises a number of ethical and practical issues. It is unethical to force respondents to complete questionnaires. Such a situation also can have a negative impact on the quality of a research project. In this situation, the answers can be fake or incomplete due to people`s discomfort. For instance, the level of people`s satisfaction with their university education can be intentionally lowered. By no means will such answers be reliable in the case of questions that tackle the respondents satisfaction from the education they receive. In order to avoid this problem, the student can include information that the respondents are free to accept or refuse their participation. This technique conforms to people`s need of autonomy and can increase the responsiveness rate by 15%. In order to decrease the number of people who will refuse to participate in the survey, the research-conductor can include information about the purpose of the research, about the institution that conducts the research and about the expected time necessary to complete the questionnaire. At the end of the questionnaire, a piece of text informing the participant that the research is anonymous should be included. The person who conducts the survey must be ready to answer a question such as “why did you chose me for the survey?” Answer to suck questions must be specific, true and complete. Another crucial factor embraces the skills and the appearance of the pollster, this include their manner of dress, pronunciation, good manners, common touch and their ability to explain the rules of the research in a clear and easy-to-understand way. The personality of a pollster is very important because they must be very patient in many situations, e.g. home and repeated visit or a phone call is necessary. The graphical layout and length of a questionnaire also contribute to the rate of responsiveness. Individual pages should be permanently joined so it will be impossible to change the order of pager. If a pollster gives a respondent a set of loose pages, it is very plausible that the respondent will mistake the order of questions or that they will skip some questions. An extensive questionnaire overloaded with table and lengthy questions, may be discouraging for the person who us going the fill it in. To avoid this problem, it is good to consult the layout of the questionnaire with a variety of people, preferably coming from the target sample. In case of an Internet survey, the student must take into consideration such criteria as the compatibility of the online questionnaire with various web browsers, page load time, plug-ins that need to be installed (if any), etc. An analysis into the responsiveness in indirect research showed that sending a survey for the not completed the questionnaire the first time) can increase the probability that the respondent will eventually complete the questionnaire. The psychological mechanisms of responsiveness, as well as the strategies and techniques used to convince people to complete questionnaires are based on empirical evidence. They are supported by outcome of several psychological research projects. These projects make it lazier to understand why whose strategies wick. Knowledge about pro-social behaviors and the psychology of helping can shed some light an the reasons why people choose to undertake pro-social action, e.g. to complete a questionnaire.

References

1. Gueguen N., Pascual A. “Improving the response rate to a street survey”. An evaluation of the “but you are free to accept or refuse” technique. The psychological record, 2005. – Vol. 55. – P. 297 – 303.

2. Heerwegh D., Vanhove T., Matthijs K., Loosveldt G. The effect of personalization on response rates and data quality in web Surveys. Int. J. Social research methodology, 2005. – Vol. 8.8. – P. 85 – 99.

3. Lin M. W., Mokdad A. Leaving answering machine message: Do they increase response rate for RDD survey? International Journal of public option research, 2005. – Vol. 2. – P. 239 – 250.