Questionnaires can also provide participants the options to respond at their convenience and to be anonymous to the researcher. However, questionnaires require respondents to read and write, or to have someone read the questions and write the responses for them. As well, it is usually not possible for the researcher to ask for clarification about written responses to questionnaires once they have been received.
In a research project about computer use, a group of students developed a questionnaire
to ask all students why they were not using computers, what they knew or wanted to know about computers...and how they would like to be taught. We knew that students would be unable to complete the questionnaires on their own, so three members of the group met with students individually, asked them the questions and recorded their answers on record sheets. (Pheasey, 2000, p. 54)
Darlene MacInnis (2002) used questionnaires as a method to help find out whether using the Internet would "assist in the achievement of teacher/ participant objectives when there are program time constraints" (p. 44). Darlene used two questionnaires with 23 participants:
The first questionnaire focused on questions related to computer accessibility, e-mail accounts, computer skills and current e-mail addresses. The second questionnaire dealt with comfort level, actual e-mail skills, research ability using the Internet, hours per week that participants spent on-line, and a request to self- identify if assistance was needed in any of these areas. (p. 45)
As part of a project to identify literacy program coordinators' professional development interests, I sent a questionnaire to 83 coordinators in order to
introduce the research, invite participation in the PDP [research], to invite participation in the research activities and to collect some demographic and related information about coordinators' jobs, job roles and professional development experiences. (Norton, 2004, p. 5)
As another example, Kate Nonesuch (2008a) wanted to survey a large number of literacy practitioners about their knowledge and practice related to violence and learning. She used SurveyMonkey software (http://www.surveymonkey.com) to design a questionnaire: