hi guys,

i want to create a questionnaire online and target some people in practice in my field. I don't want to have to go there personally and hand out the questionnaire because of time constraints. I already have the questionnaire and i'd like people to just fill it in. about 100 people would be great. the questions are 10 or so.

is there any site you can recommend as I have no IT knowledge whatsoever?

Hi!

I've done this for my MSc and PhD and it works really nicely if you have access to an online population.

For MSc a lovely guy in my department organised it all for me. For PhD I've used FormBuilder which is how the webpages at my university are run. I will be using QMPerception later on in the year. The lovely lovely people in IT Services at my Uni taught me how to do it and it's so nice and easy. And you can get all your data sent directly to excel (which you can then manipulate into other programmes, SPSS etc).

Have fun!

Surveymonkey is ace and free

To benefit from exporting data and routing questioning you may have to upgrade to the professional model at 20 pounds or something - but after using it for many years - I find it invaluble and incredibly simple

jojo, i've used www.befrager.de in the past. it's free and quite easy to use. however, whereas you can make the questionnaire be fully in english, the interface which you use to create it and the handbook are in german. i know english is not your first language so maybe that is not a problem for you.

i've heard good things about www.unipark.de but i suspect it's the same problem about the language.

somebody on this forum has asked a similar question in the past and somebody has suggested a common, english-language web-questionnaire-tool - but i can't recall it. might be worth doing a search on the forum.

i do have access to an online population, thanks to facebook... i just hope they take it seriously. the next step is to check out all the programs you're recommeding. keep them coming. thanks!

i actually learnt German at some point. not sure though it will be enough German to get through the questionnaire. will give it a go.

I'm also doing an online survey, and it does work well for me, as I can target the right people. However have you read the recent articles that are appearing concerning the ethics issue? Particularly Madge, E. and O'Connor H. (2002) On-line with e-mums: exploring the Internet as a medium for research in Arena 34,1 pp92-102, Hewson, C. Conducting research on the internet in The Psychologist, vol 16 no. 6 and Brownlow, C. and O'Dell, L. (2002) Ethical Issues in for Qualitative Research in On-line Communities in Disability & Society Vol 17, No 6, 685-694? Sorry can do the proper ref, machine won't let me do anything but this text. My participants are keen to get involved, and I am a member of the group and have been for a number of years, so the situation might not be quite the same as yours, but I quoted from these papers when doing my ethics bit.

thanks. am planning to dodge the ethics issue. as long as these are people's views, what's the big deal. someone educate me coz am not about to add an article to the pile on my desk. Jayney, thanks.. maybe after my PhD :-$ the thought of reading extra words..

oops.. meant joyce

I would read the articles if I were you, just so you can say you have read up on the ethics, you might find it difficult to get past your ethics board otherwise. The use of the internet is growing and there are issues now being considered such as what they call 'lurking' and the fact that you should inform anyone that they will be part of your research just as if they were filling in a paper questionnaire. The group that I am using have individual e-mails that I can use to contact them directly if I want to quote either from the questionnaire or from comments made to the site(this is because the sites are closed to the general public), but with other more general sites you may have problems in preserving anonymity.

You will also need an appropriate 'letter' to go with your questionnaire, and may need some kind of tickbox to show they agree to your work. some researchers also suggest that the participants should download the questionnaire and post it, but that defeats the object really. Not running stuff by the ethics board is risky.

Some of my data comes from an online questionnaire. My ethics approval will appear in my thesis - it's a requirement. I would look into that carefully. Most questionnaires need some kind of consent form whether on paper or online.

My PhD is in genetics too, how funny is that! I'm turning off my computer now. Don't stay up too late.
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Soo sorry jojo, I am such a div. I meant to post that on Lara's thread. It really is too late.