Questionnaires

Further Ideas

As well as designing and trying out questionnaires, there are many other ways students can collect and analyse data and test hypotheses. For example, they could use the results of a large-scale survey as a basis for a local enquiry of their own. Some sources are given below:

• http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ — The Office for National Statistics offers a huge range of information organised by theme. The site map provides a useful starting point. The ‘UK in Figures’ section deals with a range of topics which students should find interesting and accessible. For example, they can study the most popular names for different years in the last century. Printed copies of reports are available, and there are links to worldwide sources of information, including foreign government departments.
• http://www.mimas.ac.uk/surveys/ — Manchester Information and Associated Services also holds data sets sponsored by the Office for National Statistics.
• http://www.esrc.ac.uk/home.html — The Economic and Social Research Council is a major funding body for UK research and carries articles and information on currently funded projects.
• http://www.bmra.org.uk — The website of the British Market Research Association has an extensive list of market-research companies, with direct links to them. Some of the larger companies may give free case studies to demonstrate the kinds of research that they carry out.
• http://geography.state.gov/htmls/worldlinks.html — The US Department of State Geography Learning Site offers population and other statistics about countries around the world. There is a world population clock from the US Census Bureau; and information and data are provided for topics like environment, famine and health. The site is aimed at schoolchildren. There are many interesting links to explore.
• http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ — The National Climatic Data Centre, from which you can access many sources of online data.
• http://www.sbu.ac.uk/training/links/research.html — The South Bank University in London has a huge list of relevant links in their web-based training module, Market Research on the Internet, which is clearly divided into categories.