Self administered questionnaires

A questionnaire survey is a useful way to collect data from a population that is too large in

order to study each individual.72 Self-administrated questionnaires can be completed

anonymously and since respondents complete the questionnaire by themselves, the answers are not affected by interviewer variation. One of the advantages of questionnaire administration is that it is a good method for obtaining and measuring attitudes and opinions of a study population. Another advantage is that questionnaires can be used for descriptive, explanatory and exploratory purposes. Self administrated questionnaires are

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Disadvantages are that this type of questionnaire can only be used on respondents who are literate and the researcher also has little control over data quality. The researcher must thus

ensure that the questions are clear and the questionnaire must be well laid out.73

1.7.1.1 The use of self administered questionnaires with learners

A summary of several research studies making use of self-administered questionnaires indicate the main reason(s) why this specific method was deemed suitable for use in primary school learners (Table 1.1).

15 Researcher and Country Number of children and age groups Type of questionnaire and purpose Suitability of the method Peltzer & Pengpid, 201065 (Seven African countries*) 17,656 school learners: between ages 13 to 15 years Self-administered questionnaire addressed the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among children and adults worldwide.

The tool helped to determine health behaviour by assessing learners’ fruit and vegetable consumption. Akman et al., 201039 (Turkey) 625 school learners: between ages 11 to 15 years Self-administered questionnaire called Questionnaire of eating

patterns.

The data obtained from the questionnaire was useful to describe learners’ health behaviours such as eating patterns. Lai-Yeung, 201069 (Hong Kong) 836 school learners: between ages 11 to 18 years Self-administered questionnaire that assessed food knowledge, eating attitudes and behaviour, perceptions of cooking skills and body weight, and related factors that influence food choice.

The questionnaire successfully determined learners in Hong Kong’s food knowledge, their eating attitudes and

behaviour, perceptions of cooking skills and body weight and factors that influence food choices. Wilson et al.,200870 (Australia) 134 school learners: between ages 10 to 12 years Self-administered questionnaire provided information on dietary patterns, behaviours, attitudes and knowledge associated with healthy eating.

The questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool to assess dietary patterns of Australian school learners aged 10 to 12 years. Stevens et al.,199971 (USA) 516 school learners: between ages 8 to 11 years Self-administered questions that assessed physical activity, diet, weight-related attitudes and cultural identity.

Young learners answered negatively worded questions incorrectly. This is a culturally appropriate tool to assess knowledge, attitudes and behaviours in American Indian children.

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The information summarised in Table 1.1 shows that self-administered questionnaires are widely used across the world to assess learners’ perceptions, attitudes and behaviour. These studies involved large numbers of learners and targeted children from the age of 8 and above.

As Stevens indicated that young children answered negatively worded questions incorrectly, alternative types of questionnaires, such as the smiley face response scale, might be of

value when conducting research with younger children.71

1.7.1.2 Likert - and smiley face response scales

The Likert scale, named after Rensis Likert who developed this method, is a response format which is widely used in questionnaires.21,25,74-76 In a 5-point Likert scale, the range of responses to a question can, for example, include strongly agree, agree, do not know,

disagree and strongly disagree.21,68,77,78 Raaijmakers et al. (2000) is of the opinion that the

use of Likert scales with midpoint response categories, such as “I do not know” can have value since such a response could indicate that the learner would like to give a response but

is not able to express a definite opinion.79 The Smiley face scale is an adaption of the Likert

scale, which uses a set of facial expressions ranging from very happy to very sad faces instead of text (Figure 1.3).77,80

Figure 1.3: Smiley face scale80

The Likert- and Smiley face scales have been successfully implemented in research measuring learners’ perceptions, attitudes and behaviour (Table 1.2).

17 Researcher and Country Number of children and age groups Type of questionnaire and scale used

Suitability of the method Choi et al., 200821 (Seoul) 439 school learners: between ages 11 to 14 years.

5-point Likert scale: Questionnaire investigated learners’ nutrition and diet related attitude.

The 5-point Likert scale can be used in learners

between the ages of 11 to 14 years to determine their nutrition and diet related attitude. Pirouznia, 200126 (USA) 532 school learners: between ages 11 to 13 years.

3-point Likert scale was used for 11 year old learners; 5- point Likert scale was used for 12 to 13 year old learners: Questionnaire measured the relationship between eating behaviour and nutrition knowledge.

The instrument is a reliable and valid tool to measure the relationship between eating behaviour and nutrition knowledge of learners. Eser et al., 2008 74 (Turkey) 1,918 school learners: between ages 8 to 12 years.

5-point Likert scale: Questionnaire assessed learners’ perception of health status.

The questionnaire is a reliable and valid assessment of learners’ perception of health- related quality of life. Pell and Manganye,

2007 75 (South Africa) 137 school learners: between ages 10 to 11 years.

Combination of 5- and 3 point Likert scales of smiley faces: Questionnaire measured learners’ attitude towards science.

The questionnaire used is a reliable ‘science

enthusiasm’ scale.

Table 2.2 gives an indication of the suitability of the use of Likert scales in children aged 8 to 14 years old. Five point Likert scales might not be suitable for children of all age groups since a less complex 3-point Likert scale was used by Pirouznia (2001) for learners younger

than 12 years old.26 Similarly a study by Detmar et al. (2006) also found that younger

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Reynolds-Keefer et al. (2009) studied the use of three types of Likert scales, namely text, smiley faces and faces depicted as suns and clouds in 6 to 8 year old learners in the USA. The findings of this study showed that Likert scales using different pictures did not show

variability in children’s responses.81 A study by Davies and Brember (1994) investigated

British school learners’ attitude towards school by using the smiley face scale. The test- retest reliability coefficients were 0.71 and 0.87 for the different age groups. The results confirmed that the smiley face scale is a valid and reliable instrument for testing the

perceptions, attitudes and behaviour of learners aged 6 and 10 years old.77 As shown in

Table 1.2, Pell and Manganye (2007) also used the smiley face scale for learners aged 10 to 11 years.75