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The professional voice: Comparing questionnaire and telephone methods in a national survey of teachers' perceptions
Author(s) -
Sturman Linda,
Taggart Geoff
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
british educational research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1469-3518
pISSN - 0141-1926
DOI - 10.1080/01411920701492159
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , psychology , perception , telephone survey , medical education , selection (genetic algorithm) , telephone interview , applied psychology , pedagogy , sociology , medicine , computer science , social science , advertising , geography , neuroscience , artificial intelligence , business , archaeology
This article compares the results obtained from using two different methodological approaches to elicit teachers' views on their professional role, the key challenges and their aspirations for the future. One approach used a postal/online questionnaire, while the other used telephone interviews, posing a selection of the same questions. The research was carried out on two statistically comparable samples of teachers in England in spring 2004. Significant differences in responses were observed which seem to be attributable to the methods employed. In particular, more ‘definite’ responses were obtained in the interviews than in response to the questionnaire. This article reviews the comparative outcomes in the context of existing research and explores why the separate methods may have produced significantly different responses to the same questions.