... to respondents, which has the ability to cover a large geographical area but tends to suffer from a large non-response. Another style is when the questionnaire is given to the respondent and the interviewer waits until the respondent is done. This style is good because the interviewer will be there to answer any queries, but this approach is not always possible. The final style is when the questionnaire is given to the respondent and returned at a later date; again non response is a major problem here. Before designing the questionnaire the sociologist needs to define words clearly, as different people may interpret the same words differently. For example, if I was doing a study of the behavioural patterns of abused children in later life, I could classify 'child abuse' as 'physical or verbal abuse coming directly from a parent to the child'. This is called operationalising the term child abuse. ...

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