Revisiting of questionnaires and structured interviews

Quantitative research is a formal, objective, and systematic approach in which data is generated in numerical form. This chapter focuses on the data collection methods regarding the quantitative research study. Although there are many specific and unique data collection methods for different kinds of quantitative research, only survey research, in which data is usually collected through questionnaires, and structured interviews are chosen to be the focus. Questionnaires can be administered via three ways; they are mail, internet, and directly administered. Structured interviews are usually administered by the use of telephone or face-to-face interviews. Both pros and cons of each data collection are discussed. It is concluded that the application of both questionnaires and structured interviews in Hong Kong clinical research setting are applicable. It is especially common for the novice researchers due to the ease of use of existing developed questionnaires with high reliability and validity. These methods should be continued to be adopted for the increasing demand of research conduction in Hong Kong.