Unit 7.5

Murder Most Horrid (Exploring databases)

Tutorial 2:Collecting the evidence

Introduction

The police have been collecting lots of information from witnesses. This information is getting in a mess and some has been lost.

Detective Turner needs you to design a questionnaire that each police officer can take with them and fill out when questioning a witness or suspect

By the end of this tutorial you will be able to:

• Write and phrase questions in order to get useful and relevant information
• Compile a questionnaire

In this tutorial, you are working on the following APP Assessment Focuses:

AF2

Level 4 – Organise and process data for a purpose

Level 5 – Use logical and appropriate structures to organise and process data

AF3

Level 4 – Use appropriate search criteria to find relevant information, and check its plausibility and usefulness

Level 5 – Take account of accuracy and potential bias when searching for and selecting information

Get started

Think back to your homework from Tutorial 1. As a class, discuss what information you need to solve a crime. For example, you need to think about people's whereabouts, their alibis and physical descriptions. Collect ideas on the board.

What questions do we need to ask?

The report from the crime scene investigators is now complete. You will need to read this so that you know what type of questions you need to write. The details of the investigation have been sent to you via email.

Open Resource 2c to read the email. Highlight any information that you think is important. Save your work to the folder you created for this unit in Tutorial 1.

Write your questions

Detective Turner needs to find out who the murderer is and bring them to justice. He can only do this by interviewing everyone who was at the school on the day of the murder and then eliminating them.

Write down a list of five questions that Detective Turner will need the answers to if he is to solve the crime. Open Resource 2a and record your questions in Activity 1. Remember to save your work.

 

 

Tips For more clues about asking the right questions, see Unit 7.2, Tutorial 2.

Try it out

In this tutorial you are going to develop a set of questions and present them in a useful way in order to solve the murder at Looneyville School.

Test your questions

It is very important that the questionnaire works, otherwise the murderer might get away. Test your questions on a partner to make sure that your questions gather the information you need.

Get into pairs and ask each other the questions that you have designed. Complete Activity 2 on Resource 2b by recording your partner's responses. Don't forget to save your work!

Rewording questions

In the box on the right you can see a list of the information that Detective Turner needs to find out.

Go back to your list of questions. It is very important that the questions are worded correctly and in a way that allows the correct information to be given.

Look at your questions. Have you asked the right questions? Do you think they will get you all the information you need? Discuss this together as a class, looking at some example questions on the board. Are the questions clear enough to avoid misunderstanding?

Open Resource 2b and watch the slide show, which looks at ways of phrasing questions to get useful information. Look carefully at Slide 2 and discuss how the questions shown could be improved. Consider the examples on the board. Can you rephrase the questions to make them more effective?

Now look at Slides 4 and 5 and discuss open and closed questions as a class. What are the advantages of using tickboxes where questions have only a few response options? Think about the need to be sensitive when you ask questions. For example, would it be sensitive to have 'bald' as one of the hair colour options? What might be a better way of covering this?

Put questions into a questionnaire

Detective Turner would now like the questions put into a questionnaire.

Remember that different types of questions can have different responses. The question 'What is your surname?' could have millions of answers, whereas 'What colour hair do you have?' will get a response that can be chosen from a list, as most people have one of four hair colours.

Rewrite your own questions in a questionnaire format and add any further questions if necessary. You can do this as a spreadsheet or a word-processing document. Look at Slides 6 and 7 on Resource 2c to find out how. Decide which method you are going to use.

Tips It is very good practice to use tickboxes and limit people to a few answers, because it makes it harder to give wrong information.

 

Carry out a survey using your questionnaire

Detective Turner is very pleased with your finished questionnaire, and would now like you to use the questions for interviewing the suspects.

Watch Skills Demo 2a to find out how to add your name as a header on your questionnaire.

Now it's your turn. Type your name as a header on your completed questionnaire. Then print out three copies of your questionnaire and interview three of your classmates.

Round it up

Share your questions and the responses you have collected with the rest of the class. Discuss whether your questions gave all the information you needed. Did any responses fall outside the data range? For example, did anyone have two colours in their hair? How would you deal with this in a questionnaire?

To reach the highest level you can, work with a partner and write down two things that worked well and two things that did not work well with the software you chose to create your questionnaire. Then, as a class, discuss the different experiences you have had using word-processing documents and spreadsheets. Suggest how you might go about collecting data from large numbers of people in a range of locations. What software might you choose to do this?

Homework

Make notes on your questionnaire to explain why you chose to include each question and why you selected a particular method of response.