Questionnaires and inventories look alike, They ask students to answer a series of questions by selecting the appropriate response from a range of options. Often the two terms are used interchangeably. From a teaching and learning perspective however they differ in one important regard.

• Questionnaires are descriptive. They are used to find out information about, or the views and opinions of, an individual or a group. For example 'how many people have fiddled or manipulated information in management reports?' or what do people think about 'grease' payments when negotiating overseas deals?
• Inventories are explanatory. In an inventory the respondent's answers are analysed by comparing them with a conceptual framework or theory. The results usually locate the respondents on a scale or in a category. Probably the most famous managerial inventory is Belbin's (1981) team role inventory which identifies the respondent's preferred team roles as determined by Belbin's theory of team effectiveness. They are a number of inventories that are relevant to business ethics. One of the more famous is Rest's Determining Issues Test that identifies where the respondent is on Kohlberg's scale of moral development.

Questionnaires can be used in teaching business ethics to,

• Identify what business ethics problems students have experienced or think are prevalent
  
• To identify their priorities - about which problems are the most serious or about which principles or values they think are the most important when tackling ethical problems for example.
  
• Identify students' opinions on a range of topics such as the effectiveness of corporate social responsibility policies.

Inventories can be used in teaching business ethics to,

• Help students critically reflect on their own values and behaviours by clarifying and feeding back to them their own values and habits.
• Locating students' values and behaviours within a broader theoretical framework that allows them to compare themselves with others

The use of questionnaire and inventories, and inventories in particular, can be contentious. Inventories fall under the general heading of psychometric tests and there is much debate about the validity and usefulness of such tests. It is always worth checking to see whether inventories have been technically validated. That is to say whether they have been statistically checked to see if the questions they contain actually measure what the authors claim they measure. Even if they have been validated there are further objections. Inventories, and indeed many questionnaires, assume that respondents have fixed opinions or values that can be measured. It can be argued, and Billig (1996) for one does so, that people do not have fixed behaviours, values and assumptions. Rather they see these things changing as the context changes. People's views about which are their core values will vary over time depending upon a whole range of things including who they last talked to, their recent experiences, whether they are thinking about their values in a work context, a social context and so on. In this context an inventory's claim to identify an individuals core value, attitude or opinion looks a little fragile.

If we take a precautionary line about questionnaires and inventories it is best to use them in teaching and learning as devices to promote self-reflection and provoke debate rather then to claim that they scientifically and objectively measure and classify individuals. If used in this manner they can play a great role in providing some variety and change of pace in a teaching session.

References
Belbin, R. M. (1981) Management Teams. Why they succeed or fail. London: Heinemann.
Billig, M. (1996) Arguing and Thinking. A Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology, 2nd. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Case studies
Questionnaire and inventories
Debates and seminars