Preparing a Questionnaire
Framing the Questions
Formulate questions whose answers can be readily computed. As the questionnaire is usually sent to a large number of respondents, the work of processing their responses can be daunting. To save processing time, you should try to design your questions carefully before hand. Ideally, they should take the form suitable for electronic processing. The sample questionnaire was designed for machine reading.
Make your questions easy to understand. To gather accurate and honest information, your should ask questions that are easy for your readers to understand.
Avoid loaded questions. Loaded questions are hard to answer. For example, the question "Why do people think that this brand is popular?" is unanswerable if the readers do not agree that the brand is popular in the first place.
Include one or two cross-referencing questions. Cross-referencing questions are those that ask for basically the same information but take different forms. Readers may not have answered all the questions carefully, so cross-referencing questions provide a check on reliability of their responses. Such questions are effective only if their emphasis is not altered, and the questions should have asked for identical information, albeit in a different way and usually in different sections of the questionnaire.
Avoid potentially biased questions. Rhetorical questions like "Don't you think...?" lead readers to think that you are for the idea. This may cause them to give biased answers, too.
Ask open questions as well as closed questions. Open questions do not require a one-word or curtailed answer. The reader has maximum freedom to present his views. This type of questions may reveal things you did not know. In addition, open questions may arouse the interests of the reader and set him working on the specific questions that follow. Yet there is the danger of digression and of undesirable spontaneity on the part of the reader. The data thus obtained may be difficult to code and process. Closed questions, on the contrary, involve specific questions and are answered in a definite way. They give precise information on certain questions. The disadvantage of closed questions is that the questions and answers may well be prejudged issues and responses. It is therefore productive to combine open questions and closed questions. Set more open questions in pilot studies and examine the specific areas they suggest by closed questions.
Arrange your questions properly. Starting with easier and safer questions may create a safe atmosphere for the reader to answer questions. Questions concerning demographic information belong to this type. When the reader feels comfortable with the questionnaire, he is likely to answer more specific and difficult questions.
May 26th, 2010
Posted in Article