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Introduction
Questionnaires are typically used for survey research to determine the current status or "situation," or to estimate the distribution of characteristics in a population. Writing a questionnaire is one of the most critical stages in the survey development process. Much of questionnaire construction is common sense, but there are intricacies with which survey authors should be familiar. It is common sense to require that the concepts be clearly defined and questions unambiguously phrased; otherwise, the resulting data are apt to be seriously misleading. Here are some ground rules to keep in mind before writing the first word: Each question should relate directly to your survey objectives. Every respondent should be able to answer every question (unless instructed otherwise). Each question should be phrased so that all respondents interpret it the same way. Each question should provide answers to what you need to know, not what would be nice to know. The following are the four main parts of a survey questionnaire. Though each of these parts is different from each other, it is important to understand that all of them are necessary for drafting a good questionnaire.
2. The Introduction
The beginning of your survey should include an introduction that is enticing and clearly states the purpose of your research. Because web surveys are self-selecting (i.e., you have no control over who chooses to participate), it is important that your introduction grabs the attention of potential respondents and encourages their participation. It is easy for online survey participants to abandon a survey, so you must communicate up-front why they should help you with your survey.
Failure to do so will decrease the number of participants. The introduction should also include any instructions about completing the survey, and an estimate of how much time it will take.
4. The Close
You can include text, instructions, or additional information at the end of your survey to explain its purpose. This section is also used to thank your respondents for their time and effort.
4. 5. 6. 7.
Behaviors and practices Perceptions of knowledge, skills or behavior Goals, intentions, aspirations Demographics
Of course, it's possible you might measure more than one, but the questions will be clearly different based on the information you are trying to gather.
Fixed response questions are quick to answer and score, which facilitates analyzing the results. Occasionally, however, fixed response questions may draw misleading conclusions because the respondent cannot qualify responses, e.g. "Yes, but" or "It depends" where only Yes/No are given as options. 2. Narrative Response (Qualitative)
Narrative responses allow respondents greater freedom of expression. There is no bias due to limited response ranges and the respondents can qualify their answers. On the other hand, these responses are time consuming to code and the researcher may misinterpret (and therefore misclassify) a response.
The response options were: Increased a lot Increased somewhat Increased a little Decreased A better way to word this would be: During the past year, my company's sales revenue has Increased significantly Increased slightly Decreased slightly Decreased significantly We can see in the second example that the question is very specific. The respondents are asked to evaluate their company's sales revenue rather than rate business activity, which could refer to sales revenue, profit, number of employees, etc. Secondly, the scale in the second question is evenly distributed versus the first one, which is biased towards the positive end of the scale. You can also reduce "random" error by removing unusual or confusing questions or by changing their arrangement.
8. Provide space to tell more: At the end of the survey, give respondents an opportunity to comment about the survey or general topic using an open-ended question. 9. Put important questions first: Respondents may get fatigued or hurried by later questions. Include questions about demographic information at the end so the earlier parts of questionnaire focus on gathering data necessary to meet your survey objectives. 10. Avoid agreement bias: By framing both positive and negative questions, your respondents will evaluate each question rather than uniformly agreeing or disagreeing to all of the responses. 11. Avoid the response option "other": Careless responders will overlook the option they should have designated and conveniently mark the option "other." 12. Keep your survey short: Limit the number of questions based on your target audience. For example you can ask more questions to customers as compared to website visitors. By evaluating how important each question is to gathering the information you need, and by carefully wording the response options, you will collect information which will yield more satisfactory and meaningful results.