The document discusses guidelines for designing effective questionnaires. It covers important considerations like question wording, sequencing, and layout. Questionnaires should use simple, unambiguous questions to obtain accurate responses. Fixed-choice questions are easier for respondents but lack flexibility. Pretesting is essential to identify problems before full implementation. Questionnaire design requires careful planning to ensure the questions will achieve the intended research objectives.

1. Chapter-15:
Questionnaire Design
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Questionnaire Quality and Design:
Basic Considerations
• Questionnaire design is one of the most critical
stages in the survey research process.
 A questionnaire (survey) is only as good as the
questions it asks—ask a bad question, get bad
results.
 Composing a good questionnaire appears easy, but it
is usually the result of long, painstaking work.
 The questions must meet the basic criteria of
relevance and accuracy.

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Decisions in Questionnaire Design
1. What should be asked?
2. How should questions be phrased?
3. In what sequence should the questions be
arranged?
4. What questionnaire layout will best serve the
research objectives?
5. How should the questionnaire be pretested?
Does the questionnaire need to be revised?

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What Should Be Asked?
• Questionnaire Relevancy
 All information collected should address a research
question in helping the decision maker in solving the
current business problem.
• Questionnaire Accuracy
 Increasing the reliability and validity of respondent
information requires that:
 Questionnaires should use simple, understandable, unbiased,
unambiguous, and nonirritating words.
 Questionnaire design should facilitate recall and motivate
respondents to cooperate.
 Proper question wording and sequencing to avoid confusion
and biased answers.

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Wording Questions
• Open-ended Response Questions
 Pose some problem and ask respondents to answer
in their own words.
 Advantages:
 Are most beneficial in exploratory research, especially when
the range of responses is not known.
 May reveal unanticipated reactions toward the product.
 Are good first questions because they allow respondents to
warm up to the questioning process.
 Disadvantages:
 High cost of administering open-ended response questions.
 The possibility that interviewer bias will influence the answer.
 Bias introduced by articulate individuals’ longer answers.

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Wording Questions (cont’d)
• Fixed-alternative Questions
 Questions in which respondents are given specific,
limited-alternative responses and asked to choose the
one closest to their own viewpoint.
 Advantages:
 Require less interviewer skill
 Take less time to answer
 Are easier for the respondent to answer
 Provides comparability of answers
 Disadvantages:
 Lack of range in the response alternatives
 Tendency of respondents to choose convenient alternative

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Types of Fixed-Alternative Questions
• Simple-dichotomy (dichotomous) Question
 Requires the respondent to choose one of two alternatives (e.g.,
yes or no).
• Determinant-choice Question
 Requires the respondent to choose one response from among
multiple alternatives (e.g., A, B, or C).
• Frequency-determination Question
 Asks for an answer about general frequency of occurrence (e.g.,
often, occasionally, or never).
• Checklist Question
 Allows the respondent to provide multiple answers to a single
question by checking off items.

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Phrasing Questions for Self-Administered,
Telephone, and Personal Interview Surveys
• Influences on Question Phrasing:
 The means of data collection—telephone interview,
personal interview, self-administered questionnaire—
will influence the question format and question
phrasing.
 Questions for mail, Internet, and telephone surveys must be
less complex than those used in personal interviews.
 Questionnaires for telephone and personal interviews should
be written in a conversational style.

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EXHIBIT 15.1 Reducing Question Complexity by Providing Fewer Responses for
Telephone Interviews

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Guidelines for Constructing Questions
• Avoid complexity: Simpler language is better.
• Avoid leading and loaded questions.
• Avoid ambiguity: Be as specific as possible.
• Avoid double-barreled items.
• Avoid making assumptions.
• Avoid burdensome questions that may tax the
respondent’s memory.
• Make certain questions generate variance.

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What Is the Best Question Sequence?
 Order bias
 Bias caused by the influence of earlier questions in a
questionnaire or by an answer’s position in a set of answers.
 Funnel technique
 Asking general questions before specific questions in order to
obtain unbiased responses.
 Filter question
 A question that screens out respondents who are not
qualified to answer a second question.
 Pivot question
 A filter question used to determine which version of a second
question will be asked.

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EXHIBIT 15.2
Flow of Questions to
Determine the Level
of Prompting
Required to
Stimulate Recall

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What Is the Best Layout?
• Traditional Questionnaires
 Multiple-grid question
 Several similar questions arranged in a grid format.
 The title of a questionnaire should be phrased
carefully:
 To capture the respondent’s interest, underline the
importance of the research
 Emphasize the interesting nature of the study
 Appeal to the respondent’s ego
 Emphasize the confidential nature of the study
 To not bias the respondent in the same way that a leading
question might

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EXHIBIT 15.3 Layout of a Page from a Telephone Questionnaire

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EXHIBIT 15.4 Telephone Questionnaire with Skip Questions

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EXHIBIT 15.5 Personal Interview Questionnaire

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EXHIBIT 15.6 Example of a Skip Question

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Internet Questionnaires
• Graphical User Interface (GUI) Software
 The researcher can control the background, colors,
fonts, and other features displayed on the screen so
as to create an attractive and easy-to-use interface
between the user and the Internet survey.
• Layout Issues
 Paging layout - going from screen to screen.
 Scrolling layout – entire questionnaire appears on
one page and respondent has the ability to scroll
down.

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Internet Questionnaire Layout
• Push Button
 A small outlined area, such as a rectangle or an
arrow, that the respondent clicks on to select an
option or perform a function, such as submit.
• Status Bar
 A visual indicator that tells the respondent what
portion of the survey he or she has completed.
• Radio Button
 A circular icon, resembling a button, that activates
one response choice and deactivates others when a
respondent clicks on it.

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Internet Questionnaire Layout (cont’d)
• Drop-down Box
 A space saving device that reveals responses when they are
needed but otherwise hides them from view.
• Check Boxes
 Small graphic boxes, next to an answers, that a respondent
clicks on to choose an answer; typically, a check mark or an X
appears in the box when the respondent clicks on it.
• Open-ended Boxes
 Boxes where respondents can type in their own answers to
open-ended questions.
• Pop-up Boxes
 Boxes that appear at selected points and contain information or
instructions for respondents.

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EXHIBIT 15.7 Question in an Online Screening Survey for Joining a Consumer Panel

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EXHIBIT 15.8 Alternative Ways of Displaying Internet Questions

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Internet Questionnaire Layout (cont’d)
• Software That Makes Questionnaires Interactive
 Variable piping software
 Allows variables to be inserted into an Internet questionnaire
as a respondent is completing it.
 Error trapping software
 Controls the flow of an Internet questionnaire.
 Forced answering software
 Prevents respondents from continuing with an Internet
questionnaire if they fail to answer a question.
 Interactive help desk
 A live, real-time support feature that solves problems or
answers questions respondents may encounter in completing
the questionnaire.

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Pretesting and Revising Questionnaires
• Pretesting Process
 Seeks to determine whether respondents have any
difficulty understanding the questionnaire and
whether there are any ambiguous or biased
questions.
• Preliminary Tabulation
 A tabulation of the results of a pretest to help
determine whether the questionnaire will meet the
objectives of the research.

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Designing Questionnaires for Global
Markets
• Back Translation
 Taking a questionnaire that has previously been
translated into another language and having a
second, independent translator translate it back to the
original language.
 A questionnaire developed in one country may be
difficult to translate because equivalent language
concepts do not exist or because of differences in
idiom and vernacular.