Designing the Research Study Now that you have learned about all of the factors that must be considered in designing questions within a survey, it is time to talk about putting such questions together into a logical whole. The survey itself is a collection of questions that have been properly formatted and sequenced in a logical way. First, be sure to provide clear and complete instructions to both the subject and the interviewer who may be presenting the survey to the subject. For example, explain in the instructions to the interviewer how to stop an interview in case a participant does not want to continue. Next, be sure to ask simpler and more engaging questions at the beginning of the survey. If a subject is asked the most challenging questions at the beginning of a survey, the subject may not wish to continue. Place such challenging questions closer to the end of the survey. Finally, related questions should be grouped together in the survey. If multiple questions deal with the same topic, these questions should be presented to the subject sequentially. Asking a subject to jump between topics leads to confusion and may produce erroneous data or discourage the subject from completing the survey. Even with a researcher's best efforts, there may be some confusion as to what a particular survey question is asking. In order to eliminate wasted time and effort, survey items should be pretested, in order to ensure that such confusion does not exist. By pretesting the questions of the survey, confusing questions can be identi�ed and corrected before most of the data collection for the business research project begins. The Basic Research Process Six Stages of Conducting Research Basic Research Process The basic research process consists of six stages. Stage 1: Determining the Research Question The research question should be determined. There may be an issue that requires the company to conduct research. For example, the company’s costs may have risen over the past year and the reason for this may be unclear. Or the company’s sales may have fallen over three months, but its competitor’s sales may have increased. From the perspective of management, in such a case, a management question should be crafted, restating the dilemma of management in a question format. From a management question, a research question can be determined. A research question can be thought of as an umbrella question that provides overall direction and objective of the research. Stage 2: Contemplating the Research The required research should be considered. Adequate resources should be allocated to conduct the research. The costs for conducting the research are likely to be equally distributed across all phases of the research: planning; gathering data; and analyzing, interpreting, and reporting the information found. Management needs to determine whether the benefits of a research study outweigh its costs. Finally, a research propo ...