Questionnaire formation

Questionnaire Formation
Dr. Keerti Jain
NIIT University Neemrana

Content
1. Introduction
2. Meaning of Questionnaire
3. Why Questionnaire?
4. Modes of Questionnaire
5. Advantages and Disadvantages of
Questionnaire
6. Steps involved in Questionnaire Designing
7. About Questionnaire
8. Top 10 Do’s of Questionnaire Designing
8. To 10 Don’ts of Questionnaire Designing
9. QuestionTypes.
10. Principle ofWriting Questions
11. Question Order
12. Ways to increase perceived reward
13. Ways to decrease perceived cost
14. Ways to establish trust
15. Cautions
16. Create a navigational path
17. Questionnaire design problems
18. Always REMEMBER
19. Reference
Dr. Keerti Jain, NIIT University 2/18/2020 2

Introduction
▪ Everyone uses information to make decisions about
the future.
▪ If our information is accurate, we have a probability
of making a good decision.
▪ If it is incorrect, our ability to make a correct
decision is diminished.
2/18/2020Dr. Keerti Jain, NIIT University 3

“ Better information usually
leads to better decisions.”
Therefore a crucial parts of good research is
concerned with making sure that the
Questionnaire design addresses the needs of
research

Meaning of Questionnaire
▪ A set of printed or written questions with a choice
of answers, devised for the purposes of a survey
or statistical study.
▪ Example: Question Sheet, set of questions,
survey form, form.
▪ Designing a Questionnaire is not a simple and
easy as at first sight.

Why Questionnaire?
One of the most important aspects of designing a questionnaire is
improving your Response Rate, which requires providing the respondent
with the motivation to complete the questionnaire. So consider:
1. Increasing perceived rewards
2. Decreasing perceived costs
3. Establishing trust

Questionnaire Modes
• Face-to-face interview
• Telephone survey
• Self-administered survey (i.e. mail survey)
• Online Survey

Advantage of Questionnaire
▪ Method of collection for primary data.
▪ Practical
▪ Large amount of information can be collected from a large number of
people in a short period of time and in a relatively cost effective way.
▪ Can be carried out by the researcher or by any number of people with
limited affect to its validity and reliability.
▪ The results of the questionnaires can usually be quickly and easily
quantified by either a researcher or through the use of a software package.
▪ Can be analyzed more “scientifically” and objectively than other forms of
research.

Disadvantages of Questionnaires
▪ Is argued to be inadequate to understand some forms of
information-i.e. changes of emotions, behavior, feelings
etc.
▪ There is no way to tell how truthful a respondent is being.
▪ There is no way of telling how much thought a respondent
has put in.
▪ The respondent may be forgetful or not thinking within the
full context of the situation.

Steps involved in Questionnaire
Designing
1. Decide the information required
2. Define the target respondent.
3. Choose the methods of reaching your
target respondent.
4. Decide the question content.

Steps involved in Questionnaire
Designing
5. Develop the question wording.
6. Put question into a meaningful order and format.
7. Check the length of the questionnaire.
8. Pre-test the questionnaire.
9. Develop the final survey form.

About Questionnaire
▪ A crucial part of good research design concerns making sure that the
questionnaire design addresses the needs of the research.
▪ To put this another way; somehow we need to make sure that the
questions asked are the right ones.
▪ To move from your research aims to deciding what are the right questions
to put on a questionnaire is a key aspect that needs to be addressed by
the researcher.
▪ Unfortunately too many researchers complete the data collection before
they have given enough thought to the data analysis.This can lead to
inadequate data and inadequate inferences from the data, and can
disappoint and frustrate the researcher.

Top 10 Do’s of Questionnaire Design
▪ Writing a good questionnaire can be surprisingly difficult and takes practice
and usually multiple attempts to get right.
▪ Define the target respondents, consider the audiences age, education level,
familiarity with questionnaires etc.
▪ Plan your research questions so that your research goals are fully translated
into a series of questions, which will, as far as possible, obtain the required
data.
▪ Structure your questionnaire to follow some form of natural flow, reflecting
a train of thought, a logical conversation, or an implied chronology of
events, depending on the subject and remember to place your most
important questions at the beginning of the questionnaire.

▪ Consider and identify if your questionnaire is going to the
anonymous (e.g. no name asked or identifying codes used) or
confidential (where names can be used but an individual’s data is not
shared with anyone).
▪ Space should be provided to allow the recording of comments of
respondents on the topic(s) not covered by the questionnaire
▪ Do pilot your questionnaire.
▪ Use a variety of data collection formats, such as online, paper based
(e.g. mailed with a pre-stamped and addressed return envelope),
individual or group interviews or why not pick up the telephone.

▪ Seek ways of engaging and maintaining the respondent’s interest,
you’ll end up with better data!
▪ Researchers should take particular care to make sure that
respondents are not led to a particular answer, with questions that
are also clear, understandable and easy to read.
▪ Remember to include a ‘don’t know’ and an ‘other – please specify’
option, where applicable.

Top 10 Don’ts of Questionnaire Design
▪ Use technical or vague terms, the questionnaire should be easily
understood.
▪ Absolutes in questions force respondents into a corner where they
can’t give useful feedback.
– These questions usually have the optionsYes/No and include wording such as
“always,” “all,” “every,” “ever,” etc. Bad Question: Do you always eat
lunch? (Yes/No).
– Read literally, the example above would force almost any respondent to answer
“No.” Even then, there would be some respondents who would interpret the
question as asking whether they always eat a full breakfast when they have a
chance.
▪

▪ The inflexibility of absolutes makes questions too rigid to
be used in a survey. Instead, the question should have a
variety of options that people will feel more comfortable
choosing from.
– GoodQuestion: How many days a week do you usually eat lunch?
(Every day/ 5-6 days/ 3-4 days/ 1-2 days/ I usually don’t eat lunch).
▪ Use excessively lengthy questionnaires, or a lack of honesty
/ transparency about the potential length of the
questionnaire.
▪ Use of repetitive questioning.

▪ Use double barreled questions, asking two questions at once, as
these questions may confuse the respondent into not knowing
how to answer!
▪ Provide insufficient opportunity for respondents to have their
say.
▪ Have an excessive classification section (such as height, weight,
age, social background etc.).
▪ Re-invent the wheel, if you are capturing demographics or
measuring workload chances are someone has done this
before.

▪ Write leading questions, questions should never be worded
in a way that’ll sway the reader to one side of the
argument.
▪ Forget to include a cover letter, front page or introductory
paragraph that provides the purpose, any sponsors, why
the response is important, any confidentiality agreement,
deadline for completion, informed consent, what to do and
a thank you.

The information obtained by each question will be specific to
the information you will need in your analysis. Therefore,
before you compose any questions:
▪ Think through your research questions and objectives
▪ Think about how you will conduct your analysis

Question Types
Of course, there are different types of questions that you can use in
your questionnaire, here are a few examples:
▪ Fixed-Response Questions
▪ Multiple Choice
▪ Rating Scale/Continuum (such as a Likert-type scale)
▪ Agree-Disagree
▪ Rank ordering
▪ Open-Ended versus Closed-Ended Questions

Question Types
▪ Open ended questions ask respondents to respond to a question in
their own terms. Closed ended questions are questions where the
respondent is asked to place themselves into one of a limited number
of responses which are provided to them.
▪ Open-ended questions allow the greatest variety of responses, but
are time consuming to ask and requires a lot of work to analyse.
▪ Closed ended questions, when well designed, make sure that
respondents interpret questions the same way.
▪ Respondents are more likely to skip an open-ended than closed-
ended question.

Online Questionnaire Services
Of course you can also use the various online questionnaire services, such as:
▪ Probably the most well known name in the realm of online survey
tools, Survey Monkey is an obvious contender.
▪ Typeform is a creative survey creation tool, this oozes style, with a beautiful
design and decent capabilities even in the free version.
▪ Google Forms is another useful tool by Google.
▪ Zoho Survey is another decent free survey creator offering.
▪ Survey Gizmo creates some good looking surveys, with a limited free
version hidden towards the bottom of their pricing page.
▪ Survey Planet free use offering is up there with the other offerings. But the
biggest caveat is that only Pro version can export to excel.

I. Selection Categories
• Scales are always relative to respondent’s experience
• Scale should allow for maximum variability
• Use a balanced scale
• Be careful about responses of ‘neutral’ or ‘no opinion’ versus
‘don’t know’
• Use item-in-a-series response categories carefully
• Place response categories vertically
Principles of Writing Questions

Principles of Writing Questions...
II Questions should ask for only 1 piece of information, so avoid:
• Asking two questions at once
• Asking questions that contain assumptions
• Asking questions that have hidden contingencies

Principles of Writing Questions…
III. A questionnaire gets people to express their feelings,
perceptions, behaviors, and experiences, both past & present;
therefore, avoid: well
• Asking for secondhand information
• Asking hypothetical questions
• Asking about causation
• Asking for solutions to complex issues

Principles of Writing Questions…
IV. Question wording should ensure that every respondent will be answering the
same thing, so avoid:
• Ambiguous wording or wording that means different things to different
respondents.
• Using terms for which the definition can vary. (If it is unavoidable, provide
the respondent with a definition.)
• Being ambiguous about the time period the respondent should consider
• Asking complex questions (double-barreled)

Question order
▪ Questions should be ordered so as to seem logical to the
respondent
▪ First questions should be relevant and easy
▪ Questions are effectively ordered from most salient to least
salient
▪ Demographic questions should not be covered at the beginning
▪ Potentially objectionable questions are placed near the end.
▪ Be sure that the order of the questions does not produce bias in
response.

Ways to increase perceived reward
▪ Show positive regard
▪ Say thank you
▪ Ask them for “advice”
▪ Give social validation
▪ Give a tangible reward
▪ Make the questionnaire interesting
▪ State an upcoming deadline

Ways to decrease perceived cost
▪ Avoid subordinating language
▪ Do not embarrass the respondent
▪ Do not inconvenience the respondent
▪ Make questions appear short and easy
▪ Avoid asking personal information (if it must be asked,
use ‘soft’ wording and inform about confidentiality)
▪ Keep subsequent requests similar

Ways to establish trust
▪ Provide a token of appreciation
▪ Provide a sense of legitimate authority
▪ Make completing the questionnaire seem important
▪ Remind respondent of previous relationship with
sponsor (if applicable)

Cautions…
▪ Do not provide an opportunity for the respondent to
get a reward from not completing the survey
▪ Too much repetition of appeals diminishes their
effectiveness
▪ Questions should not be too short – reduces credibility
▪ Do not send letters too far in advance

Create a navigational path
▪ Instructions should be placed right where they are needed
▪ Matrices are confusing: it is best to order questions from top to
bottom, and left to right
▪ Use larger font to attract attention
▪ Use color shading to attract attention or show groupings
▪ Use spacing and similarities to show groupings

Create a navigational path…
▪ Use symbols to identify the starting point
▪ Number questions consecutively
▪ Use a consistent background
▪ Write questions in bold and answer responses in a lighter font
▪ Avoid banking responses into more than 1 column

Questionnaire design problems
▪ Some possible threats to accuracy:
– Questions not understood as intended
– Don’t adequately capture respondent’s experience
– Pose a challenging response task
▪ Problems may not be visible in the actual survey data
▪ How can we find these before data collection?

Always REMEMBER
Do
▪ Use simple wording
▪ Be brief
▪ Be specific
Don’t
▪ Be vague
▪ Be condescending or talk
down to respondent
▪ Use biased wording
▪ Use abbreviations or scientific
jargon
▪ Use objectionable questions
▪ Be redundant

References
▪ Bourque, Linda and Eve Fielder. 1995. How to Conduct Self-Administered and Mail
Surveys: Learning Objectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
▪ Converse, Jean M. and Stanley Presser. 1986. “Survey Questions: Handcrafting the
Standardized Questionnaire.” Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences (series).
Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.
▪ Dillman, Don A. 2000. Mail and Internet Surveys :TheTailored Design Method. New
York: J.Wiley.
▪ Fink, Arlene. 1995. HowTo Ask Survey Questions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
▪ Fowler, Floyd J. Jr. 1995. Improving Survey Questions: Design and Evaluation.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
▪ Sudman, Seymore and Norman M. Bradburn. 1982. Asking Questions: A Practical
Guide to Questionnaire Design.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.

Thank You !!!
Dr. Keerti Jain, NIIT University 382/18/2020

Questionnaire formation

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