Questionnaire design

Introduction
 Questionnaire is a set of formalized and pre-specified
questions designed to obtain responses from the
potential respondents.
 The questions in the questionnaire reflects the
research objective under investigation.
 For example, suppose a researcher is interested to
measure the consumer attitude for purchasing a
certain brand of car, the researcher has to formulate
the relevant attribute statements related to various
dimensions of consumer’s attitude.
 These various attribute statements are rated on a
rating scale, which may be from 1 – 5 or from 1 – 7.

 1= strongly not favorable, 2= not favorable, 3= neutral (or
undecided), 4= favorable, 5= strongly favorable.The attributes
along with rating scales are as follows:
Attributes 5 4 3 2 1
Brand
Fuel efficiency
Space
Engine power
Resale value
Safety
Discount
Warranty
Servicing

Questionnaire Design Process
 There are three phases in designing questionnaire: pre-
construction phase, construction phase, and post
construction phase.
PHASE I: Pre-construction Phase
 It consists of three steps as given below:
i. Specific required information in the light of research
objective
 This is the first and very important step for designing
aquestionnaire. Before making questionnaire, one should
make sure about the information required.
 Poor conceptualization of research will lead to collecting
irrelevant information and loss of relevant information,
which lead to wasting of time, energy and resources; and
increase the cost of project.

 To generate required information, the researcher should be
clear about the objective of the study and the other
components of the research such as theoretical model,
research questions, and hypotheses.
ii. An overview of respondent’s characteristics
 While collecting the information/data, an overview of the
respondent’s characteristics is a vital consideration. In other
words, the researcher must construct the questionnaire in the
light of the respondent’s profile.
 For example, if our research is to focus on “purchase intention”,
which is directly related to purchase capacity of the individuals
for a particular product (say purchase of a car).Thus while
administering the questionnaire, researcher should have
knowledge about their income status.
 Without knowing the profile of the respondents, the purpose of
the questionnaire will not be solved.

iii. Decision regarding selecting an appropriate survey
technique
 While constructing a questionnaire, the researcher should
decide well about the selection of an appropriate survey
techniques such as personal interview, mail interview,
telephone interview, schedule sent through questionnaire
and so on.
 Each of the techniques has its relative advantages and
disadvantages.
 The questions in the questionnaire must be constructed,
sequenced and placed according to the mode of the survey.
 For example, a lengthy and difficult to answer question must
be avoided in a telephone interview method, but may be
appropriate in personal interview method.

PHASE II: Construction Phase
 This is the real construction phase of the questionnaire. It
consists of six steps as given below:
i. Decision regarding question format: Unstructured vs.
Structured
 Questionnaires are of two types viz. open-ended questions
and closed ended questions.
Open-ended questions:
 In open ended questions, the respondents have opportunity
to answer freely in their own way.They can provide their
opinion about any topic in their own words.
 Hence prior expectation of the possible answers can not be
known in this format.
 This type the questions are generally related to opinion,
attitude, perception of the people about any particular
problem or suggestion invited to solve the problem.

 Hence, open-ended questions are extremely useful for an
exploratory research. In addition, these questions provide the
respondent an opportunity to freely express his/her feeling and
provide an insight into the problem in hand.
 Following are some examples of the open-ended questions:
(a) What is your favorite advertisement for a soft drink?
(b) What do you think is the most important consumer durable
product for a household?
(c) Is it more beneficial for the whole family that women instead of
doing service outside, should look after their children.
(d) What do you think, are the lack of knowledge and vision
among the politicians, the main causes of instability in the
country?
 The open-ended questions have some serious limitations as
given below:
o To handle the interviewer and the interpretation bias, because
interviewer might use own way of writing

o In some cases, the respondents do not feel comfortable with the
open-ended questions as it requires more effort and till to fill.
 Closed ended questions: Closed-ended questions restrict the
respondents within the different alternatives given. Such types of
questions are also known as structured questions.
 The answers to these questions will be either in numerical form or
in the response alternative or in the form of rating system, and the
respondents select the most appropriate one.
 The closed-ended questions have several advantages:
o Administration of the closed-ended questionnaire is relatively easy
as it need minimal time for explaining.
o The closed-ended questions reduce the respondent’s burden as the
respondent is provided with the response alternative.
o It also reduces the interviewer bias as the respondents has to select
from the pre-set alternatives

o Coding and tabulation of data also become very easy as the
response alternatives are fixed.
 The closed-ended questions also have several disadvantages,
which are:
o Sometime it is very difficult to construct the questions as it
requires some expertise to provide most possible alternatives.
o To cover all the alternatives to the questions, the researchers
specify an alternative as “Please specify if any other”. When
many respondents select this option, the essence of closed-
ended question diminishes.
 The closed-ended question format can be further divided into
dichotomous, multiple choice questions, and scales.
Dichotomous Questions
 These types of questions have only two response alternatives
usually presenting “yes” or “no”. To make the alternative
balanced, the researchers often present a third neutral
alternative “don’t know”.

 For Example:
Do you have plans to purchase a motorbike as the company
has reduced the price and offered”0% interest scheme.
Yes …………….. No ………….. Cannot say ……………
 The researcher also ask dichotomous questions to
understand the demographic profile of the respondent.
 For example, an insurance company has launched a new
policy with special features for the children.To understand
the response, the company can ask the following
dichotomous questions:
 1. Please specify your gender: Male ………… Female
……….
 2. Is it an attractive policy with special features for kids?
Yes …………. No ……….. Cannot say ………….

Multiple –choice questions
 While asking multiple-choice questions, the researcher
presents various answer choices to respondent and the
respondent is supposed to select any one from the options.
The multiple-choice questions are also referred to as
multichotomous questions. A private bank assessing the
customer intention to have relationship with the bank can
ask the following multiple choice question:
 How do you rate the services offered by the bank?
Excellent …………..
Very good …………
Moderate ………….
Just right …………..
Poor ………………….

Scales
 Scales are also closed-ended questions, where multiple
choices are offered to the respondents.
 Suppose a researcher is concerned about to motivate the
customer, then he/she may put the question as:
Are you motivated to buy the newly launched product by a
company?
Strongly motivated …………..
Motivated ………………………..
Neutral …………………………….
Not motivated ……………………….
Not strongly motivated ………….

Decision regarding question wording
 While developing the questions, the researcher should not
use the negative wording. It will discourage the respondent
resulting a decrease in response rate.
 It also impact the process of interpreting the questions,
leading some respondents to misinterpret how to respond
and, thus reducing or destroying the usefulness of the
questions.
 The guidelines to evaluate the questions that are to be
incorporated in the questionnaire are as follows:
i. Questions wording must be simple and easy to understand
ii.Vague and ambiguous words must be avoided

iii. Double-barrelled words must be avoided
iv. Avoid leading and loaded questions
v. Avoid using overstated words
vi. Implied assumption must be avoided
vii. Respondent’s memory should not be overtaxed.
viii.Generalization and estimation must be avoided
ix. Respondent’s ability to answer must be considered
i. Questions wording must be simple and easy to understand
 The researcher must use simple word as far as possible which
may understand by a common person.

 For example, instead of asking-
“What is your perception about the new advertisement campaign ?”
A researcher should frame the same question as
“What is your view about the new advertisement campaign ?”
 A respondent may not always be familiar with the word “perception”.
However, instead of using relatively heavy word, he/she can use a light
word and easy to understand word “view”.
ii.Vague and ambiguous words must be avoided
 The words used in the questions should not be ambiguous and the
language of the question also should not be interpreted in more than one
way. For example:
What type of schooling did you have?
 Here the word schooling means “type of school attended’ or “type of
education received”
 Another example of defective language: Whether you are educated or
uneducated - Tick yes or no.

 Use of some words such as “often”, “occasionally”, and
“usually”, “how long”, “how much” and “reasonably well”
should be avoided as they may be confusing for a
respondent.
 For example, to determine consumer intention to spend on
shopping in a year generate confusion for a consumer if the
question is administered as follows:
 In a year, how much will you spend on shopping? (use of
how much & reasonably well words)
(a) Very much (b) Much (c) Reasonably well (d) Less
(e)Very less
 For the same question, a much better way of asking is as
follow:

In a year, how much do you plan to spend on shopping?
(a) Up to 5,000 (b) Up to 10,000 (c) Up to 30,000
(d) 30,000 to 40,000 and so on.
 This present the clear options to assess the
respondent’s intention to expend.
iii. Double-barrelled words must be avoided
 Double-barrelled wordings such as “and” or “or”, if used
in question, it poses a serious situation in answering.
 For example, asking a question-
On weekends, would you prefer an outing with your
family and which is your favorite outing spot in the
town?
 In this question, if the answer of first part is negative,
definitely answer of the second part is not expected.

 Instead of asking this type of double barrelled question, the
researcher can ask this question in two parts as follow:
 Question 1. On weekends, would you prefer an outing with
your family?
 Question 2. If yes, then which is your favorite outing spot in
the town?
 Dividing the question into two parts avoids confusion for the
respondent.
 In this question, only if the first question is “yes”, the
respondent will be attempting the second part.

1v. Avoid leading and loaded questions
 A leading question is one which clearly reveals the researcher’s
opinion about the answer to the question.
 This is a biased way of presenting a question to get the desired
answer.
 For example, a leading question can be presented as follows:
Aren’t you satisfied with the new feature of the product?
 The presented question is in such a way that the researcher is
likely to get desired answer resulting to get biased answer.
 Instead of asking this question in other way as given below will
be more unbiased

 Are you satisfied with the new feature of the product?
 The above question will produce unbiased answer “yes” or
“no”.
 The loaded question requires more attention, as it create
more bias.The loaded questions are posed to address the
inner feeling of the respondent and the response is almost
predestinated.
 For example , a loaded question can be given as follows:
 Every patriotic person will prefer own brand of product.
 This question is specifically loaded and probably every
respondent will like to answer as “yes”, because the question
indirectly addresses the feeling of patriotism.

v. Avoid using overstated word
 It is suggested to put a question in a natural way rather than
in a positive or a negative way. Overstatement of words will
always bias the individual response.
 For example, a question related to the purchase of a water
purifier with overstated words is as follows:
A survey revealed that hepatitis cases are increasing in
India due to dirty water drinking. Have you any intentions
to purchase a water purifier in the coming 6 months?
 The answer of this question will always be overblown due to
the first part of the question, which generates a worry in the
mind of the respondent and results in a positive answer.

 Instead of asking the above question, it will be better ask in
the following way:
Have you any intention to purchase a water purifier in the
coming 6 months, which can protect you from many
waterborne diseases.
vi. Implied assumption must be avoided
 Implied alternatives must be avoided to avoid unnecessary
confusions. For example:
Do you think Company ‘A’ should continue with its
incentive scheme on bulk purchase?
 The above question has an implicit assumption that the
discount policy on bulk purchase offered by Company ‘A’ is
working excellent and by answering “yes”, the company will
continue its policy.

 The respondent assumes that giving a no answer will
encourage the company to stop the scheme.
 This question can be put as follows:
Do you like a discount scheme on bulk purchase, provided
by the company ‘A’.
 This way of asking a question emphasizes the discount
scheme offered by CompanyA.
vii. Respondent’s memory should not be overtaxed
 In some situations, a researcher’s questions are based on the
respondent’s memory.The respondents tend to forget the
incidents that are not important for them.
 But these incidents are important for the researcher, and
he/she has framed question on these incidents.The
following example is a difficult question to answer:

In the past 2 months, how many times you have eaten ice
cream of Brand ‘X’ with your family?
 It is difficult for a respondent to keep a record of eating ice
creams in the past 2 months.This is an unnecessary testing
of the respondent’s memory.
 Even if he/she provides the answer, it may not be accurate,
rather it would be an approximate answer.
 A more accurate and informal way of asking the above
question may be as follows:
How many times you enjoyed ice cream arties with your
family in past 2 months?

viii. Generalization and Estimation must be avoided
 A researcher should not pose questions that have
generalized answer. Generalization means respondent’s
belief, “what must happen”.
 For example, a question related to a new car purchase in a
generalized manner can be as follows:
While purchasing, will you be discussing the warranty issue
with the shop manager?
 This question has a generalized answer as every respondent
will be seeking for warranty while purchasing a car whether
it is a small or a big one.
 The more accurate way of asking this question may be:

While purchasing, will you be likely to discuss the warranty issue
with the shop manager?
 The questionnaire processing must always consider that the
respondent should not be left with the estimation or computation.
 Most of the respondents are either unwilling to compute or
incapable to compute.
 For example, if a researcher is worried about the fact that the
increasing pulse prices will lead to the low consumption of pulse in
Nepal in the year 2010-2011, he/she would ask a question
What is the average per person consumption of pulses by your
family in past 6 months?
 For a common person, this type of question is difficult to answer,
which may lead to non-response or a faulty response.

 To answer this question, a respondent has to first assess
the consumption of pulses by his family for past 6
months.
 Furthermore, to find the average per person
consumption, this must be divided by the number of
family members.
 For simplicity, this question may be divided into two
components as shown:
What is the consumption of pulses by your family in the past 6 months?
How many members are there in your family?
 Average per person consumption must be computed by
the researcher, and the respondent is left with the
provision of answering two simple questions.

ix. Respondent’s ability to answer must be considered
 Questions must be designed in the light of the respondent’s
ability and experience.
 For example, a question targeted to officers older than 55
years to assess the importance of internet banking is as
follows:
Do you feel that Internet banking is an added advantage
for bank customer?
 Most of the older officers older than 55 years are not
comfortable with a new concept like “internet banking”.Tus
targeting this question to this respondent segment may not
be an appropriate exercise.

Decision regarding question sequencing (order)
 Sequencing of questions plays an important role in generating the
respondent’s interest and motivation to answer the questions.
 The questions in the questionnaire should be in logical order so
that it helps to explore information systematically. While designing
the questionnaire, researcher should follow the order given below:
(a) Start designing questionnaire from general (or simple) question
to complex.
(b) Maintain the subject matter in sequence. All questions related to
one topic should be grouped in one place and each group should
appear in chain.

(c) The opening questions should be simple, encouraging, and
trust building. From the research point of view, these questions
may sometimes be little irrelevant but should be good
initiators. The questions should not seek in-depth information
and should be as possible as simple.
(d) The change from one topic to another should be very smooth
i.e. the movement from one set of questions to another set
should be smooth and logical.
Phase III: Post-construction Phase
 It consists of four steps as given below:
i. Pre-testing: Though the questionnaire is constructed with great
care by the experts, it might have some problem that can be
identified and removed through pre-testing.

 Pre-testing of the questionnaire involves administering the
questionnaire to a small sample of the population and
eliminate the potential problems of the questionnaire if any.
 The questions in the questionnaire might be often overlooked,
and might also be not in the sequence.
 In such cases pre-testing is used to ensure that the
questionnaire is appropriate for the survey in terms of
structure and language
ii. Revisiting the questionnaire base on the inputs obtained
from pre-test
 To enhance the accuracy, after incorporating suggestions from
the pre-testing, a researcher can go for second pre-testing. It is
always possible that second pre-testing may also reveal some
of the problems in the questionnaire.

 At this stage, the researcher must objectively incorporate all
the inputs obtained from the pre-testing exercise. All the
parameters related to the question wording must be
carefully examined.
 Similarly, question sequencing must also be re-examined on
the basis of the inputs obtained from the pre-testing.
iii. Revised final draft of the questionnaire
 At this stage, the researcher once again carefully examines
the questionnaire. Insertions and deletions of the previous
stage must be re-checked to provide the desired accuracy.
 The researcher makes the questionnaire ‘ready to
administer’ by eliminating all the minute mistakes and try to
make error free.

Administration of questionnaire and obtaining responses
 At this stage, the researchers administer the questionnaire
to the respondents and obtain the responses.
 These responses are coded, data are tabulated, and
appropriate statistical techniques are applied to analyze the
data.

Questionnaire design

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to Questionnaire design

Similar to Questionnaire design (20)

More from Sanjay Basukala

More from Sanjay Basukala (7)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Questionnaire design