A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a set of questions used to collect information from respondents. It can include open-ended and closed-ended questions. Questionnaires were developed in 1838 and collect both qualitative and quantitative data. They are effective tools for measuring attitudes, beliefs, and intentions of large groups. Questionnaires are advantageous because they are inexpensive, generate a lot of data easily, and allow anonymity. However, they also have disadvantages like potential for dishonest answers, fatigue, and difficulty interpreting open-ended responses. Good questionnaires have a clear sequence of questions, uniform formatting, an exploratory nature, and are easy to understand.

1. ◤
QUESTIONNAIRE

2. ◤
MEANING
A questionnaire is a research instrument that consists of a set of
questions or other types of prompts that aims to collect information
from a respondent. A research questionnaire is typically a mix of
close-ended questions and open-ended questions

3. ◤
Open-ended, long-form questions offer the respondent the ability to
elaborate on their thoughts. Research questionnaires were
developed in 1838 by the Statistical Society of London.
The data collected from a data collection questionnaire can be both
qualitative as well as quantitative in nature. A questionnaire may or
may not be delivered in the form of a survey, but a survey always
consists of a questionnaire.

4. ◤
IMPORTANCE OF QUESTIONNAIRE
Questions are considered to be of vital importance for research, feedback, and
control. A survey without a questionnaire is as incomplete as a dish without
ingredients.
A questionnaire is an effective tool to measure the attitudes, beliefs, behavior,
preference, opinion, and intentions of a relatively large number of people with
respect to one or more than one specific subjects

5. ◤
ADVANTAGES
▪ Inexpensive way of collecting data.
▪ Generates a large amount of data.
▪ Usually has an easy-to-understand and easy-to-respond
design which makes it easy to understand and respond to.
▪ The responses can be easily quantified. It can also be used to
compare and contrast other research.

6. ◤
▪ It’s easy to analyse the results of a questionnaire.
▪ The qualitative and quantitative data collected from a
questionnaire helps the surveyor to create new strategies and
learn about the trends in the audience.
▪ Questionnaires often let its respondents maintain their
anonymity.
▪ It’s not always necessary to have a personal touch while getting
the responses from the respondents

7. ◤
DISADVANTAGES
▪ Answer dishonesty:Respondents may not always be completely
truthful with their answers — some may have hidden agendas,
while others may answer how they think society would deem
most acceptable.
▪ Question skipping: Make sure to require answers for all your
survey questions. Otherwise, you may run the risk of
respondents leaving questions unanswered.

8. ◤
▪ Interpretation difficulties: If a question isn’t straightforward
enough, respondents may struggle to interpret it accurately.
That’s why it’s important to state questions clearly and
concisely, with explanations when necessary.
▪ Survey fatigue: Respondents may experience survey fatigue if
they receive too many surveys or a questionnaire is too long.

9. ◤
▪ Analysis challenges: Though closed questions are easy to
analyze, open questions require a human to review and
interpret them. Try limiting open-ended questions in your
survey to gain more quantifiable data you can evaluate and
utilize more quickly.
▪ Unconscientious responses: If respondents don’t read your
questions thoroughly or completely, they may offer inaccurate
answers that can impact data validity. You can minimize this
risk by making questions as short and simple as possible.

10. ◤
CHARACTERISTICS OF
QUESTIONNAIRE
1. Sequences of questions
A proper series of questions should be followed to increase the
rate of response to the questions. Therefore, it is necessary to
develop a structured sequence of questions that contain
questions in the sequence.
The sequence of questions is like screening questions, warm-up
questions, skip questions, transition questions, complex
questions, and classification questions, etc.

11. ◤
For example, if you want to design a questionnaire for
motivation and buying experience then you are required to ask
questions firstly related to demographics, and questions related
to the time spent in the different sections of the store and lastly
about their motivation behind every purchase.

12. ◤
2. Uniformity
The uniformity of questions is essential to keep respondents
involved in the questionnaire until the end. Consistency of
questions plays an important role, especially when you want to
collect information about personal opinions, demographic data, or
facts from the respondents.
Better responses can be obtained only by keeping the uniformity
and standardized format of the questionnaire. This helps in the
statistical analysis of the data.

13. ◤
If you are putting random questions together, then it will become
difficult for you to analyze the responses of those questions.
3. Exploratory
Exploratory characteristics of the questionnaire help you in
collecting qualitative data. You can ask any question as long as it is
related to the subject. The exploratory nature of a questionnaire
helps you in getting detailed information about the topic.

14. 4. Easy to understand
A good survey is easy to understand. It should be designed in such a way so
that everyone can read and understand the questions irrespective of their
education level
For example, you can send questionnaires to women to learn about
their spending habits. You can ask different types of questions, such as
close-ended or open-ended questions, to obtain different outcomes

15. ◤
Why Are Questionnaires Effective in
Research?
Questionnaires are popular research methods because they offer a
fast, efficient and inexpensive means of gathering large amounts of
information from sizeable sample volumes. These tools are
particularly effective for measuring subject behavior, preferences,
intentions, attitudes and opinions