Title: Designing the Questionnaire
1- Designing the Questionnaire
2Designing the Questionnaire
- Logical Steps to Develop a Good Questionnaire
- Recall the research objective, the research
questions and hypotheses - Identify the variables to be measured
- Formulate items in the questionnaire
- Order and wording of questions and the layout of
the questionnaire - Test for omissions and ambiguity
- Correct the problems (pretest again, if necessary)
3Exercise Identify the variables
- To understand if my ad campaign was liked.
- To understand how much students know about credit
- To understand the relative importance of price
and image in in my brands overall sales - To understand which brand of cell phone enjoys
top of mind recall - To understand if lower prices could lead to
higher sales
4Questions must meet 4 requirements
- ? You must ask the right questions
-
- ? Respondents must understand the questions
- ? Respondents must know the answers
- ? Respondents must be willing to tell you those
answers.
5From Variables to Survey questions
- To understand if my ad campaign was liked.
- To understand how much students know about credit
- To understand the relative importance of the
price and image in in my brands overall sales - To understand which brand of cell phone enjoys
top of mind recall - To understand if lower prices could lead to
higher sales
- I liked the ad campaign (SD SA)
- How much do you know about credit (Nothing
Quite a lot) - How important is 1. price (Not imp very Imp)
and 2. image (Not Imp Very Imp) in your
decision to buy my brand - Tell us some names of cell phone brands you can
think of 1._____ 2. _____ 3. _____ - If the price of X was reduced by 10, how likely
would you be to buy X (Not likely Very likely)
6Types of Questions
- 1. Open-response question
- People look for different things in a job. What
would you prefer most in a job? - 2. Closed-response question
- People look for different things in a job. What
would you prefer most in a job? - Work that pays well
- Work that gives a sense of accomplishment
- Work where you make most decisions by yourself
- Work that is steady with little chance of being
laid off.
7Open Ended Questions
- Advantages
- Gain insight into the problem
- Too many options to list
- When verbatim responses are desired to give the
flavor of the problem - When behavior to be measured is sensitive or
disapproved - Interviewer / questionnaire structure influence
can be minimal - Disadvantages
- Inarticulate respondents
- Interviewers skill in recording quickly and
summarizing accurately - Time consuming, subjective judgments while
tabulating, adds to cost
8Closed-response Questions
- Two Basic Formats for Closed Ended or Structured
Questions -
- Choice from a list of responses
- Appropriate single-choice rating on a scale
9Closed-response Questions
- What type of fast-food restaurant do you visit
most often? - ?Burger ?Mexican
- ?Chicken ?Pizza
- ?Seafood ?Chinese
- ?Dont know ?Other (please specify)
10Closed-response Questions
- What is your overall satisfaction with McDonalds
Hamburgers? - Very satisfied Quite Satisfied Somewhat
satisfied Not at all satisfied - ? ? ?
? - Very satisfied 7 6 5
4 3 2 1 Not at all
satisfied
11Closed-response Questions
- Advantages
- Easy to understand, quick responses possible
- Micro-differences in responses can be captured
- Easier tabulation and analysis
- Answers are directly comparable from respondent
to respondent - Disadvantages
- Neutral category may attract more responses than
warranted - Information between categories may be lost
(extreme case dichotomous categories)
12Issues in Questionnaire Design
- Mutually exclusive choices
- How many long-distance calls do you make in a
week? - ? 5 and less
- ? 5-10
- ? 10 and more
13Issues in Questionnaire Design
- Order of response categories
- I pay my bills on time
- Never
- Often
- Always
- Sometimes
- Rarely
14Issues in Questionnaire Design
- Meanings of response labels
- I pay my bills on time
- Never
- Often
- Always
- Sometimes
- Frequently
15Issues in Questionnaire Design
- Range of response categories
- How many long-distance calls do you make in a
week? - ? less than 5 ? less than 10
- ? 5-10 or ? 10-20
- ? More than 10. ? More than 20.
16Issues in Questionnaire Design
- Respondent uncertainty
- Should respondents be provided with aDont know
or No opinion option? - When it is important to differentiate between
ambivalence and ignorance, both options should be
provided
17Issues in Questionnaire Design
- Question Wording - Vocabulary
- Simple, easy to understand, commonly used
language - Avoid technical words and jargon (unless sample
is technically qualified) - Words meaning something else in different
languages and cultures (e.g. Nova meaning no go
in Spanish mist stick meaning manure in
German, etc.)
18Question Wording
- Ambiguity
- How many times per month do you visit a fast-food
restaurant? - ? Never
- ? Occasionally
- ? Sometimes
- ? Often
19Question Wording
- Are any questions "double-barreled?
- Are you satisfied with the price and the service
of Taco Bell?
20Question Wording
- Are any questions loaded or leading?
- 1) Dont you think, because its so greasy,
fast-food is one of the worst types of food?
leading question - 2) Do you prefer a hamburger that is grilled on a
hot stainless-steel grill or cooked by passing
the raw meat through an open gas flame?...loaded
question - Both skew responses in the desired direction
- Questions which threaten respondent self-esteem
e.g. occupation question produces more
executives
21Issues in Questionnaire Design
- Question Wording
- vocabulary
- double-barreled questions
- leading or loaded questions
- Instructions
- Complicated or lengthy instructions confuse and
bias respondents
22Question Wording
- Is the question applicable to all respondents?
- Why do you like fast-food?
- Assumes respondents like fast foods
- Better strategy would be to ask a filter question
first.
23Question Wording
- Question length
- Should be short
- Longer questions confuse and fatigue respondents
- Sensitive questions
- Questions on information perceived to be
embarrassing, like personal income, criminal
activities, alcoholism, smoking, drugs habits,
social desirability issues, etc. - Creativity rules (assurances of confidentiality,
anonymity, slipping it in sideways, open-ended
questions, asking in third person, etc.)
24Sequence And Layout Decisions
- Opening questions easy and non-threatening
- Flow smooth and logical avoid jumps
- Broad to specific
- Critical questions placed in the middle
- Appealing and interesting
- Order bias the possibility that subsequent
responses are influenced by preceding responses
e.g. fewer people will say that their taxes are
too high after being asked whether govt. spending
should be increased in certain areas. - Demographic questions - last
25Pretesting and Correcting Problems
- Pretesting Specific Questions For
- Meaning
- Task difficulty
- Respondent interest and attention
- Pretesting the overall Questionnaire
- Flow of the questionnaire
- Skip patterns
- Length
- Put yourself in the respondents shoes and answer
the questionnaire.
26Examples spot the problems in the questions
- Why did you purchase a Bose home theatre system?
- ? Great self-expressive benefits
- ? High quality
- ? Good service
- ? Great bass to treble ratio
- ? Better warranty
- Looks good
- What is your annual income
27Examples spot the problems in the questions
- Dont you think Budweiser makes the best
commercials - Yes No
- Which of the following restaurants do you visit
frequently? - ? Burger King
- ? Pizza Hut
- Subway
- KFC
- McDonalds
- Rate how much you like the quality and image of
Dove - Hate it 1 2 3 4 5 Love it
28Examples spot the problems in the questions
- Do you agree that, since fast-food restaurants
produce a disproportionate amount of waste, they
should be subject to an additional environmental
tax? - ? Yes
- No
- How often do you watch American Idol
- Always Never
29Examples spot the problems in the questions
- How often do you eat fast food?
- ? Daily
- ? Every second day
- ? Once a week
- Every two weeks
- What do you think about the super bowl
- Love it Like it Hate it
30Examples spot the problems in the questions
- I read the Wall Street Journal
- Frequently
- Sometimes
- Often
- Never
- Always