Questionnaire

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Questionnaires

• Introduction

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Definition

• The questionnaire is most frequently a very
  concise, preplanned set of questions designed to
  yield specific information to meet a particular
  need for research information about a pertinent
  topic

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Administering questionnaires

• Postal
• electronic
• face-to-face
• telephone

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Types of questionnaire

• 1. Structured and close questionnaire
• 2. Unstructured and open questionnaire  
• 3. Semi-structured questionnaire 
• 4. Pictorial questionnaire 

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Pictorial questionnaire 
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How to write a questionnaire

• Step 1 Your survey objectives
• Step 2 Writing the content
• Step 3 Piloting the questionnaire

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Step 1 Your survey objectives

• Questionnaire structure 
• Whos answering the questions?
• How will you group the respondents?

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Step 2 Writing the content

• Introduce the questionnaire
• Ask questions in a logical order
• Aim for brevity
• Use simple language
• Use the right type of questions

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3 Piloting the questionnaire

• 1. check peoples understanding and ability to
  answer the questions.
• 2. providing an estimate of the average time each
  questionnaire will take to complete.
• 3. gain feedback on the type of question and its
  format, the validity of the questionnaire items,
  the operationalization of the constructs and the
  purposes of the research.

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The main types of questions are

• Open ended questions
• Closed questions
• Multiple choice questions
• Rating scale questions (likert type scale
  semantic differential)
• Rank order questions
• Dichotomous questions
• Constant sum questions
• Ratio data questions

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Open ended

•  Respondents are free to express their views and
  the ideas But a greater amount of respondent
  time, thought, and effort is necessary and coding
  responses is difficult.
• e.g. Do you have any suggestions about how we
  could improve our customer service?

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Closed

• are fairly easy to interpret, tabulate, and
  summarize. But Respondents cannot express their
  own judgment.
• e.g. Do you own a car? (select one response)
  YES  or NO

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Multiple choice

• Example
• Where would you prefer to go on vacation?
•    A. Western Canada (BC, AB, SK)   B. Central
  Canada (MB, ON, QC)   C. Eastern Canada (NB, NS,
  NL, PEI)   D. Northern Canada (YT, NWT, NU)

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Rating scale questions

• Likert-type scales
• Respondents are asked whether they agree or
  disagree with a statement. Each option is given a
  score, which can be used to analyze results.
• Example
• Using a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 means strongly
  agree and 5 means strongly disagree, how much do
  you agree or disagree with the following
  statements

  1Stronglyagree 2Agree  3Neither agreenor disagree 4Disagree  5Stronglydisagree
I enjoyed myexperience stayingat the hotel.          
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Rating scale questions

• Semantic differential
• In a semantic differential scale, each end of the
  scale is marked with different or opposing
  statements.
• Example
• On a scale from 1 to 7 where 1 is useful and 7
  is useless, How informative do you consider the
  new set of history textbooks to be?
• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
• Useful - - - - - - - Useless

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Rank order questions

• Rank order questions require the respondent to
  choose among a set of alternatives.
• e.g. Please indicate your priorities by placing
  numbers in the boxes to indicate the ordering of
  your views,
• 1 the highest priority, 2 the second
  highest, and so on.

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Dichotomous questions

• Respondents must choose between two alternatives.
• Example
• In the past 30 days, have you seen or
  heard any advertising for ______? Yes or no?

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Constant sum questions

• In this type of question respondents are asked to
  distribute a given number of marks (points)
  between a range of items.
• Example Please distribute a total of 10 points
  among the sentences that you think most closely
  describe your behavior. You may distribute these
  freely they may be spread out, or awarded to
  only a few statements, or all allocated to a
  single sentence if you wish.
• I can take advantage of new opportunities
• I can work effectively with all kinds of people
  
• Generating new ideas is one of my strengths
• I can usually tell what is likely to work in
  practice
• I am able to see tasks through to the very end
  
• I am prepared to be unpopular for the good of
  the school

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Ratio data questions

• ratio data questions deal with continuous
  variables where there is a true zero
• for example
• How much money do you have in the bank?
• How many times have you been late for school?
• How many marks did you score in the mathematics
  test?
• How old are you (in years)?
• Here no fixed answer or category is provided,
  and the respondent puts in the numerical answer
  that fits his/her exact figure, i.e. the accuracy
  is higher, much higher than in categories of
  data. This enables averages (means), standard
  deviations, range, and high-level statistics to
  be calculated

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Picture of bad sample