Questionnaire Construction

11 Key excerpts on "Questionnaire Construction"

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  Marketing Research

  • Carl McDaniel, Jr., Roger Gates(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  257 CHAPTER 12 At a high level, questionnaire or survey instrument design is both art and science. When dealing with questionnaire specifics, such as how to ask certain types of questions, there is plenty of science in the form of methodological research that has been conducted by aca- demics and marketing research professionals. In this chapter, we will provide both overall guidance on questionnaire design and best practices for handling specific issues based on the findings of methodological research studies. Role of a Questionnaire Survey research, by definition, relies on the use of a questionnaire. A questionnaire is a set of questions designed to generate the data necessary to accomplish the objectives of the research project; it is a formalized schedule for collecting information from respondents. You have most likely seen or even filled out a questionnaire recently. Creating a good ques- tionnaire requires both hard work and imagination. A questionnaire standardizes the wording and sequencing of questions and imposes uniformity on the data-gathering process. Every respondent sees or hears the same words; every interviewer asks identical questions. Without such standardization, interviewers could ask whatever they wanted, and researchers would be left wondering whether respondents’ questionnaire Set of questions designed to generate the data necessary to accomplish the objectives of the research project; also called an interview schedule or survey instrument. Panther Media GmbH/Alamy StockPhoto Questionnaire Design LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Understand the role of the questionnaire in the data-collection process. 2. Become familiar with the criteria for a good questionnaire. 3. Learn the process for questionnaire design. 4. Understand how software, the Internet, and mobile devices are influencing questionnaire design. 5. Understand the impact of the questionnaire on data-collection costs.

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  International Handbook of Survey Methodology

  • Edith D. de Leeuw, Joop Hox, Don Dillman, Edith D. de Leeuw, Joop Hox, Don Dillman(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 9

  The Logic and Psychology of Constructing Questionnaires

  Don A. DillmanWashington State University

  9.1 INTRODUCTION

  A questionnaire is more than a simple list of questions. Well-written questions that are composed according to the principles outlined in Chapter 8 by Fowler and Consenza may need further modification as they are ordered and placed in questionnaires suited for a particular survey mode or a particular population of respondents. Turning a collection of questions into a questionnaire brings into consideration nonresponse concerns as well as measurement concerns. It raises issues of how communicating with respondents, visually, in mail and web surveys versus aurally in interviews, requires that adaptations be made. The design process may also encourage reordering of questions and the writing of connective language to help respondents grasp the intent of questions and how to respond to them. The logic and psychology of this process of turning a list of proposed survey questions into an acceptable questionnaire is the focus of this chapter.

  9.2 GOOD QUESTIONS ARE NOT ENOUGH

  The transition from questions to questionnaire is illustrated by a recent general public mail survey (Stern & Dillman, 2006). Considerable time had been spent by the investigators writing a series of questions to ascertain the names of each respondent’s closest friends and relatives plus the frequency and means of communication with each of them. Our purpose was to collect necessary information for a network analysis of close social ties. The result of our writing effort was a series of seven questions that would be repeated in sequence for each of the five closest friends and the same number of relatives. Informal tests suggested that each of the questions could be answered accurately by respondents and would provide meaningful data for the proposed analysis; however, it was also apparent that some people would find the questions intrusive, and were likely not to answer them.

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  Marketing Research Essentials

  • Carl McDaniel, Jr., Roger Gates(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  10 C H A P T E R LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Understand the role of the questionnaire in the data- collection process. 2. Become familiar with the criteria for a good questionnaire. 3. Learn the process for questionnaire design. 4. Understand how software, the Internet, and mobile devices are influencing questionnaire design. 5. Understand the impact of the questionnaire on data- collection costs. Questionnaire Design Winston Davidian/Getty Images Criteria for a Good Questionnaire 211 Survey objectives Respondent information Questionnaire Data analysis Findings Recommendations Managerial action A t a high level, questionnaire or survey instrument design is both art and science. When dealing with questionnaire specifics, such as how to ask certain types of questions, there is plenty of science in the form of methodological research that has been conducted by academics and market- ing research professionals. In this chapter, we will provide both overall guidance on questionnaire design and best practices for handling specific issues based on the findings of methodological research studies. Role of a Questionnaire Survey research, by definition, relies on the use of a questionnaire. A questionnaire is a set of questions designed to generate the data necessary to accomplish the objectives of the research project; it is a formalized schedule for collecting information from respondents. You have most likely seen or even filled out a questionnaire recently. Creating a good questionnaire requires both hard work and imagination. A questionnaire standardizes the wording and sequencing of questions and imposes uniformity on the data-gathering process. Every respondent sees or hears the same words; every interviewer asks identical questions.

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  Marketing Research

  • Carl McDaniel, Jr., Roger Gates(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  73 CHAPTER 4 Andrey Popov/Panther Media GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo Acquiring Data Via a Questionnaire LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Understand the role of the questionnaire in the acquisition process. 2. Become familiar with the criteria for a good questionnaire. 3. Learn the process for questionnaire design. 4. Understand how software, the Internet, and mobile devices are influencing questionnaire design. 5. Understand the impact of the questionnaire on data-collection costs. At a high level, questionnaire or data acquisition form is both art and science. When dealing with questionnaire specifics, such as how to ask certain types of questions, there is plenty of science in the form of methodological research that has been conducted by academics and marketing research professionals. In this chapter, we will provide both overall guidance on questionnaire design and best practices for handling specific issues based on the findings of methodological research studies. Role of a Questionnaire Survey research, by definition, relies on the use of questions. A questionnaire (or data acquisition form) is a set of questions designed to generate the data necessary to accom- plish the objectives of the research project; it is a formalized schedule for collecting informa- tion from respondents. You have most likely seen or even filled out a questionnaire recently. Creating a good questionnaire requires both hard work and imagination. A questionnaire standardizes the wording and sequencing of questions and imposes uniformity on the data-gathering process. Every respondent sees or hears the same words; questionnaire (or data acquisition form) Set of questions designed to generate the data necessary to accomplish the objectives of the research project; also called an interview schedule or survey instrument. 74 CHAPTER 4 Acquiring Data Via a Questionnaire every interviewer asks identical questions.

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  Research Methods for Social Psychology

  • Dana S. Dunn(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  As the Wilson and Schooler (1991) study illustrates, asking people to report their feelings regarding a decision can sometimes be a problem, especially if they lack sufficient knowledge about a topic or have never thought about it before (i.e., sometimes we really do not know how we feel). Note that a lack of knowledge does not prevent people from answering almost any question. Our linguistic abilities provide us with many advantages, not least of which is the ability to construct thoughtful, if completely ad hoc, explanations for almost anything. Most people want to avoid looking foolish, thus they rarely report that they “don’t know” why they did one thing or failed to do another. We all like to appear to be consistent, for example, not to mention that sometimes we may actually be unaware that we are constructing an attitude or an answer off the cuff or in the moment. Developing Questionnaires and Surveys 145 One last comment before we begin: There is an art and a science to conducting survey research. In this single chapter, I can only introduce some of the most basic principles of survey research, as well as issues that are common to constructing questionnaires and surveys (chiefly, how to craft clear questions). As Schwartz, Groves, and Schuman (1998) wisely point out, most social psychologists are users, not producers, of survey data. Many large data archives are available to social researchers who select from preexisting sets of questions and responses (usually numbering in thousands) to test out hypotheses. When social psychologists decide to conduct a large-scale survey (e.g., national opinion survey), they are likely to contract the services of professional survey researchers rather than attempt the work on their own. Nonetheless, all students of social psychology need a basic introduction to working with surveys and questionnaires like the one provided in this chapter. For a more detailed introduction, consult Schwartz et al.

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  The Marketing Research Guide

  • Robert E Stevens, David L Loudon, Morris E Ruddick, Bruce Wrenn, Philip K Sherwood(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  10 .)

  Create Harmony and Rapport with the Respondent

  A well-designed questionnaire targeted at the correct population sample should provide an enjoyable experience for the respondent. The frame of reference of the respondent must be considered in the design, wording, and sequencing of a questionnaire. Occupational jargon, cultural background, educational level, and regional differences can alter the effectiveness of a questionnaire if they are not taken into consideration. Not only should the questionnaire appeal to the respondent, it should be designed so the respondent can easily understand it, be able to answer it, and be made willing to answer it.

  Provide Just the Right Amount of Information: No More, No Less

  This is a trite statement, but it has much truth to it. There are often honest differences of opinion on just how much information is needed to answer a set of research questions. However, in designing a questionnaire the two basic mistakes are leaving an important question unasked, which makes the survey incomplete, and asking too many irrelevant questions, which makes the survey too long and unwieldy. A researcher must learn to economize in asking questions to avoid respondent burnout, which leads to early terminations and incomplete and inaccurate information. However, care must be taken in the design process to be sure the proper quantity of information is gathered to accomplish the research objectives. A rule of thumb in questionnaire design is “when in doubt, leave it out.”

  CLASSIFICATION OF QUESTIONS

  Questions can be classified in terms of their degree of structure and disguise. By structure we mean the degree to which the question and the responses are standardized at some point in the data-collection process.

  When a questionnaire is classified according to disguise, it depends on how evident the purpose of the question or questionnaire is. An undisguised questionnaire is one in which the purpose of the research is obvious to the respondent because of the questions asked. A disguised questionnaire obscures the purpose of the research and tries to indirectly get at a respondent’s point of view. Of course the sponsor of the research may or may not be revealed to the respondent before he or she answers the questions, but this is not what is meant by “disguise.”

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  Making Sense of Social Research

  • Malcolm Williams(Author)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  6 Questionnaire Design In this chapter: • Context • Content • Appearance • Asking about attitudes, beliefs and behaviour • How to begin • Types of question and question wording • Questionnaire layout and contingency questions • Piloting and testing This chapter introduces some of the principles and techniques of question-naire design. The design of the questionnaire itself should not be approached independently, but seen as integral to the successful design of the survey, and this includes anticipating how one might analyse the responses obtained. Good questionnaire design is about maximizing the validity and reliability of the survey. I recall proudly showing my first ques-tionnaire to my research methods lecturer and asking him if it would tell me what I wanted to know. Ever diplomatic, he replied, ‘Well, it’ll tell you something .... ’ The survey asked a lot of questions, but few really measured what they supposed to measure and others, because they were ambiguous, would not have produced a consistent response. The layout was good, though. In this chapter I will begin by considering fairly briefly what I consider to be the three key dimensions of questions: context, content, appearance. This will set the scene for a more detailed focus on specific design features and strategies, beginning with the tricky question of how to begin! Context How and from whom the data are to be collected will determine the kind of questionnaire that needs to be designed. First, as I noted in the previous chapter, self-completion questionnaires are generally simpler than interview schedules. The layout of the questionnaire and the questions asked will take a different form. While, for example, it is OK to ask, ‘What is your sex? 1 on a self-completion questionnaire, to ask this in an interview may produce unintended consequences.

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  Handbook of Research Methods in Public Administration

  • Sondra Brandler, Camille P. Roman, Gerald J. Miller, Kaifeng Yang, Gerald J. Miller, Kaifeng Yang(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • CRC Press

    (Publisher)

  Researchers test the theory of their measures by validating the goodness of their fi t through different types of validity — face, content, criteria, or construct. These methods, to test reliability and validity of measures, are done in the pretesting stages of the questionnaire. Questionnaire reliability and validity are manifested in question wording and response format; and respondent motivation through the layout of the survey. 16.3 QUESTION DEVELOPMENT: WORDING AND RESPONSE FORMATS Question development is the most important issue when creating a valid and reliable survey. Questions that are unclear, have vague meaning or de fi nitions, or inappropriate response formats result in useless information. The survey questions asked must be related directly to the variables, their de fi nitions, and the research questions or propositions of interest. In addition, researchers should not ask irrelevant or useless questions — those that do not re fl ect the population of interest or are beyond the focus of the study; for example, there is no need to ask respondents their highest level of education obtained to date, when the population of interest is undergraduate students: they all would hold a high school diploma. Finally, do not ask questions just to ask and later determine their use; this wastes the time of the researchers and respondents. Some variables are easier to measure than others are. Most variables of interest in policy, management, and administration, however, are those that are dif fi cult to measure, like satisfaction with or quality of services. Each is relative to the respondent ’ s interpretation of what the de fi nition of satisfaction or quality is. Researchers sometimes replace magnitude with frequency. Rather than asking about the satisfaction of the park, researchers ask respondents how often they visit the park; visits are related to satisfaction — the more satis fi ed, the more visits.

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  Survey Measurement and Process Quality

  • Lars E. Lyberg, Paul P. Biemer, Martin Collins, Edith D. de Leeuw, Cathryn Dippo, Norbert Schwarz, Dennis Trewin, Lars E. Lyberg, Paul P. Biemer, Martin Collins, Edith de Leeuw, Cathryn Dippo, Norbert Schwarz, Dennis Trewin, Lars E. Lyberg, Paul P. Biemer, Martin Collins, Edith de Leeuw, Cathryn Dippo, Norbert Schwarz, Dennis Trewin(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Interscience

    (Publisher)

  SECTION A

  Questionnaire Design

  Passage contains an image

  Chapter 1

  Questionnaire Design: The Rocky Road from Concepts to Answers

  Norbert Schwarz

  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

  1.1 INTRODUCTION

  According to textbook knowledge, research is conducted to answer theoretical or applied questions that the investigators—or their clients or funding agencies—consider of interest. Moreover, the specifics of the research design are tailored to meet the theoretical or applied objectives. Depending on one’s research environment, these assumptions reflect a “trivial truism” (as one colleague put it) or the “lofty illusions of academic theoreticians” (as another colleague put it). This chapter, and the contributions to the section on “Questionnaire Design” address different aspects of the long and rocky road from conceptual issues to the answers provided by survey respondents. The first part of this chapter reviews key elements of survey design, which are elaborated upon in more detail in subsequent sections of this volume.

  1.2 ELEMENTS OF SURVEY DESIGN

  Schuman and Kalton (1985) delineate and discuss the major components of a survey. Starting from a set of research objectives, researchers specify the population of interest and draw an appropriate sample. The research objectives further determine the concepts to be investigated, which need to be translated into appropriate questions. As Schuman and Kalton (1985, p. 640) observed, “Ideally, sampling design and question construction should proceed hand in hand, both guided by the problem to be investigated. When these stages are not well integrated—a rather common failing—one ends up with questions that do not fit part of the sample or with a sample that provides too few cases for a key analysis.” Note that neither the sample nor the specific question asked embodies the researcher’s primary interest. Rather, “investigators use one (sample, question) to make inferences about the other (population, concept), with the latter being what one is primarily interested in. Sampling populations and operationalizing concepts are each intended to allow us to go from the observed to the unobserved” (Schuman and Kalton, 1985, pp. 640-641).

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  The SAGE Handbook of Public Opinion Research

  • Wolfgang Donsbach, Michael W Traugott, Wolfgang Donsbach, Michael W Traugott(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Researchers are very good at thinking in terms of abstractions, but survey questions will not yield consistent and meaningful (i.e., valid) responses unless they are rooted in a certain amount of concreteness. The second concerns the important role of question wording and sentence structure. Words, and the sentences in which they are embedded, are tricky beasts. In our general conversations, we use language to ascertain information, much as we would do in a survey question; but we also use words to signal social norms, to persuade, warn, inform, reassure, frighten, clarify, and to confuse. One might say that the words in a survey question come with a lot of potential baggage. In addition, sentences can be written more or less clearly. When we construct questions to ascertain public opinion, we must take care that neither the baggage attached to words nor a convoluted sentence structure circumvent the goals of achieving reliable and valid data that bear on the research objective. Third, in constructing reliable and valid survey questionnaires, we must go beyond the words themselves and consider the task of the respondent. Recently, much attention has been given to the interaction between the 366 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PUBLIC OPINION RESEARCH question and the respondent’s ability and/or desire to answer the question. Questions that do not take into consideration the respondent’s ability to understand, the level of information, the process of making a judgment, and the motivation to respond may suffer in their ability to acquire reliable and valid data. Finally, there is a consideration of the context within which each individual question appears. Taken together, the set of questions constitutes a questionnaire but, to paraphrase a famous maxim, the questionnaire is more than just the sum of its questions.

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  Research Methods

  • Theresa White, Donald McBurney(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  A major function of surveys is to dispel myths. One such myth is that women whose children have grown up and left home suffer a kind of depression called “ the empty nest syndrome. ” Lillian Rubin (1979) surveyed 160 women in this situation and found that, rather than being depressed, virtually all of them experienced a sense of relief. The results of other sur-veys surprise us, such as by indicating how highly related physical punish-ment and aggression are in children. An international survey of mothers and children from six different countries showed that in general, as physical punish-ment increased, so did anxiety and aggression in the children (Lansford et al., 2005). Because survey research is technical and complex, we give only a brief overview here. Nevertheless, it is important to have an idea of the techniques because survey research is used so often. How a Questionnaire Is Designed Designing a questionnaire is a surprisingly complex procedure that involves a great many considerations. It shares many of the other considerations of research design in addition to the concerns that are inherent in any written or oral form of communication. Frequently, researchers use existing ques-tionnaires, rather than designing their own instruments. Thus, they avoid redesigning the wheel and they can compare their results with those of previous studies using the same instrument. For example, one useful source is the Mental Measurement Yearbook ™ (Buros Institute of Mental Mea-surements), which reviews more than 2700 standardized tests, including many questionnaires. The Measures of Social Psychological Attitudes series (e.g., Robinson, Shaver, & Wrightsman, 1991) also reviews and lists numerous measures of subjective well-being, self-esteem, social anxiety, depression, and so forth. The considerations listed in the following sections will be helpful, whether you design your own questionnaire or select an existing one.

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