Questionnaire Design

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Chapter 10 Questionnaire Design
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Chapter Objectives

• explain why it is important for managers or
  business researchers to know how to design good
  questionnaires
• identify the types of information included in a
  questionnaire
• design questionnaires to tap different variables
• evaluate questionnaires, distinguishing the
  good and bad questions therein
• identify and minimise the biases in collecting
  data with questionnaires
• discuss how a pilot study can be used to prove
  the structure of a questionnaire
• discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the
  different ways of administering questionnaires

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Why are questionnaires important?

• Managers and business practitioners must
• have a working knowledge of the common business
  research processes
• with limited knowledge they could run a high risk
  of potential litigation
• be aware of the weaknesses of the resultant data
  from that limited questionnaire
• be able to understand intepret the analysis
• need to know when to call in experts to provide
  assistance

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Definition of a Questionnaire

• A questionnaire is a pre-formulated written set
  of questions to which respondents record their
  answers, usually within closely defined
  alternatives

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Example of a Questionnaire
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When to Use a Questionnaire

• When the researcher knows precisely what
  information is needed
• When large numbers of people are to be reached in
  different geographical regions
• When groups of people can be assembled in a
  convenient location (eg conference rooms) to whom
  questionnaires can be administered, and collected
  immediately

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Advantages of Questionnaires

• Helps a researcher or manager obtain data fairly
  easily
• Information from questionnaires is easily coded
• Benefits the scientific community if the measures
  are well validated and reliable
• Often is a catharsis for respondents

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Impact of Other Aspects of a Survey on
Questionnaire Design
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Principles of Questionnaire Design

• Principles of wording
• Principles of measurement
• General appearance
• Questionnaire administration testing

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Principles of Wording

• To minimise bias
• Content and purpose of questions
• Language and wording of the questionnaire
• Type and form of questions
• Biases in questions
• Sequencing of questions
• Classification data or personal information

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Content and Purpose of Questions

• To get at objective facts or subjective feelings
  and perceptions?

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Language and Wording of the Questionnaire

• Would the respondent understand the words in the
  questionnaire?
• Are the questions ambiguous?
• Are there double-barrelled questions?
• Are the questions leading?
• Are there recall-dependent questions?
• Any social desirability?
• Does the length of the question exceed 20 words
  or one line of print?

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Type of Questions

• Open-ended questions
• Freedom to answer the question any way one wants
• Could pose problems for researcher in coding the
  response
• Closed questions
• Alternatives that are mutually exclusive and
  collectively exhaustive, given
• Respondent can make a quick decision
• Easy to intepret and code

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Form of Questions

• Should be positively and negatively worded to
  reduce response bias or halo effects

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Sequencing of Questions

• The Funnel Approach
• From general to specific questions
• From easy to difficult questions

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The Funnel Approach
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Classification Data Personal Information or
Demographic Data

• Decisions on
• Name, number required? (anonymity)
• What info required? (income, marital status, etc
  needed?)
• Age, income, etc, should a range be given? If
  so, what are the appropriate ranges?
• Eg, lt20, 20 40, gt40
• Should personal info be at beginning or end of
  questionnaire?

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General Appearance of the Questionnaire

• Introduction to respondents
• Instructions and organising questions
• Demographic data
• Sensitive personal data
• Open-ended question at end
• Concluding the questionnaire

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Introduction to respondents

• identity of researcher
• purpose of survey
• establish rapport
• motivate repsondents
• confidentiality anonymity
• summarised results
• distribution and/or publication of results
• courteous note, thanks

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Pre-testing Questionnaires

• Face validity
• Content validity
• Pilot study
• With sample of respondents from target population
• Ideal research design
• Factor analysis
• Reality less than ideal
• Collecting and analysing data
• Eg, SPSS or Excel

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Gathering the Data

• Personally administered questionnaires
• Mail questionnaires
• Electronic questionnaires

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Multimethods of Data Collection

• Data from different sources and through
  different methods could improve the goodness of
  the data
• Interview
• Observation
• Questionnaire
• Same source and other source data
• Objective measures (physical measurement,
  counting, etc)
• Eg, performance data get from all the above
  sources. See how they correlate.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Personal or
Face-to-face Inteviews