Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Questionnaires
& Data Collection
Instruments
Contents
• Objectives.
• Advantages and disadvantages of open and
closed ended questions.
• Formatting.
• Questionnaire vs. interview.
Objectives
• At the end of this session, students should be able
to:
• List the advantages and disadvantages of open and
closed ended questions.
• Practice building of a questionnaire.
• Describe the main differences between the self‐
administered questionnaire and the interview.
• Practice data entry for the questionnaire made by
themselves.
Open Vs. Closed Ended Questions
Open ended questions
• Useful when it is important to hear what
respondents have to say in their own words.
• e.g.: what habits do you believe increase a
person’s chance of having a heart attack?
• Can form the bases for more structured
items in a later phase.
Open ended questions
• Disadvantage
They require qualitative method to code and
analyze the responses, which take more time
and subjective judgment than coding closed
ended questions.
Closed Ended Questions
They are more common and form the basis
for most standardized measures.
e.g. Which one of the following do you think
increases a person’s chance of having a heart
attack (check one)
Smoking
Being overweight
Stress
Closed Ended Questions
Advantages
• Quick.
• Easy to answer.
• Answers are easier to tabulate and analyze.
• The list of possible answers often helps to
clarify the meaning of the questions.
• Well suited for multi‐item scales designed to
produce a single score.
Closed Ended Questions
Disadvantages
• Leading questions.
• The potential responses listed by the
researcher may not include an answer that is
most appropriate for a particular respondent
(Rx: By doing a pretest with an open ended
questions, also by adding an option other
(please specify).
Closed Ended Questions‐
continued
When the question allows more than one
answer, instructing the respondent “all that
apply” is not ideal. It is better to ask
respondents to mark each possible response
as either “yes” or “no” or “don’t know”
Same e.g. mentioned (smoking, overweight,
stress).
FORMATTING
• Describe the purpose of the study at first (in
questionnaire & interview).
• Put the instructions.
Give an e.g. if needed.
• Put headings for major subjects.
• Start with neutral questions then proceed to
sensitive ones.
FORMATTING
• Too complex format may lead to skipping some
questions.
• Neat format with plenty of space is more attractive
& easy to use.
‐ For closed ended questions this will prevent
overlap during circling or ticking a response.
‐ For open ended questions, more space is needed
for people with large handwriting.
FORMATTING
‐ Use large font size for old people and for
those with visual problems.
• Use simple words, and clear questions
Questionnaire Vs. Interview
• Questionnaires (self‐administered):
‐ More efficient for answering simple
questions (e.g. age, smoking).
‐ Less expensive.
‐ Need less time.
Interviews
Advantages:
• Good for complicated questions.
• Make sure that instruments are answered
completely.
• Of benefit when participants are of different
educational levels (some of them don’t
understand questions).
Interviews
Disadvantages:
‐ More costly.
‐ Time consuming.
‐ Responses may be influenced by the
relationship between the interviewer and
the respondent.
Interviewing‐Notes
• The skill of the interviewer has a great
impact on the quality of responses.
• Uniform wording of questions.
• Uniform non‐verbal signals.
• Uniform tone of voice.
• Uniform “probing” if the respondent not
sure of his answer.
Methods of administering
questionnaires
• Directly to the person: It allows the
researcher to explain the instructions.
• Diaries: e.g. to measure No. of days of vaginal
bleeding.
• Electronic questionnaires: Immediate
response, data collected easily and enter
directly into database. Only clean data are
received.
• Mailed questionnaires: Less likely to be
returned.
Exercise
• Prepare a questionnaire on any topic you like, print,
and submit to the department as a homework.
• Enter the variables into SPSS program.
Questions??
Thanks for your efforts