Designing the Questionnaire

Defining the problem:

Purpose: The first thing that needs to be cleared out is why do we want to design a questionnaire; what
exactly do we require the information we are about to gather for. This will depend upon the nature of
the problem, the purpose of the study and hypothesis framed.

Target Audience: Who do we wish to collect this information from, what kind of respondents do we
want to carry out our survey on. This matter will be further discussed under “sampling”.

Use: How are we going to use the data that we will collect? how will it help us answer our questions?

Findings: What do we expect to find out using the collected data

Administration:
Here we need to figure out the medium through which our questionnaire will be communicated. Some
examples include:

Paper-based: Printed questionnaires handed out to be filled by respondents.

Online: Digital questionnaire shared with the respondents over internet e.g., Google Forms

Personal: An interviewer fills out the questionnaire for the respondent.

Writing the Questionnaire/Structure

A good questionnaire should be interesting easy to answer and respectful. It should contain an
informative title, clear introduction, and interesting well-organized questions to keep the respondent
engaged.

Introduction: the questionnaire should exercise transparency by mentioning why the survey is being
conducted and for who. The confidentiality of the responses should also be cleared out here.

Questions:

 Mundane questions such as name, gender, age should be kept at last and interesting questions
should be kept in the beginning to overcome the unwillingness of the respondent.
 A variety of question types should be used to maintain interest. This will be further discussed
under type of questions.
 To make questions easy, provide clear instructions and group the questions by type and topic.
 Make sure that the questions are ethical and respectful.

Before writing a question, we must think about the following:

a) Is the question significant? - Observe contribution of each question. Does the question contribute for
the objective of the study?

b) Is there a need for several questions or a single question? - Several questions are asked in the
following cases:

 When there is a need for cross-checking

  When the answers are ambiguous
 When people are hesitant to give correct information.

c) What should be the structure of the question?

 Structured questions- These specify the set of response alternatives and the response format.
These can be classified into multiple choice questions (having various response categories),
dichotomous questions (having only 2 response categories such as “Yes” or “No”) and scales.
 Unstructured questions- These are also known as open-ended question. No alternatives are
suggested, and the respondents are free to answer these questions in any way they like.

Language:

The words of the question should be carefully chosen:

 Ordinary and unambiguous words should be used.

 Avoid implicit assumptions, generalizations, and implicit alternatives.
 Avoid biased questions.
 Define the issue in terms of who the questionnaire is being addressed to, what information is
required, when is the information required, why the question is being asked, etc.

Types of Questions:
1. Leading Questions

Questions that force your audience for a particular type of answer are known as leading
questions. In a leading question, all the answers would be equally likely. An example of a leading
question would be a question with choices such as, fair, good, great, poor, superb, excellent etc.
These questions are meant to get an opinion from the audience in limited words.
Example:
Q) How would you rate your bank’s mobile app?
a) Fair
b) Good
c) Excellent
d) Superb

2. Importance Questions

In importance questions, the respondents are usually asked to rate the importance of a
particular issue, on a rating scale of 1 to 5. These questions can help you understand things that
hold significance to your respondents and allow you make business critical decisions.

Example:

Q) Online services are:

a) Extremely Important
b) Very Important
c) Somewhat Important
d) Not very important
 e) Not important at all

3. Likert Questions

Likert questions can help you ascertain how strongly your respondents agree to a particular statement.
Such type of questions also help you assess how your customers feel towards a certain issue, product or
service.

Example:

Q) You prefer online banking

a) Strongly agreed
b) Agreed
c) Neither agree nor Disagree
d) Disagree
e) Strongly Disagree