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EAPP - q2 - Mod5 - Designing, Testing, and Revising Survey Questionnaires
EAPP - q2 - Mod5 - Designing, Testing, and Revising Survey Questionnaires
Professional Purposes
Quarter 2 – Module 5:
Designing, Testing, and
Revising Survey
Questionnaires
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Team Leaders:
School Head : Angelo R. Basilio, EdD
LRMDS Coordinator : Rhenn B. Songco
This learning resource hopes to engage the learners into guided and
independent learning activities at their own pace and time. Furthermore, this also
aims to help learners acquire the needed 21st century skills while taking into
consideration their needs and circumstances.
In addition to the material in the main text, you will also see this box in the
body of the module:
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module. You also need to keep track of the learners' progress while allowing them
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This module was designed to provide you with fun and meaningful
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active learner.
What I Need to Know This will give you an idea of the skills or
competencies you are expected to learn in
the module.
1. Use the module with care. Do not put unnecessary mark/s on any part of
the module. Use a separate sheet of paper in answering the exercises.
2. Do not forget to answer What I Know before moving on to the other activities
included in the module.
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hesitate to consult your teacher or facilitator. Always bear in mind that you are
not alone.
We hope that through this material, you will experience meaningful learning
and gain deep understanding of the relevant competencies. You can do it!
What I Need to Know
This module is designed and created to help you become familiar with the concept
of survey questionnaire and how to design, test, and revise questionnaire (CS-
EN11/12A-EAAP-lle-j-7).
By the end of this module you should be able to:
1. define a questionnaire;
2. compare and contrast the two types of questionnaire; and
3. design, test, and revise survey questionnaires.
What I Know
Let us have a short activity to see what you already know the about the topic. Read
each statement below carefully. On your answer sheet, write TRUE or FALSE for
each of the following statements.
What’s In
Before we start exploring the topic, let us find out if you can distinguish a
well-written survey question from a confusing one. Write YES if the question is
good, and NO if otherwise.
3.Do you think special car seats should be required for infant passengers?
4.Should concerned parents use infant car seats?
5.How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the pay and work benefits of your
current job?
What’s New
Surveys are an effective way to collect data from your customers. They are helpful
in evaluating your offerings and finding ways to make changes for the better. Yet,
some people struggle with survey design and creation and create surveys that
aren’t giving them the most accurate results.
Answer the sample survey below then assess it using the rubric below. Write your
score in every criterion in your answer sheet. If the total score is 28, then it is a
good survey questionnaire.
What is It
•
•
• A reaction or response paper requires the writer to analyze a text, then develop
commentary related to it.
Rating
Category 4 3 2 1 Score
Clarity of Questions are crystal Questions are very Questions are Questions
questions clear, and a person clear, and a person somewhat clear, and are confusing
would not have to might have to ask for a person would have and
ask for clarification. clarification. to ask for ambiguous.
clarification.
Choice of Every person would Most people would Few people would be No one would
responses be able to choose be able to choose able to choose from be able to
from the responses. from the responses. the responses. choose from
the
responses.
Layout The selection of The selection of The selection of The selection
graphics, line styles, graphics, line styles graphics, line styles of graphics,
and arrangement and arrangement and arrangement line styles
options enhances the options mostly options sometimes and
layout and meaning enhance the layout enhance the layout arrangement
of the survey. of the survey. of the survey. options do
not enhance
the layout of
the survey.
Content All essential Most of the essential Some of the essential One or fewer
questions are questions are questions are essential
properly addressed. properly addressed. properly addressed. questions are
addressed.
Spelling/ All words are spelled Most words are Most words are Numerous
correctly. Grammar, spelled spelled spelling
Grammar punctuation, spacing correctly. Grammar, correctly. Grammar, errors.
and word usage are punctuation, spacing punctuation, spacing Grammar,
appropriate. and word usage are and word usage have punctuation,
mostly appropriate. some errors. spacing and
word usage
have a
number of
errors.
Utility Easy to use and Easy to follow. Choppy, but gets the Difficult to
pleasant to look at. job done. follow and is
jumbled.
Total Score
What is It
Questionnaires provide a relatively cheap, quick and efficient way of obtaining large
amounts of information from a large sample of people. Data can be collected
relatively quickly because the researcher would not need to be present when the
questionnaires were completed. This is useful for large populations when interviews
would be impractical. However, a problem with questionnaires is that respondents
may lie due to social desirability. Most people want to present a positive image of
themselves and so may lie or bend the truth to look good, e.g., learners would
exaggerate revision duration.
Closed Questions
Closed questions structure the answer by only allowing responses which fit into
pre-decided categories. Data that can be placed into a category is called nominal
data. The category can be restricted to as few as two options, i.e., dichotomous (e.g.
“yes” or “no” “male” or “female”) or include quite complex lists of alternatives from
which the respondent can choose (e.g., polytomous).
Closed questions can also provide ordinal data (which can be ranked). This often
involves using a continuous rating scale to measure the strength of attitudes or
emotions. For example, strongly agree / agree / neutral / disagree / strongly
disagree / unable to answer. Closed questions have been used to research type A
personality (e.g., Friedman & Rosenman, 1974), and also to assess life events
which may cause stress (Holmes & Rahe, 1967), and attachment (Fraley, Waller, &
Brennan, 2000).
Strengths
• They can be economical. This means they can provide large amounts of
research data for relatively low costs. Therefore, a large sample size can be
obtained which should be representative of the population, which a
researcher can then generalize from.
• The respondent provides information which can be easily converted into
quantitative data (e.g., count the number of 'yes' or 'no' answers), allowing
statistical analysis of the responses.
• The questions are standardized. All respondents are asked exactly the same
questions in the same order. This means a questionnaire can be replicated
easily to check for reliability. Therefore, a second researcher can use the
questionnaire to check that the results are consistent.
Limitations
• They lack detail. Because the responses are fixed, there is less scope for
respondents to supply answers which reflect their true feelings on a topic.
Open Questions
Open questions allow people to express what they think in their own words. Open-
ended questions enable the respondent to answer in as much detail as they like in
their own words. For example: “Can you tell me how happy you feel right now?” If
you want to gather more in-depth answers from your respondents, then open
questions will work better. These give no pre-set answer options and instead allow
the respondents to put down exactly what they like in their own words.
Open questions are often used for complex questions that cannot be answered in a
few simple categories but require more detail and discussion.
Lawrence Kohlberg presented his participants with moral dilemmas. One of the
most famous concerns a character called Heinz who is faced with the choice
between watching his wife die of cancer or stealing the only drug that could help
her.
Participants were asked whether Heinz should steal the drug or not and, more
importantly, for their reasons why upholding or breaking the law is right.
Strengths
• Rich qualitative data is obtained as open questions allow the respondent to
elaborate on their answer. This means the research can find out why a person
holds a certain attitude.
Limitations
• Time-consuming to collect the data. It takes longer for the respondent to
complete open questions. This is a problem as a smaller sample size may be
obtained.
• Time-consuming to analyze the data. It takes longer for the researcher to
analyze qualitative data as they have to read the answers and try to put
them into categories by coding, which is often subjective and difficult.
However, Smith (1992) has devoted an entire book to the issues of thematic
content analysis the includes 14 different scoring systems for open-ended
questions.
• Not suitable for less educated respondents as open questions require
superior writing skills and a better ability to express one's feelings verbally.
Questionnaire Design
Aims
Make sure that all questions asked address the aims of the research. However, use
only one feature of the construct you are investigating in per item.
Length
The longer the questionnaire, the less likely people will complete it. Questions
should be short, clear, and be to the point; any unnecessary questions/items
should be omitted.
Pilot Study
Run a small scale practice study to ensure people understand the questions. People
will also be able to give detailed honest feedback on the questionnaire design.
Question Order
Questions should progress logically from the least sensitive to the most sensitive,
from the factual and behavioral to the cognitive, and from the more general to the
more specific.
The researcher should ensure that the answer to a question is not influenced by
previous questions.
Terminology
There should be a minimum of technical jargon. Questions should be simple, to the
point and easy to understand.
The language of a questionnaire should be appropriate to the vocabulary of the
group of people being studied. Use statements which are interpreted in the same
way by members of different subpopulations of the population of interest.
For example, the researcher must change the language of questions to match the
social background of respondents' age / educational level / social class / ethnicity
etc.
Presentation
Make sure it looks professional, include clear and concise instructions. If sent
through the post make sure the envelope does not signify ‘junk mail.’
Ethical Issues
The researcher must ensure that the information provided by the respondent is
kept confidential, e.g., name, address, etc. This means questionnaires are good for
researching sensitive topics as respondents will be more honest when they cannot
be identified. Keeping the questionnaire confidential should also reduce the
likelihood of any psychological harm, such as embarrassment. Participants must
provide informed consent prior to completing the questionnaire, and must be aware
that they have the right to withdraw their information at any time during the
survey/ study.
The data might not be valid (i.e., truthful) as we can never be sure that the right
person actually completed the postal questionnaire.
Also, postal questionnaires may not be representative of the population they are
studying?
• This is because some questionnaires may be lost in the post reducing the
sample size.
• The questionnaire may be completed by someone who is not a member of the
research population.
• Those with strong views on the questionnaire’s subject are more likely to
complete it than those with no interest in it.
•
Determine Feasibility
Develop Instruments
Select Sample
Revise Instruments
Conduct Research
Analyze Data
Prepare Report
Establishing Goals. The first step in any survey is deciding what you want to learn.
The goals of the project determine whom you will survey and what you will ask
them. If your goals are unclear, the results will probably be unclear.
Selecting Your Sample. There are two main components in determining whom you
will interview. The first is deciding what kind of people to interview. Researchers
often call this group the target population. If you are trying to determine the likely
success of a product, the target population may be less obvious. Correctly
determining the target population is critical. If you do not interview the right kinds
of people, you will not successfully meet your goals. The next thing to decide is
how many people you need to interview. Statisticians know that a small,
representative sample will reflect the group from which it is drawn. The larger the
sample, the more precisely it reflects the target group.
Avoiding a Biased Sample. A biased sample will produce biased results. Totally
excluding all bias is almost impossible; however, if you recognize bias exists, you
can intuitively discount some of the answers Interviewing Methods.
Once you have decided on your sample you must decide on your method of data
collection. Each method has advantages and disadvantages.
Personal Interviews. An interview is called personal when the Interviewer asks the
questions face-to-face with the Interviewee. Personal interviews can take place in
the home, at a shopping mall, on the street, outside a movie theatre or polling
place, and so on.
Computer Direct Interviews. These are interviews in which the Interviewees enter
their own answers directly into a computer Email Surveys.
Email surveys are both very economical and very fast. More people have email than
have full Internet access. This makes email a better choice than a Web page survey
for some populations. Email surveys are limited to simple questionnaires.
Internet/Intranet (Web Page) Surveys. Web surveys are rapidly gaining popularity.
They have major speed, cost, and flexibility advantages, but also significant
sampling limitations. These limitations make software selection especially
important and restrict the groups you can study using this technique.
Questionnaire Design
General Considerations
1. The first rule is to design the questionnaire to fit the medium. People
responding to mail or Web surveys cannot easily ask “What exactly do you mean by
that?” if they do not understand a question. Personal questions are sometimes best
handled by mail or computer, where anonymity is most assured.
Researchers use three basic types of questions: multiple choice, numeric open
end and text open end. Examples of each kind of question follow:
Question Types. Researchers use three basic types of questions: multiple choice,
numeric open end and text open end. Examples of each kind of question follow:
Rating Scales and Agreement Scales are two common types of questions that
some researchers treat as multiple choice questions and others treat as numeric
open end questions. Examples of these kinds of questions are:
There are two broad issues to keep in mind when considering question and answer
choice order. One is how the question and answer choice order can encourage
people to complete your survey. The other issue is how the order of questions or the
order of answer choices could affect the results of your survey.
Ideally, the early questions in a survey should be easy and pleasant to answer.
These kinds of questions encourage people to continue the survey. Grouping
together questions on the same topic also makes the questionnaire easier to
answer.
Whenever possible leave difficult or sensitive questions until near the end of your
survey. If people quit at that point anyway, at least they will have answered most of
your questions.
Keep the questionnaire as short as possible. More people will complete a shorter
questionnaire, regardless of the interviewing method. If a question is not necessary,
do not include it.
Start with a Title (e.g., Leisure Activities Survey). Always include a short
introduction - who you are and why you are doing the survey.
Reassure your respondent that his or her responses will not be revealed to your
client, but only combined with many others to learn about overall attitudes.
Include a cover letter with all mail surveys. The most effective cover letters and
invitations include the following elements: Ask the recipient to take the survey.
Explain why taking it will improve some aspect of the recipient's life (it will help
improve a product, make an organization better meet their needs, make their
opinions heard). Appeal to the recipient's sense of altruism ("please help"). Ask the
recipient again to take the survey.
The last step in questionnaire design is to test a questionnaire with a small number
of interviews before conducting your main interviews. Ideally, you should test the
survey on the same kinds of people you will include in the main study. If that is not
possible, at least have a few people, other than the question writer, try the
questionnaire. This kind of test run can reveal unanticipated problems with
question wording, instructions to skip questions, etc. It can help you see if the
interviewees understand your questions and give useful answers.
If you change any questions after a pre-test, you should not combine the results
from the pre-test with the results of post-test interviews. Choosing sensible
questions and administering surveys with sensitivity and common sense will
improve the quality of your results dramatically.
(Updated: https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/5-common-survey-mistakes-
ruin-your-data/)
You may already know the questions you want to ask in your survey, but how you
write your survey questions can be the difference between a good and a bad survey.
How a question is written can alter your respondent’s perspective on an issue as
well as unintentionally force them to answer a question inaccurately.
So before you put pen to paper and start writing your questions, be sure to avoid
these 5 common survey mistakes:
Top survey mistake #1: Questions should never be worded in a way that’ll sway the
reader to one side of the argument. Usually you can tell a question is leading if it
includes non-neutral wording.
The word “short” immediately brings images to the mind of the respondent. If the
question is rewritten to be neutral-sounding, it can eliminate the leading bias.
Leading questions can also be the cause of unnecessary additions to the question.
The term “concerned parents” leads the respondent away from the topic at hand.
Instead, stay focused by only including what is needed in the question.
Good Question: Do you think special car seats should be required for infant
passengers?
By answering this question, the respondent is announcing that they drink beer.
However, many people dislike beer or will not drink alcohol and therefore can’t
answer the question truthfully.
Usually, loaded questions are best avoided by pretesting your survey to make sure
every respondent has a way to answer honestly.
In the case of the example above, you may choose to ask a preliminary question on
whether the respondent drinks beer and use skip logic to let people who don’t drink
beer pass over the questions that don’t apply to them.
What is a double-barreled question? It’s one of the most common survey mistakes.
And it’s when you force respondents to answer two questions at once. It’s also a
great way to ruin your survey results.
Survey questions should always be written in a way that only one thing is being
measured. If a single question has two subjects, it’s impossible to tell how the
respondent is weighing the different elements involved.
Bad Question: How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the pay and work benefits
of your current job?
In the case of the example above, it makes sense to break the question into two;
satisfaction with pay and satisfaction with work benefits. Otherwise, some of your
respondents will be answering the question while giving more weight to pay, and
others will answer giving more weight to work benefits.
Good Questions: How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the pay of your current
job? How satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the work benefits of your current
job?
It’s also easy to double-barrel a question by giving more than one group for the
respondent to consider.
Bad Question: How useful will this textbook be for students and young
professionals in the field?
Now the respondent is forced to give a single answer for both parties. Instead break
the question into two; one measuring usefulness for students and one measuring
usefulness for professionals.
Good Questions: How useful will this textbook be for students? How useful will this
textbook be for young professionals in the field?
Absolutes in questions force respondents into a corner where they can’t give useful
feedback. These questions usually have the options Yes/No and include wording
such as “always,” “all,” “every,” “ever,” etc.
Read literally, the example above would force almost any respondent to answer
“No.” Even then, there would be some respondents who would interpret the
question as asking whether they always eat a full breakfast when they have a
chance.
Good Question: How many days a week do you usually eat breakfast? (Every day/
5-6 days/ 3-4 days/ 1-2 days/ I usually don’t eat breakfast)
Regardless of who’s taking your survey, use clear, concise, and uncomplicated
language while trying to avoid acronyms, technical terms or jargon that may
confuse your respondents. And make sure to provide definitions or examples if you
need to include tricky terms or concepts. That way, you can be certain that almost
anybody can answer your questions easily, and that they’ll be more inclined to
complete your survey.
Good Question: Do you own a tablet PC? (e.g. iPad, Android tablet)
Bad Question: What was the state of the cleanliness of the room?
Good Question: How clean was the room?
Generally, you should strive to write questions using language that is easily
understood. Certain sample groups, however, may have a knowledge base that can
make the use of more difficult terms and ideas a viable option.
For example, if you are surveying patients in a hospital, you’ll want to avoid using
medical jargon. However, if your survey sample is made up of doctors, it makes
sense to ask more specialized questions and use higher level medical vocabulary.
What’s More
Now that you have known about survey questionnaires and how to design it, you
may now do well in the following activities.
A. WRITING A SURVEY: Decide which criteria have been violated in the writing of
this survey question. Rewrite the question to make it a good survey item.
(IT Module: Unit 1 Lesson 11 Pathways to Prosperity Network 9 @
https://ptopnetwork.jff.org/sites/default/files/IT%20L11.pdf)
1) Why do you enjoy listening to music?
Criteria violated
Rewritten question
2) How satisfied are you hearing music you like but you do not know the title of?
Criteria violated
Rewritten question
3) Experts believe that all consumers should comparison shop. Do you agree?
Criteria violated
Rewritten question
4) The government should force you to pay higher taxes.
Criteria violated
Rewritten question
Criteria violated
Rewritten question
Question 2: How satisfied are you hearing music you like but you do not know the
title of?
Positive comment
Constructive criticism
Question 3: Experts believe that all consumers should comparison shop. Do you
agree?
Positive comment
Constructive criticism
Now that you have done various activities to practice, let us see what you have
learned. Complete the statement below based on your learning from the previous
activities and discussion.
1. A is a research instrument consisting of a series of
questions for the purpose of gathering information from respondents.
3. KISS means .
What I Can Do
Choose only one of the given situations below then create your own questionnaire.
(Minimum of 10 questions)
A. You are planning to do a survey of people who suffered a heart attack. You want
to find out the prevalence of anxiety and depression, and to identify the factors
associated with these. Participants will be given a questionnaire at routine
follow-up outpatient visits.
The aim of the survey, then, is to measure depression and to record each of the risk
factors.
B. You want to make a survey of how teenagers cope with the new normal. You
want to find out the prevalence of anxiety and depression for being not able to
go out with friends, attend parties, do hiking, and the like, as they use to do
before the pandemic.
C. You want to make a survey on the preparedness of the learners on the new
education setting.
D. You are free to think of your own topic. Be sure to follow guidelines in
constructing your questions.
Assessment
Rating
Score
Category 4 3 2 1
Total Score
Additional Activities
Imagine that the manager of a designer clothing store believes that certain types of
people are more likely to visit their store and purchase their clothing than others.
To decipher which segment groups are most likely to be their customers, the
manager could design a survey for anyone who has been a visitor. This survey
could include closed-ended questions on gender, age, employment status, and any
other demographic information they’d like to know. Then, it would be followed by
questions on how often they visit the store and the amount of money they spend
annually. Since all the questions are closed-ended, the store manager could easily
quantify the responses and determine the profile of their typical customer. In this
case, the manager may learn that her most frequent customers are female
students, ages 18-25. This knowledge would allow her to move forward with an
action plan on how to cater to this niche better or break into other target
demographics. Make a sample questionnaire out of this situation. Use the rubrics
in What’s New to assess your questionnaire.
What I Have
Learned:
1. questionnaire
2. Closed Questions
What New: and Open-Ended Assessment:
Questions
Answers may vary 3. Keep it short and Answers may vary
simple.
4. Five common
survey mistakes
5. Loaded
Questions
What I Know: What’s In:
Additional
1. T 1. NO Activities:
2. F 2. YES
3. YES - Answers may vary
3. T
4. NO
4. F
5. NO
5. T
Answer Key
nstanceid=48026&dataid=131556&FileName=Survey%20Rubric.pdf
https://www.cabarrus.k12.nc.us/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?modulei •
https://ptopnetwork.jff.org/sites/default/files/IT%20L11.pdf •
your-data/
https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/5-common-survey-mistakes-ruin- •
https://surveytown.com/top-8-challenges-with-designing-accurate-surveys/ •
your-data/
https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/5-common-survey-mistakes-ruin- •
2/64739/16573194.cw/content/index.html
https://wps.pearsoned.co.uk/Research_Methods_for_Business_Students/25 •
https://www.statpac.com/surveys/ •
Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/questionnaires.html
McLeod, S. A. (2018). Questionnaire: definition, examples, design and types. •
https://canvas.hull.ac.uk/courses/367/pages/report-structure •
References
What’s More:
1) Why do you enjoy listening to music? Criteria violated: This question assumes that all people
enjoy listening to music. Rewritten question: Do you enjoy listening to music? With a follow-up
question that asks why.
2) How satisfied are you hearing music you like but you do not know the title of? Criteria violated:
This question could be worded a lot better to make it clearer. It is also not grammatically correct –
it ends with a preposition, of. Rewritten question: How satisfied are you hearing music to which
you do not know the title?
3) Experts believe that all consumers should comparison shop. Do you agree? Criteria violated:
The inclusion of the opinions of experts makes it seem that one is dumb if he or she disagrees.
Rewritten question: Consumers should comparison shop.
4) The government should force you to pay higher taxes. Criteria violated: The word ‘force’ is
leading towards a certain answer. It is a strong word. Rewritten question: Should taxpayers pay
higher taxes?
5) The product is wonderful. ___ Strongly Agree___ Agree ___Disagree ___Strongly Disagree Criteria
violated: This is NOT a Likert scale question; the Likert scale requires numbers. Rewritten
question: The product is wonderful. (Circle the number that represents your answer.) Strongly
Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Agree
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