DESIGNING A SURVEY

INSTRUMENT
Definition
• Questionnaire is a tool/instrument made of set of questions.
=> a set of printed or written questions with a choice of answers,
devised for the purposes of a survey or statistical study.
ROSSETT’S QUESTION TYPES (1982)
• Problems
• Priorities
• Abilities
• Attitudes
• Solutions
TYPES OF QUESTIONS (PATTON, 1987)
• Behaviour/Experience
• Opinion/Value
• Feelings
• Knowledge
• Sensory
• Demographic/ Background
Functions of surveys
• Biodata surveys
• Opinion surveys
• Self-ratings
• Judgements
• Q-sort
Response formats
• Closed responses: respondents select the answer of their choice.
• Open responses: respondents create the answer in their own words.
Open-response questions
• Fill-in questions
Open-response questions
• Short-answer questions
Closed-response questions
• Alternative-answer questions
Closed-response questions
• Likert-scale questions
Closed-response questions
• Checklist questions
Closed-response questions
• Ranking questions
Guidelines for writing a survey question
• Think about the form
• Question length
• Question clarity
• Negative questions
• Incomplete questions
• Overlapping choices
• Questions across pages
Guidelines for writing a survey question
• Thinking about the meaning
• Double-barreled questions
• Loaded words
• Leading questions
• Prestige questions
• Embarrassing questions
• Biased questions
Guidelines for writing a survey question
• Thinking about the respondents
• Level of language
• Questions unable to answer
• Not everyone has an answer
• Questions that don’t apply
• Irrelevant questions
• Superfluous information
Guidelines to write a polished questionnaire
Gallup’s quintamensional plan of question
design (1947)
• Awareness
• General opinion
• Specific opinions
• Reasons
• Intensity