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A Research Questionnaire
A Research Questionnaire
sample, or group of people, in order to gather data. Survey answers are used for research purposes, so it is
important that the questionnaire effectively represents the information it is intended to measure.
Therefore, questionnaire design should be viable in terms of relevance and ease of application.
1. Write a list of objectives. This should outline the kind of data you want to collect, as it will serve as
the basis for choosing your questions. For example, you may want to know how customers feel
about your new product, in which case your objectives may be to gauge customer responses to the
product's price range, ease of use, durability and concept.
2. Determine the type of questions your survey will use. There are 2 basic question formats:
Fixed-response/structured. Fixed-response questions provide research questionnaire respondents
with a specified set of possible answers, and require respondents to choose from those options.
Use fixed-response questions when you have a clear-cut way to define and categorize data that the
answers provide and when you are not looking for unique or original information from those you
are surveying. Examples of structured question formats include multiple choice, ranking, yes/no
and rating scale.
Open-ended/non-structured. Non-structured questions are good for collecting fresh, individual
ideas from respondents. However, it can be harder to systematically analyze, organize and
categorize data collected from open-ended questions. Any question that does not limit the scope of
the answer is open-ended.
7. Provide respondents with the information they will need in order to effectively
comply with the survey. In order to achieve the best results, questionnaire design should
amply prepare respondents in the following ways:
Explain the purpose of the survey questionnaire. When people understand the reasons
behind a line of questioning, they are more likely to volunteer accurate personal
information.
Give clear instructions for completing the questions. Explain the question format (i.e.
multiple choice, rating scale, etc.) and provide an example for how to appropriately answer
the question. Additional instructions may be to read the questions all the way through before
answering and/or to guess on an unknown question, rather than leave it blank.
Tell respondents how many questions the research questionnaire includes, and give an
estimated time frame for completion.
8. Revise the questionnaire as necessary. Each time you administer the survey, analyze
the results so that you can make changes that will improve the survey's efficacy.
If you find that certain questions are consistently being skipped, then those questions may
need to be reworded for clarity.
If respondents are unable to provide full answers due to space restraints, you can change the
layout.
If simple yes/no answers aren't providing you with the range of data you desire, then you
may want to change to a multiple choice format.