Research Questionnaire

How to Develop a Questionnaire for Research

A questionnaire is a technique for collecting data in which a respondent provides answers to a

series of questions. To develop a questionnaire that will collect the data you want takes effort and
time. However, by taking a step-by-step approach to questionnaire development, you can come
up with an effective means to collect data that will answer your unique research question.

Designing Your Questionnaire

1
Identify the goal of your questionnaire. What kind of information do you want to gather with
your questionnaire? What is your main objective? Is a questionnaire the best way to go about
collecting this information?
o Come up with a research question. It can be one question or several, but this
should be the focal point of your questionnaire.
o Develop one or several hypotheses that you want to test. The questions that you
include on your questionnaire should be aimed at systematically testing these hypotheses.

2
Choose your question type or types. Depending on the information you wish to gather, there
are several possible types of questions to include on your questionnaire, each with unique pros
and cons. Here are the types of commonly used questions on a questionnaire:
o Dichotomous question: this is a question that will generally be a yes/no
question, but may also be an agree/disagree question. It is the quickest and simplest question to
analyze, but is not a highly sensitive measure.
o Open-ended questions: these questions allow the respondent to respond in their
own words. They can be useful for gaining insight into the feelings of the respondent, but can be
a challenge when it comes to analysis of data. It is recommended to use open-ended questions to
address the issue of why.
o Multiple choice questions: these questions consist of three or more mutually-
exclusive categories and ask for a single answer or several answers. Multiple choice questions
allow for easy analysis of results, but may not give the respondent the answer they want.
o Rank-order (or ordinal) scale questions: this type of question asks your
respondent to rank items or choose items in a particular order from a set. For example, it might
 ask your respondents to order five things from least to most important. These types of questions
forces discrimination among alternatives, but does not address the issue of why the respondent
made these discriminations.
o Rating scale questions: these questions allow the respondent to assess a particular
issue based on a given dimension. You can provide a scale that gives an equal number of positive
and negative choices, for example, ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. These
questions are very flexible, but also do not answer the question why.
3
Develop questions for your questionnaire. The questions that you develop for your
questionnaire should be clear, concise, and direct. This will ensure that you get the best possible
answers from your respondents.
o Write questions that are succinct and simple. You should not be writing complex
statements or using technical jargon, as it will only confuse your respondents and lead to
incorrect responses.
o Ask only one question at a time. This will help avoid confusion
o Beware of asking for private or sensitive information. This can be something as
simple as age or weight, or something as complex as past sexual history.
Asking questions such as these usually require you to anonymize or
encrypt the demographic data you collect.
Determine if you will include an answer such as I dont know or Not
applicable to me. While these can give your respondents a way of not answering certain
questions, providing these options can also lead to missing data, which can be problematic
during data analysis.
Put the most important questions at the beginning of your
questionnaire. This can help you gather important data even if you sense that your respondents
may be becoming distracted by the end of the questionnaire.

4
Restrict the length of your questionnaire. Keep your questionnaire as short as possible. More
people will be likely to answer a shorter questionnaire, so make sure you keep it as concise as
possible while still collecting the necessary information. If you can make a questionnaire that
only requires 5 questions, do it.
Only include questions that are directly useful to your research question. A
questionnaire is not an opportunity to collect all kinds of information about your respondents.
 Avoid asking redundant questions. This will frustrate those who are taking
your questionnaire.

5
Identify your target demographic. Is there a certain group of people who you want to target
with your questionnaire? If so, it is best to determine this before you begin to distribute your
questionnaire.
Consider if you want your questionnaire to collect information from both
men and women. Some studies will only survey one sex.
Determine whether you want your survey to collect information from both
children and adults. Many surveys only target certain age ranges for which the questions are
applicable.
Consider including a range of ages in your target demographic. For
example, you can consider young adult to be 18-29 years old, adults to be 30-54 years old, and
mature adults to be 55+. Providing the age range will help you get more respondents than
limiting yourself to a specific age.
Consider what else would make a person a target for your questionnaire.
Do they need to drive a car? Do they need to have health insurance? Do they need to have a child
under 3? Make sure you are very clear about this before you distribute your questionnaire.
6
Ensure you can protect privacy. Make your plan to protect respondents privacy before you
begin writing your survey. This is a very important part of many research projects.
Consider an anonymous questionnaire. You may not want to ask for names
on your questionnaire. This is one step you can take to prevent privacy, however it is often
possible to figure out a respondents identity using other demographic information (such as age,
physical features, or zipcode).
Consider de-identifying the identity of your respondents. Give each
questionnaire (and thus, each respondent) a unique number or word, and only refer to them using
that new identifier. Shred any personal information that can be used to determine identity.
Remember that you do not need to collect much demographic information
to be able to identify someone. People may be wary to provide this information, so you may get
more respondents by asking less demographic questions (if it is possible for your questionnaire).
 Make sure you destroy all identifying information after your study is
complete.

Writing your questionnaire

1
Introduce yourself. Your introduction should explain who you are, and what your credentials
are. You should clarify if you are working alone or as a part of a team. Include the name of the
academic institution or company for whom you are collecting data. Here are some examples:
o Im Kelly Smith, a 6th form student at Campion College. This questionnaire is part
of my final exam in Communication Studies.
2
Explain the purpose of the questionnaire. Many people will not answer a questionnaire
without understanding what the goal of the questionnaire is. No long explanation is needed;
instead, a few concise sentences will do the trick. Here are some examples:
o This questionnaire will ask you 15 questions about your eating and exercise
habits. We are attempting to make a correlation between healthy eating, frequency of exercise,
and incidence of cancer in mature adults.
3
Reveal what will happen with the data you collect. Are you collecting these data for a class
project, or for a publication? Are these data to be used for market research? Depending on what
you intend to do with the data you collect from your questionnaire, there may be different
requirements that you need to pay attention to before distributing your survey.
o Remember that transparency is best. It is important to be honest about what will
happen with the data you collect.
o Include an informed consent form, if necessary. Note that you cannot guarantee
confidentiality, but you will make all reasonable attempts to ensure that you protect their
information.
4
Estimate how long the questionnaire will take. Before someone sits down to take your
questionnaire, it may be helpful for them to know whether the questionnaire will take them 10
 minutes or 2 hours. Providing this information at the onset of your questionnaire is more likely to
get you more complete questionnaires in the end.
o Time yourself taking the survey. Then consider that it will take some people
longer than you, and some people less time than you.
o Provide a time range instead of a specific time. For example, its better to say that
a survey will take between 15 and 30 minutes than to say it will take 15 minutes and have some
respondents quit halfway through.
o Use this as a reason to keep your survey concise! You will feel much better asking
people to take a 20 minute survey than you will asking them to take a 3 hour one.
5
Describe any incentives that may be involved. An incentive is anything that you can offer as a
reward at the end of the questionnaire. Incentives can be many types of things: they can be
monetary, desired prizes, gift certificates, candy, etc. There are both pros and cons to offering
incentives.
o Incentives can attract the wrong kind of respondent. You dont want to incorporate
responses from people who rush through your questionnaire just to get the reward at the end.
This is a danger of offering an incentive.
o Incentives can encourage people to respond to your survey who might not have
responded without a reward. This is a situation in which incentives can help you reach your
target number of respondents.
o Consider the strategy used by SurveyMonkey. Instead of directly paying
respondents to take their surveys, they offer 50 cents to the charity of their choice when a
respondent fills out a survey. They feel that this lessens the chances that a respondent will fill out
a questionnaire out of pure self-interest.
o Consider entering each respondent into a drawing for a prize if they complete the
questionnaire.
6
Make sure your questionnaire looks professional. Because you want people to have
confidence in you as a data collector, your questionnaire must have a professional look.
o Always proof read. Check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.
o Include a title. This is a good way for your respondents to understand the focus of
the survey as quickly as possible.
o Thank your respondents. Thank them for taking the time and effort to complete
your survey.
 Distributing Your Questionnaire
1
Do a pilot study. Ask some people you know to take your questionnaire (they will not be
included in any results stemming from this questionnaire), and be prepared to revise it if
necessary. Plan to include 5-10 people in the pilot testing of your questionnaire. Get their
feedback on your questionnaire by asking the following questions:
o Was the questionnaire easy to understand? Were there any questions that confused
you?
o Was the questionnaire easy to access? (Especially important if your questionnaire
is online).
o Do you feel the questionnaire was worth your time?
o Were you comfortable answering the questions asked?
o Are there any improvements you would make to the questionnaire?
2
Disseminate your questionnaire. You need to determine the best way to disseminate your
questionnaire is. There are several common ways to distribute questionnaires: Use an online site,
such as SurveyMonkey.com. This site allows you to write your own questionnaire with their
survey builder, and provides additional options such as the option to buy a target audience and
use their analytics to analyze your data.
o Consider using the mail. If you mail your survey, always make sure you include a
self-addressed stamped envelope so that the respondent can easily mail their responses back.
Make sure that your questionnaire will fit inside a standard business envelope.
o Conduct face-to-face interviews. This can be a good way to ensure that you are
reaching your target demographic and can reduce missing information in your questionnaires, as
it is more difficult for a respondent to avoid answering a question when you ask it directly.
o Try using the telephone. While this can be a more time-effective way to collect
your data, it can be difficult to get people to respond to telephone questionnaires.
3
Include a deadline. Ask your respondents to have the questionnaire completed and returned to
you by a certain date to ensure that you have enough time to analyze the results.
o Make your deadline reasonable. Giving respondents up to 2 weeks to answer
should be more than sufficient. Anything longer and you risk your respondents forgetting about
your questionnaire.
o Consider providing a reminder. A week before the deadline is a good time to
provide a gentle reminder about returning the questionnaire. Include a replacement of the
questionnaire in case it has been misplaced by your respondent.

Types of Questionnaire Formats

There are two types of questionnaire questions, open-ended and closed-ended. Following
description will help you understand the format of questionnaire better, have a look:

1. Open Format Questions

Open format questions or open-ended questions give your audience an opportunity to express their
opinions in a free-flowing manner. These questions don't have predetermined set of responses and
the respondent is free to answer whatever he/she feels right. By including open format questions in
your questionnaire, you can get true, insightful and even unexpected suggestions. Qualitative
questions fall under this category.

An ideal questionnaire would include an open-ended question at the end of the questionnaire that
seeks feedback and/or suggestions for improvements from respondents.

Example of an Open Format Question

2. Closed Format Questions

Multiple choice questions, where respondents are restricted to choose among any of the given
multiple choice answers are known as closed format or closed-ended questions. There is no fixed
limit as to how many multiple choices should be given; the number can be even or odd.

One of the main advantages of including closed format questions in your questionnaire design is the
ease at performing preliminary analysis. These questions are ideal for calculating statistical data and
percentages, as the answers set is known. Closed ended questions can also be asked to different
groups at different intervals to efficiently track their opinion about a product/service/company over
time. Closed-ended questions can be further classified into 7 types.
Example of a Closed Format Question

Classification of Closed Format Questions for

Questionnaire Design
There are 7 ways in which pollsters can create polling or survey questions for their respondents to
collect accurate statistical data. Following is a list of 7 types of closed-ended questions that can be a
part of your questionnaire design:

A. 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 of a Closed-Ended Leading Question

B. 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 of a Closed-Ended Importance Question

C. 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 of a Closed-Ended Likert Question

D. Dichotomous Questions
These are simple questions that ask respondents to answer in a yes or no. One major drawback with
dichotomous questions is that it cannot analyze the answers between yes and no, there is no scope
for a middle perspective.

Example of a Closed-Ended Dichotomous Question

E. Bipolar Questions
Bipolar questions are the ones having two extreme answers written at the opposite ends of the
scale. The respondents are asked to mark their responses between those two.

Example of a Closed-Ended Bipolar Question

F. Rating Scale Questions
In rating scale questions, the respondents are asked to rate a particular issue on a scale that ranges
between poor to good. Rating scale questions usually have an even number of choices, so that
respondents are not given the choice of selecting a middle option.

Example of a Closed-Ended Rating Scale Question

G. Buying Propensity Questions

Buying propensity questions try to assess the future intentions of customers and determine
respondent's buying intention. These questions ask respondents if they want to buy a particular
product, what requirements they want to be addressed, and whether they would buy such a product
in future.

Example of a Closed-Ended Buying propensity Question

Questions to Be Avoided In a Questionnaire

There is something more important than knowing the questionnaire format and what type of
questions to be asked in a questionnaire. It is understanding, what questions need to be avoided in a
survey or poll.
Take care to avoid following type of questions when preparing a questionnaire:

1. Embarrassing Questions
Questions that ask respondents details about their personal and private matters are embarrassing
questions. Such types of questions are better to be avoided as you risk losing trust of your
respondents. Your respondents might also feel uncomfortable to answer such questions and might
refuse to answer your questionnaire altogether.

2. Positive/ Negative Connotation Questions

Since most verbs, adjectives and nouns in the English language have either a positive or negative
connotations, questions are bound to be taken as either positive or negative. While defining a
question, strong negative or positive overtones must be avoided. You will get different data
depending on the positive or negative connotation of your question. Ideal questions should have
neutral or subtle overtones.

3. Hypothetical Questions
Hypothetical questions are based on speculation and fantasy. An example of a hypothetical question
would be "If you were the CEO of an ABC organization what would be the changes that you would
bring?" Questions such as these, force respondents to give their ideas on a particular subject, and
generally the data collected through such questions are inconsistent and unclear. Hypothetical
questions should be avoided in questionnaires.