Saturday, July 2, 2011

Designing a Questionnaire for Research

A questionnaire is one of the important tools for collecting data through primary research. However, there are some important points that should be considered while designing a questionnaire:

Decide required information:

Researcher should be deciding all those information that is to ask from the respondent. All these information should be accurate and relevant with the research, because it is important to achieve research objective. If the information will be wrong, then objective cannot be achieved. A researcher decides about the information that is to be asked (Zikmund, 2003).

Decide target respondent:

A researcher should be deciding sample size of the research, so that it has been clear to identify the target population. A researcher decides two main components for interview. First is the target group from whom this will be conducted and other is the sample size of respondent (Survey Design, 2010).

Way to reach respondents:

A researcher decided the way for interview to the respondent to collect information. Researcher can conduct personal interviews, group or focus interviews, mailed questionnaires, telephone interviews etc. mostly, Personal and group interview are most used in the research (Survey Design, 2010).

Phrasing questions:

Phrasing of question is categorized by two basic types, are open ended and close ended. In open ended respondent have some problems, because researcher may more questions like, anything else? Could you tell me more about this? In case of close ended question respondent have certain option to answer, so there is rare problem (Zikmund, 2003).

Order and format:

A questionnaire should in certain format. It means starting questions should be easy and simple. Flow of question should be in psychological order, so that first lead naturally and easily to next. These should be in the knowledge and experience of respondents, so they feel comfort giving answer. All the questions should be more attractive and not impatient to give answer, because questionnaire may take half an hour to one hour.

Length of questionnaire:

A questionnaire should be limited so that it can be answered in a short time period. There are three types of questionnaire regarding length. In clinical questionnaire four pages, the same questionnaire plus the Europol five pages, and the same questionnaire plus the SF-12 seven pages, it should be short and sweet.

Pre-testing the questionnaire:

Once a questionnaire is made, it should be tested before using in the real study. Questionnaire should be checked in concern of question format, wording, and order. It will also helpful to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the survey. A researcher also tests validity and reliability of the questionnaire by pre-testing method (Pershing, 2006).

Developing final survey form:

A successful survey contains a well designed questionnaire and it gives good response. All the questions should be relevant and clear, so it makes it easy. It is the final outline of the form, which contain a set of questions for respondents. All these questions should be in a right mode (Siniscalco, & Auriat 2005).

Conclusion

Questionnaire is design for good survey results that is very effective for research. In the questionnaire, response and participation of respondent is valuable, because it is most important to complete the research objectives. Questionnaire plays an important role for generating new data and studies.

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References
Pershing, J.A. (2006) Handbook of human performance technology: principles, practices, and potential 3rd ed. San Francisco: John Wiley and Sons.
Siniscalco, M. T. & Auriat, N. (2005) Quantitative research methods in educational planning: Questionnaire Design [Online]. Available at: http://www.iiep.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Cap_Dev_Training/Training_Materials/Quality/Qu_Mod8.pdf [Accessed: 30 June 2011].
Survey Design. (2010) [Online]. Available at: http://www.surveysystem.com/sdesign.htm [Accessed: 30 June 2011].
Zikmund, W. G. (2003) Business Research Methods 7th ed. New Delhi: South-Western Cangage Learning.

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