What is questionnaire. Types of questionnaires

1.

Questionnaire

2.

What is Questionnaire
Types of questionnaires
一
二
Parts of a questionnaire
To design a questionnaire

3.

What is Questionnaire

4.

What is Questionnaire
Definition
Questionnaires are any written instruments that
present respondents with a series of questions or
statements to which they are to react either by
writing or their answers or selecting from among
existing answers.
The term “questionnaire” refers to an instrument for
the collection of data, usually in written form,
consisting of open/closed questions and other
probes requiring a response from subjects.

5.

A brief description
A survey study usually involves a relatively large
sample and is descriptive in nature. It either
describes the features of a few variables or the
relation between two or more variables.
A survey study may be cross-sectional, when data
are collected from different people at the same point
in time; it may be longitudinal , when data are
collected from the same group of people at different
points over a period of time.

6.

A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions for
the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Questionnaires can be
thought of as a kind of written interview. They can be carried out face to face, by
telephone, computer or post.
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 questionnaire 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., pupils would exaggerate revision
duration.
Questionnaires can be an effective means of measuring the behavior, attitudes,
preferences, opinions and, intentions of relatively large numbers of subjects
more cheaply and quickly than other methods. An important distinction is
between open-ended and closed questions.
Often a questionnaire uses both open and closed questions to collect data. This
is beneficial as it means both quantitative and qualitative data can be obtained.

7.

Types of questionnaires:

8.

Types of questionnaires:
Computer questionnaire.
Telephone questionnaire
In-house survey
Mail Questionnaire

9.

Computer questionnaire.
Respondents are asked to answer the questionnaire
which is sent by mail. The advantages of the
computer questionnaires include their inexpensive
price, time-efficiency, and respondents do not feel
pressured, therefore can answer when they have
time, giving more accurate answers. However, the
main shortcoming of the mail questionnaires is that
sometimes respondents do not bother answering
them and they can just ignore the questionnaire.

10.

Telephone questionnaire
. Researcher may choose to call potential
respondents with the aim of getting them to answer
the questionnaire. The advantage of the telephone
questionnaire is that, it can be completed during the
short amount of time. The main disadvantage of the
phone questionnaire is that it is expensive most of
the time. Moreover, most people do not feel
comfortable to answer many questions asked
through the phone and it is difficult to get sample
group to answer questionnaire over the phone.

11.

In-house survey
This type of questionnaire involves the researcher
visiting respondents in their houses or workplaces.
The advantage of in-house survey is that more
focus towards the questions can be gained from
respondents. However, in-house surveys also have
a range of
disadvantages which include being time consuming,
more expensive and respondents may not wish to
have the researcher in their houses or workplaces
for various reasons.

12.

Mail Questionnaire
This sort of questionnaires involve the researcher to
send the questionnaire list to respondents through
post, often attaching pre-paid envelope. Mail
questionnaires have an advantage of providing
more accurate answer, because respondents can
answer the questionnaire in their spare time. The
disadvantages associated with mail questionnaires
include them being expensive, time consuming and
sometimes they end up in the bin put by
respondents.

13.

Types of questionnaires:
Closed Questions
Limitations

14.

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).

15.

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.

16.

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.

17.

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.

18.

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.

19.

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.

20.

To design a questionnaire

21.

The main parts of a
questionnaire
1)Title
2)Instruction :
Instructions are of two types:
- general instruction at the beginning of the
questionnaire
- specific instructions introducing each new task
(3) Questionnaire items
(4) Additional information
(5) Final “thank you”

22.

Criteria for a good questionnaire:
Having high internal validity
By saying a questionnaire should have high
internal validity means that items in the
questionnaire must measure the variables
you really want to investigate. But some
researchers might fail to meet the criteria
because of lack of skills or experience.
Actually, having low internal validity is a
common flaw occurring in a questionnaire
constructed by a novice researcher.

23.

Taking a professional outlook
How a questionnaire looks can affect the attitude of
the respondents which in turn influence the quality
of their response.
1)You should avoid clipping or stating papers
together if a questionnaire contains more than 5
pages.
2)One question should not be printed across two
page.
3)You should avoid crowing questions together to
make the questionnaire looks shorter.
4)The paper for printing should be of high quality
and the printing itself must be clear and easy to read.

24.

Another classification method
1)Selecting the mode of administration.
Selecting the mode of administration.

25.

Two common models:
By person:
By mail:

26.

By person:
A group of subjects usually answer the same
questionnaire together. The organizer gives
the respondents instructions on how to
respond to the questionnaire and
clarifications if there are any ambiguous
items. The organizer can also check whether
the respondents has responded to all the
items and thus the rate of data can be greatly
reduced.

27.

By mail:
If the respondents are spread out in different
cities or even in different countries what you
can do is to mail the questionnaire to the
target people.
Researchers cannot control the overall
response rate of missing items. Even if a
questionnaire is returned ,s/he cannot be
sure that questionnaire is filled out by the
people s/he expected and under which
circumstances the questionnaire is completed.

28.

Specifying what kind of data
you intend to collect.
At this stage, you have to understand what kind of
data you really want to collect. There are five type of
information.
A. Experience/behaviour (what a respondent does)
B. Opinion (what a respondent thinks)
C. Feeling (what a respondent feels)
D. Knowledge/abilities (what a respondent knows
and what is he able to do)
E. Background (such as date of birth, age, gender,
martial status)

29.

Determining the way you
process the questionnaire data.
Individual- item-based
If the basic unit in the data analysis is an individual item, such as
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describing frequency and the mean of one isolate item, then such a
questionnaire is called individual- item-based.
The construction of such a questionnaire is comparatively simple and
easy because it does not involve setting up conceptual categories.
However, this kind of questionnaire has very limited value because its
results are less generalizable.
If the data-analysis is to be on categories , each of which contains a few

questionnaire items, you must established either by a top-down
approach or by a bottom-up approach.
By top-down approach you construct conceptual categories based on
logical arguments or exsisting theories theories before you design
specific items.
By bottom-up approach, you simply write down whatever items occur in
your mind. You then classify these items into categories.

30.

Deciding on the content of
individual item.
If a questionnaire is intended to contain several
categories , you have to consider whether the items
designed cover all the categories and whether each
categories contains an adequate number of items.
- Use ordinary words
- Avoid leading questions
- Using dual statements: positive and negative
- Being caution in translation

31.

Choosing questions structure.
There are two types of questions: open-ended questions or
unstructured questions.
Open-ended questions refers to those whose answers are in the

respondent’s own words and are difficult to predict. And these questions
are always begin with “wh-”. In fact, this type of question is typically
used to collect qualitative data.
In closed-questions or structured questions, the researcher provides

respondents with a set of response alternatives. In other words, the
respondents have to select one response out of the alternatives
provided. They do not have the freedom to use their own words to
express their response. The closed-questions may be multiple-choice,
dichotomous or a scale.
a. Multiple-choice: the researchers offers a set of answers and
respondents is expected to choose one or more alternatives given.
b. Dichotomous questions: it has only two alternatives to choose.
c. Scales: a scale is continuum upon which a set of alternative choices
are placed.

32.

Determining the order of
questions.
Background information first
General questions before specific questions

33.

Deciding the format of the
questionnaire.
Before you print out questionnaire, you need
to decide the format ,space and the position
of the question. Research find that questions
place at the top receive more attention than
the bottom.

34.

Conducting a pilot study to
test the questionnaire.
A pilot study is one in which a questionnaire
is tested on a small sample of respondents to
detect and overcome potential problems.

35.

Administering the
questionnaire
Approaching the subjects professionally
Trying to have face to face administrating
A good environment and suitable timing

36.

Designing a Questionnaire

37.

Designing a Questionnaire
With some questionnaires suffering from a
response rate as low as 5%, it is essential
that a questionnaire is well designed.
There are a number of important factors in
questionnaire design.

38.

Designing a Questionnaire
Aims
Length
Pilot Study
Question Order
Terminology
Presentation

39.

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.

40.

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.

41.

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.

42.

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.

43.

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.

44.

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.’

45.

ATTENTION
Ethical Issues

46.

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.

47.

Problems with Postal
Questionnaires
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?

48.

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.

49.

Benefits of a Pilot Study
A pilot study is a practice / small-scale study conducted before
the main study. It allows the researcher to try out the study with a
few participants so that adjustments can be made before the
main study, so saving time and money.
It is important to conduct a questionnaire pilot study for the
following reasons:
* Check that respondents understand the terminology used in the
questionnaire.
* Check that emotive questions have not been used as they
make people defensive and could invalidate their answers.
* Check that leading questions have not been used as they could
bias the respondent's answer.
* Ensure the questionnaire can be completed in an appropriate
time frame (i.e., it's not too long).

50.

Thanks