Questionnaire & Form Design

Questionnaire & Form Design Ch 10

Questionnaire & Type of Interviewing Method • Selection of an appropriate questionnaire is the key to acquiring correct information • Questionnaire design depends upon the mode of its administration • In personal interviews, respondent can interact with the respondent and the see the questionnaire, hence complex and varied questions may be asked

Questionnaire & Type of Interviewing Method • In telephone interviews, the respondent interact with the respondent but the respondent cannot see the questionnaire • Thus, simple and short questions should be included • In CAPI and CATI, complex skip patterns and randomization of questions to eliminate order bias is possible.

Individual Question Content • Is the question necessary? • The researcher should ensure that every question asked contribute to the information needed • In certain situations, questions may be asked that are not directly related to the needed information • Are several questions needed instead of one? • It is always advisable to construct questions that elicit specific responses. Questions for which answers are to “guessed” are to be avoided

Individual Question Content • Are several questions needed instead of one? • Such questions are often termed as “double-barreled questions” • For example, consider the question “Do you think Coca-Cola is a tasty and refreshing soft-drink?” • The “yes” answer will presumably be clear, but what if the answer is “no”?. Does this mean that the respondent thinks that Coca-Cola is not tasty, that it is not refreshing, or that it is neither tasty nor refreshing?

Individual Question Content • Are several questions needed instead of one? • Another example of double-barreled questions is the “why” question • Consider the question “Why do shop at Motas?” • Most why questions about the use of a product or choice alternative involve two aspects: (1) attributes of the product, and (2) influences leasing to knowledge f it

Individual Question Content • Overcoming inability to answer • Researcher should not assume that respondents can provide accurate or reasonable answers to all questions. The reasons or factors causing an inaccurate response may include: • Lack of information to respondent • Respondent may not correctly remember • Respondent may be unable to articulate certain types of responses

Individual Question Content • Overcoming inability to answer • Is the respondent informed? • Improper selection of a respondent (interviewer error) may result in selecting a respondent who is not well informed about the topic • For instance, a wife may not be informed about the number of miles after which motor-car engine oil needs to be changed • In situations where most respondents are likely to be ill-informed about the topic of interest, filter questions that measure familiarity, product use, and past experience are asked before questions about topic itself

Individual Question Content • Overcoming inability to answer • Is the respondent informed? • For example assume that KESC wants to plan its power generation requirements for future. Now this a topic that require households to let know what electrical appliances they have, what is the electrical energy requirements for these appliance and their intentions about purchase of new electrical appliances

Individual Question Content • Is the respondent informed? • Being a highly technical topic, it would be advisable to include questions regarding familiarity of respondents with specification of electrical appliances in terms of electrical consumption, whether they have used the product before and if they have, what was their past experiences

Individual Question Content • Can the respondent remember? • Inability of a respondent to correctly answer a question may also arise from the inability of a respondent to correctly the recall the past event. This inability is attributed to faulty question construction and is therefore counted as “researcher error” • For example consider the question that asks a respondent about the frequency with which a respondent goes for a car wash. The question “what was your car mileage when you last had a car was?” is more likely to yield an incorrect response, as seldom people can remember exact mileage at the time of a car wash

Individual Question Content • Can the respondent remember? • The inability to remember leads to errors of omission, telescoping, and creation • Omission is the inability to recall an event that actually happened • Telescoping takes place when an individual compresses time be remembering an event as occurring more recently than it actually occurred

Individual Question Content • Can the respondent remember? • For example, consider the question “when was the last time, you took your family to a five-star hotel?” • For reasons of social desirability or sheer forgetfulness, the respondent may give a response that is more recent than it actually was • Creation error takes place when a respondent “remember” an error that actually did not occur • Again this may be due to the urge to give a socially desirable response. For instance, a respondent when asked about playing tennis at prestigious club may report in affirmative

Individual Question Content • Can the respondent articulate? • Articulation refers to the ability of phrasing your feeling about an experience • For instance, if respondents are asked to describe the atmosphere of a camp fire they have experienced, most of them would find it difficult to phrase • If the same respondents are provided with aids, such as picture cards, cue words, etc.

Individual Question Content • Overcoming unwillingness to answer? • A researcher must design questions that overcome the respondent’s unwillingness to respond to a particular question • The reasons for not willing to respond may be social desirability, sensitive nature of the information, or too much effort is required on part of the respondent to answer a particular question • For instance, when a respondent is asked to list all the departments in a super store, the respondent has to make a lot of effort to correctly recall all the sections and list them in case of an open-ended question

Individual Question Content • Overcoming unwillingness to answer? • If a survey asks respondents to state whether they have ever cheated on an exam during their academic career, majority of respondents are likely to give a negative reply as they might perceive giving a “yes” answer as socially undesirable • Questions relating to specific amounts of monthly household income or monthly receipts from a business are likely to meet refusals as respondents consider this information as sensitive to divulge (They may think that information could be used against them for taxation purposes)

Individual Question Content • Choosing question structure • Unstructured questions • Open-ended questions that respondents answer in their own words • Example may include questions about demographics, such as education, residence location, occupation, etc. • Open-ended questions usually are designed to elicit responses relating to perceptions, preferences, or attitudes • Open-ended questions allow respondents to express themselves more freely and thus much less biasing influences on responses • Open-ended questions are good as starting questions as they allow respondents to express general attitude and opinions

Individual Question Content • Choosing question structure • Unstructured questions • Open-ended questions Have their disadvantages as well. They are exposed to interviewer bias as a result of prompting rather than probing • Open-ended questions are difficult to precode as opposed to structured questions • Structured questions

Individual Question Content • Choosing question structure • Structured questions • Questions that prespecify the set of response alternatives and the response format. • A structured question could be multiple-choice, dichotomous, or scaled • Multiple-choice questions • In multiple choice question researcher provides a choice of answers and respondents are asked to select one or more of the alternatives given

Individual Question Content • Choosing question structure • Multiple-choice questions • Multiple-choice questions are easy to precode • Potential for interviewer bias is low • Chances of no-response are also minimal • Multiple-choice questions suffer from order or position bias. Order or position bias. Order or position bias refers to the tendency of certain respondents to pick a choice by the number or place of that particular item

Questionnaire & Form Design