What Makes a Good Questionnaire?

1. What Makes a Good Questionnaire? Handling Data Designing Structure, Capturing and Presenting Data This icon indicates the slide contains activities created in Flash. These activities are not editable. For more detailed instructions, see the Getting Started presentation.

2. Questioning the question I wonder what type of questions they are.

3. Our questioner meets the closed question….. Hi. Do you usually hang out here? Have you seen any other questions? Will you be staying long? Are you going off now? Yes. No. No. Yes.

4. Our questioner meets the closed question….. So typical! A closed question always asks things that require an either/or answer, like ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

5. Our questioner meets the open question….. Hi, how’s it going? What are your plans, are you hanging about? Great. Have just been speaking to a closed question – very short and sweet. It depends on whether I meet anyone I fancy. Catch you later.

6. Our questioner meets the open question….. Wow! Now there’s a question I can enjoy speaking to! Open questions allow me to say exactly what I want.

7. Our questioner meets the order of priority question….. Tell me, in what order do you prefer the following – work, rest and play? And if you could change your colour, what three colours would you choose, in priority order? Well, play would be first, rest would be second and work would be third. Hmm, black would be my first choice, followed by pink, and my third choice is white.

8. Our questioner meets the order of priority question….. Now, there’s a question that has everything in priority order. Well, I guess that’s one way of finding things out.

9. Our questioner meets the multiple-choice question….. I am conducting a survey to find the preferred dessert. Ice-cream, chocolate, or fruit pie? And how many times do you eat chocolate a week? 1–2 times, 3–4 times or more? Chocolate, any day. 1–2 times would be my choice.

10. Our questioner meets the multiple-choice question….. Those questions were easy to answer!

12. Questioning the question Before you ask a question: • think about the answer you want to get before deciding on the type of question to ask • think about how much detail you need in the answer • think how quickly you can then collate all the answers together • think how many different answers you want. Question the question!

13. My theory is… Hypothesis Other words to describe a hypothesis are: • a belief • a theory • an assumption

14. When you hypothesize,you have a theorywhich then has to be proved or disproved. You may have used a hypothesis in science, and then carried out an experiment to test the hypothesis. An example of a hypothesis: “Teenage girls spend more money on their phones than boys.” • to test the hypothesis a survey is conducted • the results are analysed • a report on the results is written which will prove or disprove the hypothesis.

15. Teenage girls spend more money on their mobile phones than boys. Now there’s a job for a few questions! If some different questions got together to produce a survey/questionnaire, then the hypothesis can be tested.

16. To tally or not to tally A survey can be conducted using a questionnaire or a tally. • Questionnaire • a set of questions with possible answers on one document • the questionnaire is copied and handed out for each individual to complete by ticking boxes • questionnaires are then collected and analysed. • Tally • a set of questions with possible answers on one document. • the tally is all done on one sheet. Individuals are asked the questions and answers are marked on the same document • the tally sheet is then counted and analysed.

17. Questionnaire Please tick the relevant boxes, and write in the spaces provided. What is your gender? male □ female Do you have a mobile phone? yes □ no What do you use the phone for?(place in order of most use; 1 = most, 4 = least) 1□ text 2□ calls 3□ games 4□ WAP How much money do you spend on contract/top-up cards per month? □ £0–5  £5–10 □ £10–15 □ £15+ How much money have you spent on accessories in the last three months? □ £0–5 □ £5–10  £10–15 □ £15+ What has been your biggest expense on your phone? new cover

18. Tally What is your gender? male 1111 female 11 Do you have a mobile phone? yes 11111 no 1 What do you use the phone for? (place in order of most use; 1 = most, 4 = least) text 1 2 3 1 1 2 calls 2 1 2 3 2 1 games 3 3 1 2 3 4 WAP 4 4 4 4 4 3

21. Summary – types of questions • There are differenttypes of questions. A closed question has a yes/no or either/oranswer. Openquestions have answers of any length. Order of priority questions have more than one answer in order of preference. Multiple choice questions allow a choice of one from a selection. • Think about the answer before deciding on the question. What can I remember?

22. Summary – collecting answers • Ahypothesisis atheorywhich has to be proved or disproved. • A surveycan be carried out using a tallyor a questionnaire. • Copies of a questionnaire are given to each person answering the questions. • Only one master document is kept for a tally. • A questionnaire is useful to analyse individual answers. • A tally is quickerto complete but givesless information. What can I remember? The End