Questionnaire Design

1. Questionnaire Design

2. Questionnaires • Inexpensive – postage and photocopies • Potential of large # of respondents • Easy to administer confidentially – embarrassing questions • More difficult to claim complete objectivity with questionnaire then with a tightly controlled lab test. • Ex. How long did it take you to learn software program?

3. Objectives of Survey • Need to have a clear goal and purpose • If not it will overlook important issues and waste participants time by asking useless questions. • Don’t ask broad and generalizing questions • Can’t identify a problem, cause or solution.

4. Writing the Questionnaire • Already decided what kind of data we are to measure and decided on a participant group. • Demographic information (beginning-easy) • Income – don’t ask unless you have rational for suspecting a variance across income levels. • If need personal info. Phrase your questions unobtrusively to avoid ruffling your participants.

5. Kinds of Questions • Open format – No predetermined set of responses. • Subjective data • Get unexpected and insightful suggestions • Usually at end of questionnaire to get ideas for changes or improvements. • Have to be read individually (more time and $) • Closed format – multiple choice • Objective data • Easy to calculate/tabulate • Easy to track opinion over time by administering the same questionnaire at regular intervals • Filter out useless or extreme answers that happen in open format questionnaires

6. Yes/No • Used only when asking for a response on ONE issue • Used as filter questions: • Ex. Have you for any reason taken your vehicle to have it services during the last year? YES NO – Go to question 15

7. Multiple Choice • Comprehensive enough to include every possible response. • Make sure all options are covered some surveys have a space for the option “other”

8. Points that must be considered • Clarity • Causes the greatest # of mistakes • Goal – to eliminate the chance that the question will mean different things to different people Ex. Very Often or 5 – 10 times a week • Leading • Forces or implies a certain type of answer. Ex. Superb, Excellent, Great, Good, Fair, Not Good

9. Embarrassing • Avoid – If uncomfortable you will lose their trust. • Hypothetical • If you were governor, what would you do • Never considered – doesn’t produce clear data • Prestige Bias • Answer in a way to make them feel better • Make questionnaire private – telephone is better than one-on-one. The farther away the researcher is the more honest the answers

10. Guidelines for writing ?s • Avoid bias • Avoid causing respondent to guess at meaning of ? • Ex. How many students in your HS drink coffee on a daily basis? • Less than 10 • 10-49 • 50-99 • 100-149

11. Now What? • Observe a few test questionnaire takers. • Work together to solve the problems. • Remember: One does not collect data and then see if they found something interesting. One forms a hypothesis and an experiment that will help prove or disprove the hypothesis. • A questionnaire is only as good as the questions it contains

12. Grade • Size Appropriate/Layout • No white space – make 2-3/page • Easy to tabulate • Content • Company name or logo (unless?) • # of questions • Types of questions: Product, Service, Price • Extras • Incentives/Thank you for time/Slogan/rational for survey

13. Formatting • Must have an excellent visual appearance and design to appeal to respondents. • Easy to read (dark ink, white page) • Numbers – respondents more likely to respond to all sections and questions if they are identified an numbered.

14. Rating Scale • Rate a product based on a scale • Vary satisfied to very dissatisfied Level of Agreement • Assessing Attitudes or opinions. • Strongly agree to strongly disagree

15. Your Task • Create a 10 question (max) survey regarding your product. • It will be given out this week to a minimum of 75 students/faculty • All surveys are due to me on Friday!