Questionnaire

A paper form, yet to be filled in by the respondent.

A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from respondents. Although they are often designed for statistical analysis of the responses, this is not always the case. The questionnaire was invented by Sir Francis Galton.

Questionnaires have advantages over some other types of surveys in that they are cheap, do not require as much effort from the questioner as verbal or telephone surveys, and often have standardized answers that make it simple to compile data. However, such standardized answers may frustrate users. Questionnaires are also sharply limited by the fact that respondents must be able to read the questions and respond to them. Thus, for some demographic groups conducting a survey by questionnaire may not be practical.

As a type of survey, questionnaires also have many of the same problems relating to question construction and wording that exist in other types of opinion polls.

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Types

A distinction can be made between questionnaires with questions that measure separate variables, and questionnaires with questions that are aggregated into either a scale or index. Questionnaires within the former category are commonly part of surveys, whereas questionnaires in the latter category are commonly part of tests.

Questionnaires with questions that measure separate variables, could for instance include questions on:

• preferences (e.g. political party)
• behaviors (e.g. food consumption)
• facts (e.g. gender)

Questionnaires with questions that are aggregated into either a scale or index, include for instance questions that measure:

• latent traits (e.g. personality traits such as extroversion)
• attitudes (e.g. towards immigration)
• an index (e.g. Social Economic Status)

Examples

• A food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) is a questionnaire to assess the type of diet consumed in people, and may be used as a research instrument. Examples of usages include assessment of intake of vitamins or toxins such as acrylamide.

Questionnaire construction

Main article: Questionnaire construction

Question types

Usually, a questionnaire consists of a number of questions that the respondent has to answer in a set format. A distinction is made between open-ended and closed-ended questions. An open-ended question asks the respondent to formulate his own answer, whereas a closed-ended question has the respondent pick an answer from a given number of options. The response options for a closed-ended question should be exhaustive and mutually exclusive. Four types of response scales for closed-ended questions are distinguished:

• Dichotomous, where the respondent has two options
• Nominal-polytomous, where the respondent has more than two unordered options
• Ordinal-polytomous, where the respondent has more than two ordered options
• (Bounded)Continuous, where the respondent is presented with a continuous scale

A respondent's answer to an open-ended question is coded into a response scale afterwards. An example of an open-ended question is a question where the testee has to complete a sentence (sentence completion item).

Question sequence

In general, questions should flow logically from one to the next. To achieve the best response rates, questions should flow from the least sensitive to the most sensitive, from the factual and behavioural to the attitudinal, and from the more general to the more specific.

Basic rules for questionnaire item construction

• Use statements which are interpreted in the same way by members of different subpopulations of the population of interest.
• Use statements where persons that have different opinions or traits will give different answers.
• Think of having an "open" answer category after a list of possible answers.
• Use only one aspect of the construct you are interested in per item.
• Use positive statements and avoid negatives or double negatives.
• Do not make assumptions about the respondent.
• Use clear and comprehensible wording, easily understandable for all educational levels
• Use correct spelling, grammar and punctuation.
• Avoid items that contain more than one question per item (e.g. Do you like strawberries and potatoes?).

Questionnaire administration modes

Main modes of questionnaire administration are:

• Face-to-face questionnaire administration, where an interviewer presents the items orally.
• Paper-and-pencil questionnaire administration, where the items are presented on paper.
• Computerized questionnaire administration, where the items are presented on the computer.
• Adaptive computerized questionnaire administration, where a selection of items is presented on the computer, and based on the answers on those items, the computer selects following items optimized for the testee's estimated ability or trait.

See also

• Statistical survey
• Computer-assisted personal interviewing
• Enterprise Feedback Management
• Questionnaire construction
• Structured interview
• Web-based experiments
• Quantitative marketing research
• Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

Further reading

• Foddy, W. H. (1994). Constructing questions for interviews and questionnaires: Theory and practice in social research (New ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Gillham, B. (2008). Developing a questionnaire (2nd ed.). London, UK: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
• Leung, W. C. (2001). How to conduct a survey. StudentBMJ, 9, 143-5.
• Mellenbergh, G. J. (2008). Chapter 10: Tests and questionnaires: Construction and administration. In H. J. Adèr & G. J. Mellenbergh (Eds.) (with contributions by D. J. Hand), Advising on research methods: A consultant's companion (pp. 211–234). Huizen, The Netherlands: Johannes van Kessel Publishing.
• Mellenbergh, G. J. (2008). Chapter 11: Tests and questionnaires: Analysis. In H. J. Adèr & G. J. Mellenbergh (Eds.) (with contributions by D. J. Hand), Advising on research methods: A consultant's companion (pp. 235–268). Huizen, The Netherlands: Johannes van Kessel Publishing.
• Munn, P., & Drever, E. (2004). Using questionnaires in small-scale research: A beginner's guide. Glasgow, Scotland: Scottish Council for Research in Education.
• Oppenheim, A. N. (2000). Questionnaire design, interviewing and attitude measurement (New ed.). London, UK: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.

External links

• The Question Bank
• Harmonised questions from the UK Office for National Statistics
• Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
• Hints for designing effective questionnaires - from the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation