# Welcome to SMIRK - Unit
8 Questionnaire and
survey design

- Quantitative research and surveys
- Questionnaire design
- Types of question
- General principles when writing questions
- Question order
- Layout and piloting
- Summary
- Back to main index

######
SMIRK Questionnaire Design by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.bath.ac.uk/students/support/academic/projects/Questionnaire.pdf.

# Quantitative research
and surveys

- Involves information or data in the form of numbers
- Allows us to measure or to quantify things
- Respondents don’t necessarily give numbers as answers - answers are analysed as numbers
- A good example of quantitative research is the survey.

What is survey research?
Many research projects and dissertations need the collection of primary data from individuals. Questionnaires are often a good way to gather such information and views. However, a badly designed questionnaire may get only unusable responses or none at all. It is important to be able to identify and avoid any pitfalls of questionnaires to ensure a successful result.

What do you want to know?
Before you even write the first question, it is important that you have a very clear idea about what you want your questionnaire to achieve. Our section on defining a research question should help you with this. Write down your research goals, and think about what information you need to get from respondents to meet them. Think also about how you are going to analyse each question to get the results you need. Remember there is a difference between things you need to know, and those it would be nice to know. Eliminate unnecessary lines of questioning at the planning stage.

######
SMIRK Questionnaire Design by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.bath.ac.uk/students/support/academic/projects/Questionnaire.pdf.

# Questionnaire design

The aim of questionnaire design is to get as many responses as you can that are usable and accurate. To maximise your response rate:

- give your questionnaire a short and meaningful title
- keep the questionnaire as short and succinct as possible
- offer incentives for responding if appropriate
- be creative – use different colours and images to make it attractive; and
- make it convenient – there are many websites on the internet you can use to disseminate surveys.

Who should you ask?
It may not be possible to survey every person who could provide a useful response to your questionnaire. So you may need to choose a sample from your population to survey. The population represents all the members of the group you are interested in, whilst the sample is the subset of the population selected to receive the questionnaire. The respondents are the subset of the sample that return completed questionnaires. You should make sure that your sample is representative of the population which you are studying. You may need to stratify the sample to cover different ages, genders, or socioeconomic groups, for example.

Clear instructions
Maximise your response rate by providing clear information and instructions:

- State who you are.
- Outline what the purpose of the survey is and why their response is important.
- Explain how answers will be treated with confidentiality and anonymity (unless agreed with the respondent).
- Provide clear instructions as to how each question should be answered, for example, whether you are expecting one or more answers or whether answers should be ranked - and if so, is 1 high or low?
- How to return the questionnaire and by what date

####

######
SMIRK Questionnaire Design by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.bath.ac.uk/students/support/academic/projects/Questionnaire.pdf.

# Types of question

There are many different types of question you can use to get the information you need. Generally, the questions will either be open or closed. An open question allows the respondent to use their own words to answer (“What do you think are the main causes of racism?”), whilst a closed question gives pre-defined options (“Which of the following do you think are the main causes of racism: a, b, c, d”). Some advantages and disadvantages of each are in the table below:

Open questions | Closed questions
--- | ---
Gets “rich” qualitative data | Elicits quantitative data
Encourages thought and freedom of expression | Can encourage ‘mindless’ replies
May discourage responses from less literate respondents | Are easy for all literacy levels to respond to
Takes longer to answer and may put some people off | Are quick to answer and may improve your response rate
Are more difficult to analyse; responses can be easily misinterpreted | Are easy to ‘code’ and analyse

####

######
SMIRK Questionnaire Design by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.bath.ac.uk/students/support/academic/projects/Questionnaire.pdf.

# General principles
when writing questions

- Avoid leading questions: “Wouldn’t you say that…”, “Isn’t it fair to say…”
- Be specific: Avoid words like “regularly”, “often”, or “locally” – as everyone’s idea of what is regular, often or local will be different.
- Avoid jargon and colloquialisms: This may confuse the meaning of the question.
- Avoid double-barrelled questions: “Do you enjoy playing badminton and tennis?” or “Do you agree with the recommendations of the Stern Review on the economics of climate change?” Ask for one piece of information at a time.
- Avoid double negatives: Instead of asking respondents whether they agree with the negative statement, “Smoking in public places should not be abolished”, use the positive “Smoking in public places should be abolished”.
- Minimise bias: People sometimes answer questions in a way they perceive to be socially acceptable. Make it easy for respondents to admit social lapses by wording questions carefully. For example, “How many times have you broken the speed limit because you were late?” could be rephrased, “Have you ever felt under pressure to drive over the speed limit in order to keep an appointment?” Then you could ask, “How many times have you prioritised the appointment over keeping the speed limit?”
- Handling difficult or embarrassing questions: To encourage a greater response to difficult questions, explain why you need to know that information:“It would be very helpful if you could give us some information about yourself to help us put your answers in context.”
- Ensure options are mutually exclusive: “How many years have you worked in academia: 0-5, 6-10, 11-15, over 15.” Not “0-5, 5-10, 10-15…”

####

######
S
SMIRK Questionnaire Design by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.bath.ac.uk/students/support/academic/projects/Questionnaire.pdf.

# Question order

Once you’ve got your list of questions, you need to think about the order in which they appear. Here are some general principles:

- Put the most important items in first half of questionnaire: Many people don’t complete questionnaires. This will ensure you get the most significant data from nonfinishers.
- Don’t start with awkward or embarrassing questions: respondents may just give up.
- Start with easy and non-threatening questions: This encourages respondents to continue with the questionnaire.
- Go from the general to the particular.
- Go from factual to abstract questions.
- Go from closed to open questions.
- Leave demographic and personal questions until last.

####

######
SMIRK Questionnaire Design by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.bath.ac.uk/students/support/academic/projects/Questionnaire.pdf.

# Layout and piloting

The appearance of your questionnaire will go a long way towards encouraging (or discouraging) responses. Always allow enough room for respondents to answer questions and provide plenty of white space between questions so the questionnaire doesn’t look too ‘busy’. Use clear headings and numbering if appropriate. Although it’s tempting to use smaller fonts in order to squeeze your questionnaire onto a smaller number of pages, don’t make it so small that it becomes illegible. A minimum of 11pt should be used.

#### Piloting your questionnaire

Having created your questionnaire, it is important that you test it out on a small target group before you circulate it more widely. This will not only help you pick up any typographical errors, but highlight any ambiguity in the wording of your questions. You may also discover that in order to analyse the data in the way you want, you need some extra questions. Or you may find out that some questions are superfluous. Give your pilot group the same information that you intend to give your target population - and a deadline!

#### Ethical approval

Once you have settled on the design of your questionnaire. You may need to get approval to run it on patients or members of the public. You may need to make sure that it follows our codes of ethics. Talk to your tutor who will be able to tell you which procedures to follow.

####

######
S
SMIRK Questionnaire Design by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.bath.ac.uk/students/support/academic/projects/Questionnaire.pdf.

# Summary

Try not to be distracted from the main aims of your survey. Read our section on research design which will help you focus on the aims of your research and the best ways to achieve them.

Above all, remember the difference between things that may be intersting to know and things that are necessary to complete your research project. Do not allow yourself to be distracted!

Good luck!

####

######
SMIRK Questionnaire Design by Marion Kelt, GCU is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.bath.ac.uk/students/support/academic/projects/Questionnaire.pdf.