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.
The aim of questionnaire design is to get as many responses as you can that are usable and accurate. To maximise your response rate:
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:
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 |
Once you’ve got your list of questions, you need to think about the order in which they appear. Here are some general principles:
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.
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!
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.
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!