Questionnaire Design

1. Questionnaire Design (Source: W.G Zikmund, B.J Babin, J.C Carr and M. Griffin, Business Research Methods, 8th Edition, U.S, South-Western Cengage Learning, 2008)

2. Objetcives • Explain the significance of decisions about questionnaire design and wording • Define alternatives for wording open-ended and fixed-alternative questions • Summarize guidelines for questions that avoid mistakes in questionnaire design • Describe how the proper sequence of questions may improve a questionnaire • Discuss how to design a questionnaire layout

3. Questionnaire Quality and Design:Basic Considerations • Questionnaire design is one of the most critical stages in the survey research process. • A questionnaire (survey) is only as good as the questions it asks—ask a bad question, get bad results. • Composing a good questionnaire appears easy, but it is usually the result of long, painstaking work. • The questions must meet the basic criteria of relevance and accuracy.

4. Decisions in Questionnaire Design • What should be asked? • How should questions be phrased? • In what sequence should the questions be arranged? • What questionnaire layout will best serve the research objectives? • How should the questionnaire be pretested? Does the questionnaire need to be revised?

5. What Should Be Asked? • Questionnaire Relevancy • All information collected should address a research question in helping the decision maker in solving the current business problem. • Questionnaire Accuracy • Increasing the reliability and validity of respondent information requires that: • Questionnaires should use simple, understandable, unbiased, unambiguous, and nonirritating words. • Questionnaire design should facilitate recall and motivate respondents to cooperate. • Proper question wording and sequencing to avoid confusion and biased answers.

6. Wording Questions • Open-ended Response Questions • Pose some problem and ask respondents to answer in their own words. • Advantages: • Are most beneficial in exploratory research, especially when the range of responses is not known. • May reveal unanticipated reactions toward the product. • Are good first questions because they allow respondents to warm up to the questioning process. • Disadvantages: • High cost of administering open-ended response questions. • The possibility that interviewer bias will influence the answer. • Bias introduced by articulate individuals’ longer answers.

7. Wording Questions (cont’d) • Fixed-alternative Questions • Questions in which respondents are given specific, limited-alternative responses and asked to choose the one closest to their own viewpoint. • Advantages: • Require less interviewer skill • Take less time to answer • Are easier for the respondent to answer • Provides comparability of answers • Disadvantages: • Lack of range in the response alternatives • Tendency of respondents to choose convenient alternative

8. Types of Fixed-Alternative Questions • Simple-dichotomy (dichotomous) Question • Requires the respondent to choose one of two alternatives (e.g., yes or no). • Determinant-choice Question • Requires the respondent to choose one response from among multiple alternatives (e.g., A, B, or C). • Frequency-determination Question • Asks for an answer about general frequency of occurrence (e.g., often, occasionally, or never). • Checklist Question • Allows the respondent to provide multiple answers to a single question by checking off items.

9. Phrasing Questions for Self-Administered,Telephone, and Personal Interview Surveys • Influences on Question Phrasing: • The means of data collection—telephone interview, personal interview, self-administered questionnaire—will influence the question format and question phrasing. • Questions for mail, Internet, and telephone surveys must be less complex than those used in personal interviews. • Questionnaires for telephone and personal interviews should be written in a conversational style.

10. Reducing Question Complexity by Providing Fewer Responses for Telephone Interviews

11. Guidelines for Constructing Questions • Avoid complexity: Simpler language is better. • Avoid leading and loaded questions. • Avoid ambiguity: Be as specific as possible. • Avoid double-barreled items. • Avoid making assumptions. • Avoid burdensome questions that may tax the respondent’s memory. • Make certain questions generate variance.

12. What Is the Best Question Sequence? • Order bias • Bias caused by the influence of earlier questions in a questionnaire or by an answer’s position in a set of answers. • Funnel technique • Asking general questions before specific questions in order to obtain unbiased responses. • Filter question • A question that screens out respondents who are not qualified to answer a second question. • Pivot question • A filter question used to determine which version of a second question will be asked.

13. Flow of Questions to Determine the Level of Prompting Required to Stimulate Recall

14. What Is the Best Layout? • Traditional Questionnaires • Multiple-grid question • Several similar questions arranged in a grid format. • The title of a questionnaire should be phrased carefully: • To capture the respondent’s interest, underline the importance of the research • Emphasize the interesting nature of the study • Appeal to the respondent’s ego • Emphasize the confidential nature of the study • To not bias the respondent in the same way that a leading question might

15. Layout of a Page from a Telephone Questionnaire

16. Telephone Questionnaire with Skip Questions

17. Personal Interview Questionnaire

18. Example of a Skip Question

19. Internet Questionnaires • Graphical User Interface (GUI) Software • The researcher can control the background, colors, fonts, and other features displayed on the screen so as to create an attractive and easy-to-use interface between the user and the Internet survey. • Layout Issues • Paging layout - going from screen to screen. • Scrolling layout – entire questionnaire appears on one page and respondent has the ability to scroll down.

20. Internet Questionnaire Layout • Push Button • A small outlined area, such as a rectangle or an arrow, that the respondent clicks on to select an option or perform a function, such as submit. • Status Bar • A visual indicator that tells the respondent what portion of the survey he or she has completed. • Radio Button • A circular icon, resembling a button, that activates one response choice and deactivates others when a respondent clicks on it.

21. Internet Questionnaire Layout (cont’d) • Drop-down Box • A space saving device that reveals responses when they are needed but otherwise hides them from view. • Check Boxes • Small graphic boxes, next to an answers, that a respondent clicks on to choose an answer; typically, a check mark or an X appears in the box when the respondent clicks on it. • Open-ended Boxes • Boxes where respondents can type in their own answers to open-ended questions. • Pop-up Boxes • Boxes that appear at selected points and contain information or instructions for respondents.

22. Question in an Online Screening Survey for Joining a Consumer Panel

23. Alternative Ways of Displaying Internet Questions

24. Internet Questionnaire Layout (cont’d) • Software That Makes Questionnaires Interactive • Variable piping software • Allows variables to be inserted into an Internet questionnaire as a respondent is completing it. • Error trapping software • Controls the flow of an Internet questionnaire. • Forced answering software • Prevents respondents from continuing with an Internet questionnaire if they fail to answer a question. • Interactive help desk • A live, real-time support feature that solves problems or answers questions respondents may encounter in completing the questionnaire.

25. Pretesting and Revising Questionnaires • Pretesting Process • Seeks to determine whether respondents have any difficulty understanding the questionnaire and whether there are any ambiguous or biased questions. • Preliminary Tabulation • A tabulation of the results of a pretest to help determine whether the questionnaire will meet the objectives of the research.

26. Designing Questionnaires for Global Markets • Back Translation • Taking a questionnaire that has previously been translated into another language and having a second, independent translator translate it back to the original language. • A questionnaire developed in one country may be difficult to translate because equivalent language concepts do not exist or because of differences in idiom and vernacular.