3. Background
The questionnaire was invented by Sir Francis Galton, a British
anthropologist, explorer and statistician in late 1800. Questionnaire forms
the backbone of any survey and the success of it lies in the designing of a
questionnaire
Definition
“A questionnaire is simply a list of mimeographed or printed questions that
is completed by or for a respondent to give his opinion”.
A questionnaire is the main means of collecting quantitative primary data.
Questionnaires should always have a definite purpose that is related to the
objectives of the research.
4. The primary purpose of a questionnaire is to extract data from
respondents. (in form of Interview, Opinion, and questionnaire)
It is an Inexpensive way to gather data from a potentially large number
of respondents (by mail, email or telephonic)
It helps to Increases speed and accuracy of recording
When properly constructed and responsibly administered It becomes a
very important tool for providing a standardized data gathering
procedure
5. know what needs to be measured
Having a clear picture and understanding of what data needs to be collected
contributes to the quality of data collection.
Understand how to word/frame question
Words should be neutral and should not be leading. Whatever your opinion
may be, own opinion should never be reflected in the questions. This is
done both intentionally and unintentionally but should be taken care of.
Emphasis on right word/phrase should be kept in mind
The language should be clear so that the required data can be received.
This also makes the question and the requirement of survey easy to
understand and thus help in getting a better response and answer.
6. Unwanted assumptions should be avoided
A survey is about getting factual data and assumptions should be avoided.
Uniformity:
One of the most significant attributes of a research form is uniform design
and standardization. Every respondent sees the same questions. This
helps in data collection and statistical analysis of this data.
Question Sequence:
It typically follows a structured flow of questions to increase the number of
responses. This sequence of questions is screening questions, warm-up
questions,
7. Questionnaires are inexpensive
First of all, questionnaires are one of the most affordable ways to
gather quantitative data.
Especially self-administered questionnaires, where you don’t have to
hire surveyors to perform face-to-face interviews, are a cost-efficient
way to quickly collect massive amounts of information from a large
number of people in a relatively short period of time.
A questionnaire can be placed on your website or emailed to your
customers. These methods have little to no cost, though strong
targeting is necessary if you want to have the highest possible response
rate receive the most accurate results.
8. Questionnaires offer a quick way to get results
It’s quick and easy to collect results with online and mobile tools. This
means that you can gain insights in as little as 24 hours (or less!),
depending on the scale and reach of your questionnaire.
You don’t need to wait for another company to deliver the answers you
need.
An online questionnaire allowed them to collect the data they needed in
the shortest time frame possible.
9. Scalability
Questionnaires and surveys allow you to gather information from a
large audience.
Online, you can literally distribute your questions to anyone, anywhere
in the world (provided they have an internet connection). All you have
to do is send them a link to your survey page. And you don’t even need
to do this manually. This could be done through an automated mail in
your customer onboarding or lead nurturing campaigns.
This means that for a relatively low cost, you can target a city or a
country.
10. Comparability
When data has been quantified, it can be used to compare and contrast
other research and may be used to measure change. This makes
monthly or yearly questionnaire more and more valuable over time.
Improving comparability implies that errors due to translation have to
be minimized. In terms of questionnaire translation for multi-national,
multi-cultural and multi-regional surveys the aim is to achieve a level
of comparability across all local versions.
11. Easy Analysis and visualization
Most survey- and questionnaire providers are quantitative in nature
and allow easy analysis of results. With built-in tools, it’s easy to
analyze your results without a background in statistics or scientific
research.
You might think that questionnaires are not fun and getting
respondents to actually complete them can be tricky. However, you can
use Interactive form that will give you visual data insights to draw
experienced user stories organized in dynamic timelines.
12. It should be as short as possible but should be comprehensive.
It should be attractive.
Directions should be clear and complete.
It should be represented in good Psychological order proceeding from
general to more specific responses.
Double negatives in questions should be avoided.
Putting two questions in one question also should be avoided. Every
question should seek to obtain only one specific information
It should avoid annoying or embarrassing questions.
It should consist of a written list of questions.
13. Following are the types of questionnaires
Un-structured or Open Form
Structured or Closed Form
Check lists
Rating Scales
14. Definition:
Questions that allow the target audience to voice their feelings and notions
freely are called open-format questions or open-ended questions.
These questions are not based on pre-determined responses, giving
respondents an opportunity to express what they feel is right, and often
provide real, perceptional, and at times, startling proposals.
Open-ended questions placed at the end of a questionnaire tend to draw
accurate feedback and suggestions from respondents as well.
15. As the name implies, these questions are open for the respondent to
answer with more freedom.
Instead of presenting a series of answers choices, the respondent writes
as much are as little as they want.
It can help to get true, insightful and even unexpected suggestions.
Qualitative questions fall under this category.
An ideal questionnaire would include an open-ended question at the end of
the questionnaire that seeks feedback and/or suggestions for
improvements from respondents.
This is ideal for exploratory questionnaires which collect qualitative data.
16. Classification of unstructured or open-formed questionnaires are
1. Completely Unstructured
2. Thematic Apperception Test
3. Word Associate
4. Sentence, Story or Picture Completion
17. Such questions were ask openly to get opinion or view about the aspect. It
includes following:
State your opinion about Educational policy amended by ministry?
How can we promote women empowerment ?
Suggest your opinion to promote healthy lifestyle?
What are the facilities do you expect from your institution
Suggest your opinion to promote early Education in rural areas.
18. TAT invented by (Murray, 1943) was originally designed to measure
normal dimensions of personality in the general population
In this questionnaire, sequence of Pictures shows to respondent in same
order for same duration and ask the following question on every picture
as,
1. What happens
2. What led up to the situation
3. What the outcome would be
4. And what the characters would be thinking and feeling
The respond may be analyze in terms of any theme, conflicts, motivation,
interest etc. that appear in them.
19. Words are presented and the respondent mentions the first word that comes
to mind.
The list of projective approaches to personality assessment is long, one of
the most venerable being the so-called word-association question.
For example: Exam - Tension Mother – Love
4- Sentence, Story or Picture completion
The respondent complete an incomplete sentences, stories or write on
empty conversation balloon in a picture
20. Structured questionnaire is a document that consists of a set of
standardized questions with a fixed scheme, which specifies the exact
wording and order of the questions, for gathering information from
respondents.
Structured questionnaire is the primary measuring instrument in survey
research. The use of structured questionnaire has a close relationship with
quantitative analysis.
A typical example of a structured questionnaire is the census
questionnaire, which collects demographic information from individuals.
21. Structured questionnaires are those questionnaires in which there are
definite, concrete and pre-determined questions.
Resort is taken to this sort of standardization to ensure that all
respondents reply to the same set of questions
Structured questionnaires have fixed alternative questions in which
responses of the informants are limited to the stated alternatives
A highly structured questionnaire is one in which all questions and
answers are specified and comments in the respondents own words are
held to minimum.
Structured questionnaires are simple to administer and relatively
inexpensive to analyse.
22. Limited Freedom to express opinion
Subjectivity (Avoid bias)
No thumb rule- fix numbers of options
Data form is Quantitative
Easy to analyze/ coding statistically
Scope of getting extra information is very less
23. Following are the classification of structured or close-formed
questionnaires:
1. Dichotomous (Two category)
2. Multiple Choice
3. Matrix
4. Contingency
24. The dichotomous question is a question that can have two possible
answers. They are used for a clear distinction of qualities, experiences,
or respondent’s opinions.
These questions carry one disadvantage-there is no other way of
analyzing the answer between a "yes" and "no". A middle perspective is
not possible.
Here is an example of a dichotomous type question:
Have you ever visited the University of Education?
Yes
No
25. These kinds of questions has two possible responses only, either Yes / No
True / False Agree / Disagree
Have you ever experienced a service from our fitness center
Yes / No
Sports performance always counted as “No pain No gain“
True / False
please enter your gender
Male / Female
Healthy practices promotes quality of life
Agree / Disagree
26. When all response choices are known
When quantitative statistical results are desire
Multiple choice closed-ended questions allow the respondents to choose
one or more answers from a given list of answer options.
Multiple choice closed-ended questions are more easily analyzed. Every
answer can be given a number or value so that a statistical interpretation
can be assessed. Closed-ended questions are also better suited for
computer analysis.
Multiple choice closed-ended questions are more easily analyzed. Every
answer can be given a number or value so that a statistical interpretation
can be assessed. Closed-ended questions are also better suited for
computer analysis.
27. A matrix question is a group of multiple-choice questions displayed in a
grid of rows and columns.
The rows present the questions to the respondents, and the columns offer
a set of predefined answer choices that apply to each question in the row.
Matrix questions are best used as a way to ask several questions about a
similar idea when there is a scale involved.
They can be used for a variety of reasons, either as a mini-survey on their
own, or as a single question type within a larger questionnaire
28. Questions that are limited to a subset of respondents for whom they are
relevant are called "contingency questions."
A question that determines if a contingency question is asked is called a
"filter," "skip," or "branching" question.
Relevancy is sometimes based on a respondent characteristic such as
gender or age.
For Example:
"Do you own or rent your home?“
Contingency questions are questions that are only to be answered by
some subgroup(s) of respondents.
"If you own your home, how long have you owned it?" Contingency
questions may have either closed-ended or open-ended response options.
29. A rating scale is a common method of data collection that is used to
gather comparative information about a specific research subject.
Rating scale is defined as a Close ended questions used to represent
respondent feedback in a comparative form for specific particular
features/products/services.
It is one of the most established question types for online and offline
surveys where survey respondents are expected to rate an attribute or
feature.
Rating scale is a variant of the popular multiple choice question which
is widely used to gather information that provides relative information
about a specific topic.
30. An ordinal scale is a scale the depicts the answer options in an ordered
manner. The difference between the two answer option may not be
calculable but the answer options will always be in a certain innate order.
Parameters such as attitude or feedback can be presented using an
ordinal scale.
An interval scale is a scale where not only is the order of the answer
variables established but the magnitude of difference between each
answer variable is also calculable. Absolute or true zero value is not
present in an interval scale. Temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit is the
most popular example of an interval scale. Likert scale, the most effective
type of interval scale.
31. There are four primary types of rating scales
Graphic Rating Scale
Numerical Rating Scale
Descriptive Rating Scale
Comparative Rating Scale
32. Graphic rating scale indicates the answer options on a scale of 1-3, 1-5,
etc. Likert Scale is a popular graphic rating scale example.
Respondents can select a particular option on a line or scale to depict
rating.
This rating scale is often implemented by HR managers to
conduct employee evaluation..
33. Numerical rating scale has numbers as answer options and not each
number corresponds to a characteristic or meaning.
For instance, a visual analog scale or a semantic differential scale can
be presented using a numerical rating scale.
34. In a descriptive rating scale, each answer option is elaborately explained
for the respondents.
A numerical value is not always related to the answer options in the
descriptive rating scale.
There are certain surveys, for example, a customer satisfaction survey,
which needs to describe all the answer options in detail so that every
customer has thoroughly explained information about what is expected
from the survey.
35. A comparative scale is a type of rating scale that is used to measure a
survey respondent's preferences in terms of popular external benchmarks
such as well-known service providers. It is also referred to as a
comparative intensity scale.
This type of rating scale allows a respondent to rate his or her preferences
in terms of the different attributes of a specific item.
It is a non-metric scale that allows respondents to evaluate 2 items
simultaneously using a range of parameters.
36. A checklist is a type of informational aid used to reduce failure by
compensating for potential limits of human memory and attention.
A checklist is a tool for identifying the presence or absence of conceptual
knowledge, skills, or behaviors.
Checklists only indicate if a student can accomplish the listed
objectives.
Nothing is included about the quality of performance.
They may be used to record observations of an individual, a group or a
whole class.
The tasks may be a sequence of steps or include items to verify that the
correct sequence was followed
37. It contain a list of behaviors or specific steps, which can be marked as
Present/Absent, Complete/Incomplete, Yes /No, etc.
A teacher can use a checklist to observe the students. students use
checklists to ensure that they have completed all of the steps and
considered all of the possibilities.
It can help to provide structure for students when you want to note the
completion of a task, but do not need to assign a rating scale.
It can be created in word processors, spreadsheets