Writing a Questionnaire The Process

Before you start Be very clear about purpose of collecting the information. (Establish clear cut objectives). Write your purpose as a question that can be answered by the information you will collect. For example What healthy food options would the students of this school like the lunch bar to sell?

Method Decide on how you will collect the data (administer the questionnaire) Consider the following when deciding 1. Cost 2. Time 3. Sensitive issues (best handled by face to face or self administered written questionnaire)

Possible methods This could be by – Face to face interview – Telephone – Written (self-administered) – Internet – Mail

Sampling frame Decide who you are going to collect the information from. We will deal with this more fully in our next topic.

Content Brainstorm broad topics to ask questions about related to your objectives For example if your survey was about robbery you might come up with Where, when and what time of day it happened Type of goods stolen Value of goods stolen Whether violence was involved Unsuccessful attempts at robbery

Writing KISS questions Thinking about one broad topic at a time, start to write your questions. Make them specific. Use one idea only in each question. Write questions using simple language and short sentences (reading age of 12). Use a range of different types of question to keep the respondent interested. Do not rely on the respondent using their memory! Keep it simple, statistician!

Types of questions There are two main types Structured (Closed responses) – use when the response falls into easily defined categories. Rating scales are structured questions too. Unstructured (Open responses) – use when the responses could be quite varied and you can’t decide what the responses might be.

Completing your survey Ask a few questions about the respondent such as age, gender, highest level of education, etc Thank the respondent for completing the survey.

Exercise Analyse each question in a questionnaire. Decide if it is structured or unstructured. See the Powerpoint presentation Structured Question for different ways of asking structured questions.