Perhaps now you'll fill in my questionnaire? Questionnaire design: Perhaps now you'll fill in my questionnaire?

How does the way you collect data affect the data collected? How does question wording affect people’s answers?

Practical exercise in questionnaire use: You will (a) design a questionnaire to answer questions on some aspect of people's behaviour (smoking, exercise, hobbies, etc.); (b) administer it to a small sample (20-30 people); (c) produce an SPSS/PASW spreadsheet and analyse your results; (d) write a lab-report summarising what you did and what you found; (e) produce a PowerPoint presentation on your findings.

Stages in questionnaire design: 1. Formulate the research question(s) clearly. 2. Identify the population and sample. 3. Design the questionnaire: think about question wording; questionnaire formatting; mode of administration; data analysis. 4. Pre-test the questionnaire. 5. Administer the questionnaire, after it has been revised in the light of (4).

Samples and populations: Population: a complete set of things (e.g. all of humanity). Sample: a subset from a population (e.g. first-year psychology students). For valid inferences to be made about a population's characteristics, a sample must be representative of its parent population (e.g. similar in age, SES, IQ, etc.)

Methods of obtaining questionnaire data: Postal questionnaire Personal interview Phone interview Internet questionnaire Cost Low High Moderate Data quality: Response rate Respondent motivation Interviewer bias None Sample quality: Low, unless high response rate Moderate to high, especially with random digit dialling Moderate, but improving as Internet access widens

Postal Questionnaire Personal interview Phone interview Internet questionnaire Possible interview length: Short Very long Long Ability to clarify and probe: None High Anonymity: Low Dependence on respondent’s literacy: Control of context and question order: Depends

Goals of Questionnaire design: 1. To obtain facts about a person. 2. To obtain information about their attitudes and beliefs. 3. To find out what a person has done (behaviours).

Questionnaire wording: Should be exact. 2. Should be simple. 3. Avoid biased or emotive words. Schuman and Presser (1981): subtle changes of wording may influence responses. e.g. “Should the Government allow public speeches by a Communist?” produced 25% fewer pro-free-speech responses when allow was replaced with forbid.

4. Make all alternatives clear. e.g. Payne (1951): "Do you think most manufacturing companies that lay off workers during slack periods could arrange things to avoid layoffs and give steady work throughout the year?" 63% - companies could avoid layoffs. 22% - couldn’t avoid layoffs. 15% - no opinion. Same question plus phrase "…or do you think layoffs are unavoidable?" 35% - companies could avoid layoffs. 41% - couldn’t avoid layoffs. 24% - no opinion.

5. Avoid the format: "Some people say x: do you agree or disagree?" 6. Avoid unwarranted assumptions. e.g. "What is your occupation?" assumes person has a job. 7. Avoid double-barrelled questions. e.g. "Should immigrants be repatriated and their possessions confiscated?" is two questions. 8. Avoid double negatives. e.g. "Are you against a ban on smoking?"

9. Consider the relative merits of open-ended and closed-ended questions. Open-ended: allow unconstrained responses. e.g. "How do you travel to the University?". May produce richly detailed responses, but hard and tedious to score. Closed-ended: require choice from a limited range of alternatives. e.g. "Do you travel to the University by (a) bus, (b) car, or (c) unicycle (tick one)". Easy to code, but prone to bias.

Closed-ended questions must have (a) a balanced response scale; (b) mutually exclusive categories; (c) facilities for handling "don't know" and "other" responses.

Rating scales: The Likert Scale: "Criminals should be flogged". Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Strongly disagree 1 2 3 4 5 Can be 5-. 7- or 9-point scale (doesn't make much difference). Visual Analogue Scale: Strongly agree Strongly disagree

Problems with questionnaires about attitudes: 1. May not have an attitude - "doorstep opinions". 2. Attitudes may be complex and multi-dimensional. 3. Attitudes vary in intensity. 4. Expressed attitudes may depend on question wording, sequence and interviewer effects.

Problems with questionnaires about behaviour: 1. Memory limitations - e.g. Chapman and Underwood's (2000) study of drivers' memory for accidents and near-misses. Can be counteracted by (a) asking specific questions; (b) asking for birth date rather than age; (c) using a chronological format; (d) re-interviewing. 2. Response biases due to social desirability or suspicion, especially for illegal or anti-social activities. Can be counteracted by ensuring anonymity.

What are the problems with these questions? 1. Do you visit fast food emporia regularly? 2. How many burgers do you eat per month? 3. Some people suggest that fast food is leading to increased tooth decay and an increase in obesity amongst teenagers in many parts of the U.K. Do you agree? 4. Which of the following methods do you use to travel to your fast-food outlet? (a) Bus (b) Car (c) Bicycle 5. Do your children prefer to eat in KFC or Macdonalds?

Conclusions: It's hard to design questionnaires properly! Always be sceptical of survey results -ask yourself Who were they collected by? Who were they collected from? How were the questions worded, exactly? Remember - “8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas" has become "In tests, 8 out of 10 cats who expressed a preference, preferred Whiskas".

Useful references: Burgess, T.F. (2001). A general introduction to the design of questionnaires for survey research. http://iss.leeds.ac.uk/info/312/surveys/217/guide_to_the_design_of_questionnaires Taylor-Powell, E. (1998). Questionnaire design: asking questions with a purpose. http://learningstore.uwex.edu/pdf/G3658-02.pdf Another useful resource: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs6751_97_winter/Topics/quest-design/