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How to Develop a Questionnaire

for Research
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Updated: February 14, 2020
Explore this ArticleDesigning Your QuestionnaireWriting your
questionnaireDistributing Your QuestionnaireArticle SummaryQuestions &
AnswersRelated ArticlesReferences
A questionnaire is a technique for collecting data in which a
respondent provides answers to a series of questions. [1] To develop a
questionnaire that will collect the data you want takes effort and time.
However, by taking a step-by-step approach to questionnaire
development, you can come up with an effective means to collect data
that will answer your unique research question.
Part 1
Designing Your Questionnaire
1.
 1
Identify the goal of your questionnaire. What kind of information do
you want to gather with your questionnaire? What is your main
objective? Is a questionnaire the best way to go about collecting this
information?
o Come up with a research question. It can be one question
or several, but this should be the focal point of your questionnaire.
o Develop one or several hypotheses that you want to test.
The questions that you include on your questionnaire should be aimed
at systematically testing these hypotheses.

 2
Choose your question type or types. Depending on the information you
wish to gather, there are several possible types of questions to include
on your questionnaire, each with unique pros and cons. Here are the
types of commonly used questions on a questionnaire: [2]
o Dichotomous question: this is a question that will generally
be a “yes/no” question, but may also be an “agree/disagree” question.
It is the quickest and simplest question to analyze, but is not a highly
sensitive measure.
o Open-ended questions: these questions allow the
respondent to respond in their own words. They can be useful for
gaining insight into the feelings of the respondent, but can be a
challenge when it comes to analysis of data. It is recommended to use
open-ended questions to address the issue of “why.”[3]
 o Multiple choice questions: these questions consist of three
or more mutually-exclusive categories and ask for a single answer or
several answers.[4] Multiple choice questions allow for easy analysis
of results, but may not give the respondent the answer they want.
o Rank-order (or ordinal) scale questions: this type of
question asks your respondent to rank items or choose items in a
particular order from a set. For example, it might ask your respondents
to order five things from least to most important. These types of
questions forces discrimination among alternatives, but does not
address the issue of why the respondent made these discriminations. [5]
o Rating scale questions: these questions allow the
respondent to assess a particular issue based on a given dimension.
You can provide a scale that gives an equal number of positive and
negative choices, for example, ranging from “strongly agree” to
“strongly disagree.”[6] These questions are very flexible, but also do
not answer the question “why.”[7]

 3
Develop questions for your questionnaire. The questions that you
develop for your questionnaire should be clear, concise, and direct.
This will ensure that you get the best possible answers from your
respondents.
o Write questions that are succinct and simple. You should
not be writing complex statements or using technical jargon, as it will
only confuse your respondents and lead to incorrect responses.
o Ask only one question at a time. This will help avoid
confusion
o Beware of asking for private or “sensitive” information.
 This can be something as simple as age or weight, or something as
[8]

complex as past sexual history.

 Asking questions such as these usually require you to
anonymize or encrypt the demographic data you collect.
 Determine if you will include an answer such as “I
don’t know” or “Not applicable to me.” While these can give your
respondents a way of not answering certain questions, providing these
options can also lead to missing data, which can be problematic
during data analysis.
 Put the most important questions at the beginning of
your questionnaire.[9] This can help you gather important data even if
you sense that your respondents may be becoming distracted by the
end of the questionnaire.

 4
Restrict the length of your questionnaire. Keep your questionnaire as
short as possible. More people will be likely to answer a shorter
questionnaire, so make sure you keep it as concise as possible while
still collecting the necessary information.[10] If you can make a
questionnaire that only requires 5 questions, do it.
 Only include questions that are directly useful to your
research question.[11] A questionnaire is not an opportunity to collect
all kinds of information about your respondents.
 Avoid asking redundant questions. This will frustrate
those who are taking your questionnaire.

 5
Identify your target demographic. Is there a certain group of people
who you want to target with your questionnaire? If so, it is best to
determine this before you begin to distribute your questionnaire. [12]
 Consider if you want your questionnaire to collect
information from both men and women. Some studies will only survey
one sex.
 Determine whether you want your survey to collect
information from both children and adults. Many surveys only target
certain age ranges for which the questions are applicable.
 Consider including a range of ages in your target
demographic. For example, you can consider young adult to be 18-29
years old, adults to be 30-54 years old, and mature adults to be 55+.
Providing the an age range will help you get more respondents than
limiting yourself to a specific age.
  Consider what else would make a person a target for
your questionnaire. Do they need to drive a car? Do they need to have
health insurance? Do they need to have a child under 3? Make sure
you are very clear about this before you distribute your questionnaire.


6
Ensure you can protect privacy. Make your plan to protect
respondents’ privacy before you begin writing your survey. This is a
very important part of many research projects.
 Consider an anonymous questionnaire. You may not
want to ask for names on your questionnaire. This is one step you can
take to prevent privacy, however it is often possible to figure out a
respondent’s identity using other demographic information (such as
age, physical features, or zipcode).
  Consider de-identifying the identity of your
respondents. Give each questionnaire (and thus, each respondent) a
unique number or word, and only refer to them using that new
identifier. Shred any personal information that can be used to
determine identity.
 Remember that you do not need to collect much
demographic information to be able to identify someone. People may
be wary to provide this information, so you may get more respondents
by asking less demographic questions (if it is possible for your
questionnaire).
 Make sure you destroy all identifying information after
your study is complete.
Part 2
Writing your questionnaire
1.
 1
Introduce yourself. Your introduction should explain who you are, and
what your credentials are. You should clarify if you are working alone
or as a part of a team. Include the name of the academic institution or
company for whom you are collecting data. Here are some examples:
o My name is Jack Smith and I am one of the creators of this
questionnaire. I am part of the Department of Psychology at the
University of Michigan, where I am focusing in developing cognition in
infants.
o I’m Kelly Smith, a 3rd year undergraduate student at the
University of New Mexico. This questionnaire is part of my final exam
in statistics.
o My name is Steve Johnson, and I’m a marketing analyst for
The Best Company. I’ve been working on questionnaire development to
determine attitudes surrounding drug use in Canada for several years.

 2
Explain the purpose of the questionnaire.[13] Many people will not
answer a questionnaire without understanding what the goal of the
questionnaire is. No long explanation is needed; instead, a few
concise sentences will do the trick. Here are some examples:
o I am collecting data regarding the attitudes surrounding
gun control. This information is being collected for my Anthropology
101 class at the University of Maryland.
o This questionnaire will ask you 15 questions about your
eating and exercise habits. We are attempting to make a correlation
between healthy eating, frequency of exercise, and incidence of
cancer in mature adults.
o This questionnaire will ask you about your recent
experiences with international air travel. There will be three sections
of questions that will ask you to recount your recent trips and your
feelings surrounding these trips, as well as your travel plans for the
future. We are looking to understand how a person’s feelings
surrounding air travel impact their future plans.

 3
Reveal what will happen with the data you collect. Are you collecting
these data for a class project, or for a publication? Are these data to
be used for market research? Depending on what you intend to do with
the data you collect from your questionnaire, there may be different
requirements that you need to pay attention to before distributing your
survey.
o Beware that if you are collecting information for a
university or for publication, you may need to check in with your
institution’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) for permission before
beginning. Most research universities have a dedicated IRB staff, and
their information can usually be found on the school’s website.
o Remember that transparency is best. It is important to be
honest about what will happen with the data you collect.
 o Include an informed consent for if necessary. Note that you
cannot guarantee confidentiality, but you will make all reasonable
attempts to ensure that you protect their information.[14]


4
Estimate how long the questionnaire will take. Before someone sits
down to take your questionnaire, it may be helpful for them to know
whether the questionnaire will take them 10 minutes or 2 hours.
Providing this information at the onset of your questionnaire is more
likely to get you more complete questionnaires in the end.
o Time yourself taking the survey. Then consider that it will
take some people longer than you, and some people less time than
you.
o Provide a time range instead of a specific time. For
example, it’s better to say that a survey will take between 15 and 30
 minutes than to say it will take 15 minutes and have some
respondents quit halfway through.
o Use this as a reason to keep your survey concise! You will
feel much better asking people to take a 20 minute survey than you
will asking them to take a 3 hour one.


5
Describe any incentives that may be involved. An incentive is
anything that you can offer as a reward at the end of the
questionnaire. Incentives can be many types of things: they can be
monetary, desired prizes, gift certificates, candy, etc. There are both
pros and cons to offering incentives.
o Incentives can attract the wrong kind of respondent. You
don’t want to incorporate responses from people who rush through
 your questionnaire just to get the reward at the end. This is a danger
of offering an incentive.[15]
o Incentives can encourage people to respond to your survey
who might not have responded without a reward. This is a situation in
which incentives can help you reach your target number of
respondents.[16]
o Consider the strategy used by SurveyMonkey. Instead of
directly paying respondents to take their surveys, they offer 50 cents
to the charity of their choice when a respondent fills out a survey.
They feel that this lessens the chances that a respondent will fill out a
questionnaire out of pure self-interest.[17]
o Consider entering each respondent in to a drawing for a
prize if they complete the questionnaire. You can offer a 25$ gift card
to a restaurant, or a new iPod, or a ticket to a movie. This makes it
less tempting just to respond to your questionnaire for the incentive
alone, but still offers the chance of a pleasant reward.

 6
Make sure your questionnaire looks professional. Because you want
people to have confidence in you as a data collector, your
questionnaire must have a professional look.
o Always proof read. Check for spelling, grammar, and
punctuation errors.
o Include a title. This is a good way for your respondents to
understand the focus of the survey as quickly as possible.
o Thank your respondents. Thank them for taking the time
and effort to complete your survey.
Part 3
Distributing Your Questionnaire
1.
 1
Do a pilot study. Ask some people you know to take your
questionnaire (they will not be included in any results stemming from
this questionnaire), and be prepared to revise it if necessary. [18] Plan
to include 5-10 people in the pilot testing of your questionnaire. [19] Get
their feedback on your questionnaire by asking the following
questions:
o Was the questionnaire easy to understand? Were there any
questions that confused you?
o Was the questionnaire easy to access? (Especially
important if your questionnaire is online).
o Do you feel the questionnaire was worth your time?
o Were you comfortable answering the questions asked?
o Are there any improvements you would make to the
questionnaire?

 2
Disseminate your questionnaire. You need to determine what is the
best way to disseminate your questionnaire.[20] There are several
common ways to distribute questionnaires:
o Use an online site, such as SurveyMonkey.com. This site
allows you to write your own questionnaire with their survey builder,
and provides additional options such as the option to buy a target
audience and use their analytics to analyze your data.[21]
o Consider using the mail. If you mail your survey, always
make sure you include a self-addressed stamped envelope so that the
respondent can easily mail their responses back. Make sure that your
questionnaire will fit inside a standard business envelope.
o Conduct face-to-face interviews. This can be a good way to
ensure that you are reaching your target demographic and can reduce
missing information in your questionnaires, as it is more difficult for a
respondent to avoid answering a question when you ask it directly.
o Try using the telephone. While this can be a more time-
effective way to collect your data, it can be difficult to get people to
respond to telephone questionnaires.

 3
Include a deadline. Ask your respondents to have the questionnaire
completed and returned to you by a certain date to ensure that you
have enough time to analyze the results.
o Make your deadline reasonable. Giving respondents up to 2
weeks to answer should be more than sufficient. Anything longer and
you risk your respondents forgetting about your questionnaire.
o Consider providing a reminder. A week before the deadline
is a good time to provide a gentle reminder about returning the
questionnaire. Include a replacement of the questionnaire in case it
has been misplaced by your respondent.[22]

How to Develop a Research

Questionnaire
 Author Info
Updated: November 26, 2019
Explore this ArticleStepsAsk a QuestionRelated ArticlesReferences
A research questionnaire, also called a survey, is a set of questions
that is administered to a population sample, or group of people, in
order to gather data. Survey answers are used for research purposes,
so it is important that the questionnaire effectively represents the
information it is intended to measure. Therefore, questionnaire design
should be viable in terms of relevance and ease of application. Follow
these steps to develop a research questionnaire.

Steps
1.

1
Write a list of objectives. This should outline the kind of data you want to collect, as
it will serve as the basis for choosing your questions. For example, you may want to
know how customers feel about your new product, in which case your objectives
 may be to gauge customer responses to the product's price range, ease of use,
durability and concept.[1]
2.

2
Determine the type of questions your survey will use. There are 2 basic question
formats:[2]
o Fixed-response/structured. Fixed-response questions provide research
questionnaire respondents with a specified set of possible answers, and require
respondents to choose from those options. Use fixed-response questions when you
have a clear-cut way to define and categorize data that the answers provide and
when you are not looking for unique or original information from those you are
surveying. Examples of structured question formats include multiple choice, ranking,
yes/no and rating scale.
o Open-ended/non-structured. Non-structured questions are good for
collecting fresh, individual ideas from respondents. However, it can be harder to
systematically analyze, organize and categorize data collected from open-ended
questions. Any question that does not limit the scope of the answer is open-ended.

 3
Decide on a method of administration. You may opt to use face-to-face interviews,
telephone interviews, web-based surveys or written questionnaires. [3]

 4
Word questions effectively. Keep the following in mind:[4]
o Comprehension. Use simple language and keep sentences as brief and
concise as possible. Be sure to cover the what, where, who, when and why so that
respondents are not lacking for pertinent information regarding their input.
o Answerability. Respondents should be able to provide accurate answers
without having to do research. For example, people may not be able to tell you
exactly how much money they spend eating out in an entire year, but they should be
able to estimate what they spend eating out over the course of a week.
o Double-barreled questions. Make sure your survey questions ask only 1
thing at a time. For example, rather than ask respondents if they prefer to exercise
in the evening or after eating, break the question into 2 separate questions, 1
specific to exercising in the evening and the other specific to exercising after
eating.
o Make sure response options don't overlap. For example, multiple choice
questions should never provide for the same number in 2 different range options (i.e.
"between 10 and 30" or "between 20 and 40").


5
Organize the survey questionnaire in a logical way.[5]
o If your research questionnaire covers a range of topics, then group the
questions into subjects.
o Downplay sensitive questions by grouping them with neutral questions,
and by placing them toward the end of the survey, after a rapport has been
established.

 6
Design the questionnaire so that it is easy to read and navigate through. [6]
o Use a large, clear font.
o Space questions so that it is easy to see where 1 stops and the next
begins. Be sure to provide ample answer space, if you are using open-ended
questions.
o Answer space should be right below the question. Avoid asking a
question on 1 page, then requiring the respondent to flip the page in order to provide
an answer.
o Use page numbers.

 7
Provide respondents with the information they will need in order to effectively
comply with the survey. In order to achieve the best results, questionnaire design
should amply prepare respondents in the following ways: [7]
o Explain the purpose of the survey questionnaire. When people
understand the reasons behind a line of questioning, they are more likely to
volunteer accurate personal information.
o Give clear instructions for completing the questions. Explain the
question format (i.e. multiple choice, rating scale, etc.) and provide an example for
how to appropriately answer the question. Additional instructions may be to read the
questions all the way through before answering and/or to guess on an unknown
question, rather than leave it blank.
o Tell respondents how many questions the research questionnaire
includes, and give an estimated time frame for completion.

 8
Revise the questionnaire as necessary. Each time you administer the survey,
analyze the results so that you can make changes that will improve the survey's
efficacy.[8]
o If you find that certain questions are consistently being skipped, then
those questions may need to be reworded for clarity.
o If respondents are unable to provide full answers due to space
restraints, you can change the layout.
o If simple yes/no answers aren't providing you with the range of data you
desire, then you may want to change to a multiple choice format.

Since my Fellowship with Edelman Berland began, research for me has become a “must
do” rather than a “could do” when creating programs for clients. Berland, our research
arm, is running an internal campaign with all of Edelman that aims to educate and
exchange ideas with our firm’s employees on the ways research can benefit their
communications initiatives. Here’s how we’re sharing the basics of writing a simple
questionnaire that can become a valuable quantitative research tool.
1. Work as a Partner. Align your research theme with your client’s overall business
objectives so outcomes will complement the communications strategy. Together
you can begin to craft the concept, timing and desired findings.
2. Keep it Simple. Write short, simple, specific questions using as few words as
possible. To capture the respondent’s actual beliefs, it’s best to write a clear
statement that can be responded to without too much deliberation. The more
instinctual reaction you receive, the better.
3. Choose the Best Delivery Method. Today's surveys can be delivered over the
computer, in person, on the phone or by mail. Postal surveys can be cheap but
responses can be slow. Face-to-face can be expensive but will generate the fullest
responses. Web surveys can be cost-effective but inconsistent with response
rates. Telephone can be expensive, but will often generate high response rates
and will allow for follow-up questions to enhance findings. So, a choice must be
made.
4. Ask the Same Question Twice but in Different Ways. To ensure you are
understanding a person’s true opinion on a given topic, it’s smart to ask the same
question a couple of times. It will help you avoid the respondent bias that
inevitably presents itself with each survey, and gives you a better chance at
finding the person's true opinion on a given topic.
5. Be Selective From the Start. Although you may feel a person is the right one to
take the survey, it’s best to ask a series of screening questions to make sure.
Position those at the beginning so you're not wasting anyone's time. Examples
would be demographic benchmarks, such as salary, education and geography,
etc.
6. Pilot the Questionnaire. By testing the survey with a small population, you’ll
determine if it’s set to do what you need it to do. This soft launch enables you to
determine whether some questions may need to paraphrased, reordered or
removed.

7. No survey can achieve success without a well-designed questionnaire. Unfortunately,

questionnaire design has no theoretical base to guide the marketing researcher in
developing a flawless questionnaire. All the researcher has to guide him/her is a lengthy
list of do's and don'ts born out of the experience of other researchers past and present.
Hence, questionnaire design is more of an art than a science.

8. Chapter Objectives
9. This chapter is intended to help the reader to:
10.  Understand the attributes of a well-designed questionnaire, and
 Adopt a framework for developing questionnaires.

11. Structure Of The Chapter

12. A brief account of the key attributes of a sound questionnaire serves as the opening
section of the chapter. This is followed by a nine-point framework for developing an
effective questionnaire. These are the only two components of this chapter on
questionnaire design.
13. The qualities of a good questionnaire
14. The design of a questionnaire will depend on whether the researcher wishes to collect
exploratory information (i.e. qualitative information for the purposes of better
understanding or the generation of hypotheses on a subject) or quantitative information
(to test specific hypotheses that have previously been generated).

15. Exploratory questionnaires: If the data to be collected is qualitative or is not to be

statistically evaluated, it may be that no formal questionnaire is needed. For example, in
interviewing the female head of the household to find out how decisions are made within
the family when purchasing breakfast foodstuffs, a formal questionnaire may restrict the
discussion and prevent a full exploration of the woman's views and processes. Instead
one might prepare a brief guide, listing perhaps ten major open-ended questions, with
appropriate probes/prompts listed under each.

16. Formal standardised questionnaires: If the researcher is looking to test and quantify
hypotheses and the data is to be analysed statistically, a formal standardised
questionnaire is designed. Such questionnaires are generally characterised by:
17.  prescribed wording and order of questions, to ensure that each respondent
receives the same stimuli

18.  prescribed definitions or explanations for each question, to ensure interviewers handle
questions consistently and can answer respondents' requests for clarification if they
occur

19.  prescribed response format, to enable rapid completion of the questionnaire during the
interviewing process.

20. Given the same task and the same hypotheses, six different people will probably come
up with six different questionnaires that differ widely in their choice of questions, line of
questioning, use of open-ended questions and length. There are no hard-and-fast rules
about how to design a questionnaire, but there are a number of points that can be borne
in mind:
21. 1. A well-designed questionnaire should meet the research objectives. This may
seem obvious, but many research surveys omit important aspects due to
inadequate preparatory work, and do not adequately probe particular issues due
to poor understanding. To a certain degree some of this is inevitable. Every
survey is bound to leave some questions unanswered and provide a need for
further research but the objective of good questionnaire design is to 'minimise'
these problems.

22. 2. It should obtain the most complete and accurate information possible. The
questionnaire designer needs to ensure that respondents fully understand the questions
and are not likely to refuse to answer, lie to the interviewer or try to conceal their
attitudes. A good questionnaire is organised and worded to encourage respondents to
provide accurate, unbiased and complete information.

23. 3. A well-designed questionnaire should make it easy for respondents to give the
necessary information and for the interviewer to record the answer, and it should be
arranged so that sound analysis and interpretation are possible.

24. 4. It would keep the interview brief and to the point and be so arranged that the
respondent(s) remain interested throughout the interview.
25. Each of these points will be further discussed throughout the following sections. Figure
4.1 shows how questionnaire design fits into the overall process of research design that
was described in chapter 1 of this textbook. It emphasises that writing of the
questionnaire proper should not begin before an exploratory research phase has been
completed.

26. Figure 4.1 The steps preceding questionnaire design

27. Even after the exploratory phase, two key steps remain to be completed before the task
of designing the questionnaire should commence. The first of these is to articulate the
questions that research is intended to address. The second step is to determine the
hypotheses around which the questionnaire is to be designed.

28. It is possible for the piloting exercise to be used to make necessary adjustments to
administrative aspects of the study. This would include, for example, an assessment of
the length of time an interview actually takes, in comparison to the planned length of the
interview; or, in the same way, the time needed to complete questionnaires. Moreover,
checks can be made on the appropriateness of the timing of the study in relation to
contemporary events such as avoiding farm visits during busy harvesting periods.

29. Preliminary decisions in questionnaire design

30. There are nine steps involved in the development of a questionnaire:
31. 1. Decide the information required.
2. Define the target respondents.
3. Choose the method(s) of reaching your target respondents.
4. Decide on question content.
5. Develop the question wording.
6. Put questions into a meaningful order and format.
7. Check the length of the questionnaire.
8. Pre-test the questionnaire.
9. Develop the final survey form.

32. Deciding on the information required

33. It should be noted that one does not start by writing questions. The first step is to decide
'what are the things one needs to know from the respondent in order to meet the
survey's objectives?' These, as has been indicated in the opening chapter of this
textbook, should appear in the research brief and the research proposal.

34. One may already have an idea about the kind of information to be collected, but
additional help can be obtained from secondary data, previous rapid rural appraisals and
exploratory research. In respect of secondary data, the researcher should be aware of
what work has been done on the same or similar problems in the past, what factors have
not yet been examined, and how the present survey questionnaire can build on what has
already been discovered. Further, a small number of preliminary informal interviews with
target respondents will give a glimpse of reality that may help clarify ideas about what
information is required.

35. Define the target respondents

36. At the outset, the researcher must define the population about which he/she wishes to
generalise from the sample data to be collected. For example, in marketing research,
researchers often have to decide whether they should cover only existing users of the
generic product type or whether to also include non-users. Secondly, researchers have
 to draw up a sampling frame. Thirdly, in designing the questionnaire we must take into
account factors such as the age, education, etc. of the target respondents.

37. Choose the method(s) of reaching target respondents

38. It may seem strange to be suggesting that the method of reaching the intended
respondents should constitute part of the questionnaire design process. However, a
moment's reflection is sufficient to conclude that the method of contact will influence not
only the questions the researcher is able to ask but the phrasing of those questions. The
main methods available in survey research are:
39.  personal interviews
 group or focus interviews
 mailed questionnaires
 telephone interviews.

40. Within this region the first two mentioned are used much more extensively than the
second pair. However, each has its advantages and disadvantages. A general rule is
that the more sensitive or personal the information, the more personal the form of data
collection should be.

41. Decide on question content

42. Researchers must always be prepared to ask, "Is this question really needed?" The
temptation to include questions without critically evaluating their contribution towards the
achievement of the research objectives, as they are specified in the research proposal,
is surprisingly strong. No question should be included unless the data it gives rise to is
directly of use in testing one or more of the hypotheses established during the research
design.

43. There are only two occasions when seemingly "redundant" questions might be included:
44.  Opening questions that are easy to answer and which are not perceived as
being "threatening", and/or are perceived as being interesting, can greatly assist
in gaining the respondent's involvement in the survey and help to establish a
rapport.

45. This, however, should not be an approach that should be overly used. It is almost always
the case that questions which are of use in testing hypotheses can also serve the same
functions.
46.  "Dummy" questions can disguise the purpose of the survey and/or the
sponsorship of a study. For example, if a manufacturer wanted to find out
whether its distributors were giving the consumers or end-users of its products a
reasonable level of service, the researcher would want to disguise the fact that
the distributors' service level was being investigated. If he/she did not, then
rumours would abound that there was something wrong with the distributor.

47. Develop the question wording

48. Survey questions can be classified into three forms, i.e. closed, open-ended and open
response-option questions. So far only the first of these, i.e. closed questions has been
discussed. This type of questioning has a number of important advantages;
49.  It provides the respondent with an easy method of indicating his answer - he
does not have to think about how to articulate his answer.
50.  It 'prompts' the respondent so that the respondent has to rely less on memory in
answering a question.

51.  Responses can be easily classified, making analysis very straightforward.

52.  It permits the respondent to specify the answer categories most suitable for their
purposes.

53. Disadvantages are also present when using such

questions
54.  They do not allow the respondent the opportunity to give a different response to
those suggested.

55.  They 'suggest' answers that respondents may not have considered before.

56. With open-ended questions the respondent is asked to give a reply to a question in
his/her own words. No answers are suggested.

57. Example: "What do you like most about this implement?"

58. Open-ended questions have a number of advantages when utilised in a questionnaire:

59.  They allow the respondent to answer in his own words, with no influence by any
specific alternatives suggested by the interviewer.

60.  They often reveal the issues which are most important to the respondent, and this may
reveal findings which were not originally anticipated when the survey was initiated.

61.  Respondents can 'qualify' their answers or emphasise the strength of their opinions.

62. However, open-ended questions also have inherent problems which means they must
be treated with considerable caution. For example:
63.  Respondents may find it difficult to 'articulate' their responses i.e. to properly
and fully explain their attitudes or motivations.

64.  Respondents may not give a full answer simply because they may forget to mention
important points. Some respondents need prompting or reminding of the types of answer
they could give.

65.  Data collected is in the form of verbatim comments - it has to be coded and reduced to
manageable categories. This can be time consuming for analysis and there are
numerous opportunities for error in recording and interpreting the answers given on the
part of interviewers.

66.  Respondents will tend to answer open questions in different 'dimensions'. For example,
the question: "When did you purchase your tractor?", could elicit one of several
responses, viz:
67. "A short while ago".
"Last year".
"When I sold my last tractor".
"When I bought the farm".

68. Such responses need to be probed further unless the researcher is to be confronted with
responses that cannot be aggregated or compared.
69. It has been suggested that the open response-option questions largely eliminate the
disadvantages of both the afore-mentioned types of question. An open response-option
is a form of question which is both open-ended and includes specific response-options
as well. For example,

70. What features of this implement do you like?

71.  Performance
 Quality
 Price
 Weight
 Others mentioned:

72. The advantages of this type of question are twofold:

73.  The researcher can avoid the potential problems of poor memory or poor
articulation by then subsequently being able to prompt the respondent into
considering particular response options.

74.  Recording during interview is relatively straightforward.

75. The one disadvantage of this form of question is that it requires the researcher to have a
good prior knowledge of the subject in order to generate realistic/likely response options
before printing the questionnaire. However, if this understanding is achieved the data
collection and analysis process can be significantly eased.

76. Clearly there are going to be situations in which a questionnaire will need to incorporate
all three forms of question, because some forms are more appropriate for seeking
particular forms of response. In instances where it is felt the respondent needs
assistance to articulate answers or provide answers on a preferred dimension
determined by the researcher, then closed questions should be used. Open-ended
questions should be used where there are likely to be a very large number of possible
different responses (e.g. farm size), where one is seeking a response described in the
respondent's own words, and when one is unsure about the possible answer options.
The mixed type of question would be advantageous in most instances where most
potential response-options are known; where unprompted and prompted responses are
valuable, and where the survey needs to allow for unanticipated responses.

77. There are a series of questions that should be posed as the researchers develop the
survey questions themselves:
78. "Is this question sufficient to generate the required information?"

79. For example, asking the question "Which product do you prefer?" in a taste panel
exercise will reveal nothing about the attribute(s) the product was judged upon. Nor will
this question reveal the degree of preference. In such cases a series of questions would
be more appropriate.
80. "Can the respondent answer the question correctly?"

81.  An inability to answer a question arises from three sources:

82.  Having never been exposed to the answer, e.g. "How much does your husband earn?"

83.  Forgetting, e.g. What price did you pay when you last bought maize meal?"

84.  An inability to articulate the answer: e.g. "What improvements would you want to see in
food preparation equipment?"
85. "Are there any external events that might bias response to the question?"

86. For example, judging the popularity of beef products shortly after a foot and mouth
epidemic is likely to have an effect on the responses.
87. "Do the words have the same meaning to all respondents?"

88. For example, "How many members are there in your family?"

89. There is room for ambiguity in such a question since it is open to interpretation as to
whether one is speaking of the immediate or extended family.
90. "Are any of the words or phrases loaded or leading in any way?"

91. For example," What did you dislike about the product you have just tried?"

92. The respondent is not given the opportunity to indicate that there was nothing he/she
disliked about the product. A less biased approach would have been to ask a preliminary
question along the lines of, "Did you dislike any aspect of the product you have just
tried?", and allow him/her to answer yes or no.
93. "Are there any implied alternatives within the question?"

94. The presence or absence of an explicitly stated alternative can have dramatic effects on
responses. For example, consider the following two forms of a question asked of a
'Pasta-in-a-Jar' concept test:
95. 1. " Would you buy pasta-in-a-jar if it were locally available?"
2. "If pasta-in-a-jar and the cellophane pack you currently use were both
available locally, would you:
96.  Buy only the cellophane packed pasta?
 Buy only the pasta-in-a-jar product?
 Buy both products?"

97. The explicit alternatives provide a context for interpreting the true reactions to the new
product idea. If the first version of the question is used, the researcher is almost certain
to obtain a larger number of positive responses than if the second form is applied.
98. "Will the question be understood by the type of individual to be interviewed?"

99. It is good practice to keep questions as simple as possible. Researchers must be

sensitive to the fact that some of the people he/she will be interviewing do not have a
high level of education. Sometimes he/she will have no idea how well or badly educated
the respondents are until he/she gets into the field. In the same way, researchers should
strive to avoid long questions. The fewer words in a question the better. Respondents'
memories are limited and absorbing the meaning of long sentences can be difficult: in
listening to something they may not have much interest in, the respondents' minds are
likely to wander, they may hear certain words but not others, or they may remember
some parts of what is said but not all.
100. "Is there any ambiguity in my questions?"

101. The careless design of questions can result in the inclusion of two items in one
question. For example: "Do you like the speed and reliability of your tractor?"

102. The respondent is given the opportunity to answer only 'yes' or 'no', whereas he
might like the speed, but not the reliability, or vice versa. Thus it is difficult for the
respondent to answer and equally difficult for the researcher to interpret the response.
103. The use of ambiguous words should also be avoided. For example: "Do you
regularly service your tractor?"

104. The respondents' understanding and interpretation of the term 'regularly' will
differ. Some may consider that regularly means once a week, others may think once a
year is regular. The inclusion of such words again present interpretation difficulties for
the researcher.
105. "Are any words or phrases vague?"

106. Questions such as 'What is your income?' are vague and one is likely to get
many different responses with different dimensions. Respondents may interpret the
question in different terms, for example:
107.  hourly pay?
 weekly pay?
 yearly pay?
 income before tax?
 income after tax?
 income in kind as well as cash?
 income for self or family?
 all income or just farm income?

108. The researcher needs to specify the 'term' within which the respondent is to
answer.
109. "Are any questions too personal or of a potentially embarrassing nature?"

110. The researcher must be clearly aware of the various customs, morals and
traditions in the community being studied. In many communities there can be a great
reluctance to discuss certain questions with interviewers/strangers. Although the degree
to which certain topics are taboo varies from area to area, such subjects as level of
education, income and religious issues may be embarrassing and respondents may
refuse to answer.
111. "Do questions rely on feats of memory?"

112. The respondent should be asked only for such data as he is likely to be able to
clearly remember. One has to bear in mind that not everyone has a good memory, so
questions such as 'Four years ago was there a shortage of labour?' should be avoided.

113. Putting questions into a meaningful order and format

114. Opening questions: Opening questions should be easy to answer and not in

any way threatening to THE respondents. The first question is crucial because it is the
respondent's first exposure to the interview and sets the tone for the nature of the task to
be performed. If they find the first question difficult to understand, or beyond their
knowledge and experience, or embarrassing in some way, they are likely to break off
immediately. If, on the other hand, they find the opening question easy and pleasant to
answer, they are encouraged to continue.

115. Question flow: Questions should flow in some kind of psychological order, so

that one leads easily and naturally to the next. Questions on one subject, or one
particular aspect of a subject, should be grouped together. Respondents may feel it
disconcerting to keep shifting from one topic to another, or to be asked to return to some
subject they thought they gave their opinions about earlier.
 116. Question variety:. Respondents become bored quickly and restless when asked
similar questions for half an hour or so. It usually improves response, therefore, to vary
the respondent's task from time to time. An open-ended question here and there (even if
it is not analysed) may provide much-needed relief from a long series of questions in
which respondents have been forced to limit their replies to pre-coded categories.
Questions involving showing cards/pictures to respondents can help vary the pace and
increase interest.

117. Closing questions

118. It is natural for a respondent to become increasingly indifferent to the
questionnaire as it nears the end. Because of impatience or fatigue, he may give
careless answers to the later questions. Those questions, therefore, that are of special
importance should, if possible, be included in the earlier part of the questionnaire.
Potentially sensitive questions should be left to the end, to avoid respondents cutting off
the interview before important information is collected.

119. In developing the questionnaire the researcher should pay particular attention to
the presentation and layout of the interview form itself. The interviewer's task needs to
be made as straight-forward as possible.
120.  Questions should be clearly worded and response options clearly
identified.

121.  Prescribed definitions and explanations should be provided. This ensures that
the questions are handled consistently by all interviewers and that during the interview
process the interviewer can answer/clarify respondents' queries.

122. Ample writing space should be allowed to record open-ended answers, and to
cater for differences in handwriting between interviewers.

123. Physical appearance of the questionnaire

124. The physical appearance of a questionnaire can have a significant effect upon
both the quantity and quality of marketing data obtained. The quantity of data is a
function of the response rate. Ill-designed questionnaires can give an impression of
complexity, medium and too big a time commitment. Data quality can also be affected by
the physical appearance of the questionnaire with unnecessarily confusing layouts
making it more difficult for interviewers, or respondents in the case of self-completion
questionnaires, to complete this task accurately. Attention to just a few basic details can
have a disproportionately advantageous impact on the data obtained through a
questionnaire.

Use of booklets The use of booklets, in the place of loose or stapled sheets of paper, make it easier for
interviewer or respondent to progress through the document. Moreover, fewer pages
tend to get lost.
Simple, clear The clarity of questionnaire presentation can also help to improve the ease with which
formats interviewers or respondents are able to complete a questionnaire.
Creative use of In their anxiety to reduce the number of pages of a questionnaire these is a tendency to
space and put too much information on a page. This is counter-productive since it gives the
typeface questionnaire the appearance of being complicated. Questionnaires that make use of
blank space appear easier to use, enjoy higher response rates and contain fewer errors
when completed.
Use of colour Colour coding can help in the administration of questionnaires. It is often the case that
coding several types of respondents are included within a single survey (e.g. wholesalers and
retailers). Printing the questionnaires on two different colours of paper can make the
handling easier.
Interviewer Interviewer instructions should be placed alongside the questions to which they pertain.
instructions Instructions on where the interviewers should probe for more information or how replies
should be recorded are placed after the question.

125. In general it is best for a questionnaire to be as short as possible. A long

questionnaire leads to a long interview and this is open to the dangers of boredom on
the part of the respondent (and poorly considered, hurried answers), interruptions by
third parties and greater costs in terms of interviewing time and resources. In a rural
situation an interview should not last longer then 30-45 minutes.

126. Piloting the questionnaires

127. Even after the researcher has proceeded along the lines suggested, the draft
questionnaire is a product evolved by one or two minds only. Until it has actually been
used in interviews and with respondents, it is impossible to say whether it is going to
achieve the desired results. For this reason it is necessary to pre-test the questionnaire
before it is used in a full-scale survey, to identify any mistakes that need correcting.

128. The purpose of pretesting the questionnaire is to determine:

129.  whether the questions as they are worded will achieve the desired
results

130.  whether the questions have been placed in the best order

131.  whether the questions are understood by all classes of respondent

132.  whether additional or specifying questions are needed or whether some

questions should be eliminated

133.  whether the instructions to interviewers are adequate.

134. Usually a small number of respondents are selected for the pre-test. The
respondents selected for the pilot survey should be broadly representative of the type of
respondent to be interviewed in the main survey.

135. If the questionnaire has been subjected to a thorough pilot test, the final form of
the questions and questionnaire will have evolved into its final form. All that remains to
be done is the mechanical process of laying out and setting up the questionnaire in its
final form. This will involve grouping and sequencing questions into an appropriate order,
numbering questions, and inserting interviewer instructions.

136. Chapter Summary

137. A well designed questionnaire is essential to a successful survey. However, the
researcher must develop his/her own intuition with respect to what constitutes 'good
design' since there is no theory of questionnaires to guide him/her.

138. A good questionnaire is one which help directly achieve the research objectives,
provides complete and accurate information; is easy for both interviewers and
respondents to complete, is so designed as to make sound analysis and interpretation
possible and is brief.

139. There are at least nine distinct steps: decide on the information required; define
the target respondents, select the method(s) of reaching the respondents; determine
question content; word the questions; sequence the questions; check questionnaire
length; pre-test the questionnaire and develop the final questionnaire.
 140. Key Terms
141. Group focus interviews
Mailed questionnaire
Open-ended and open response-option questions
Personal interviews
Piloting questionnaires
Target respondents
Telephone interviews

142. Review Questions

143. 1. Summarise the qualities of a good questionnaire.

144. 2. Where should interviewer instructions pertaining to responses to a particular

question be placed on the questionnaire?

145. 3. The textbook says that one does not start by writing questions. How should the
researcher begin?

146. 4. What are the two occasions when apparently "redundant" questions should be
found in a questionnaire?

147. 5. Name the three advantages of open-ended questions.

148. 6. What are the three reasons why a respondent is unable to answer a question?

149. 7. What is the recommended duration of interviews carried out in rural situations?

150. 8. What are the key characteristics of opening questions in a questionnaire?

28 Tips for Creating Great Qualitative

Surveys
Summary: Qualitative surveys ask open-ended questions to find out more,
sometimes in preparation for doing quantitative surveys. Test surveys to
eliminate problems.
By
 

 Susan Farrell

 
on September 25, 2016
Topics:
 

 Research Methods

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

0 Comments

Qualitative surveys ask open-ended questions to find out more, sometimes in

preparation for doing quantitative surveys. Test surveys to eliminate problems.

Sooner or later, most UX professionals will need to conduct a survey. Survey

science from the quantitative side can be intimidating because it’s a
specialized realm full of statistics, random selection, and scary stories of
people going wrong with confidence. Don’t be afraid of doing qualitative
surveys, though. Sure, it’s important to learn from survey experts, but you
don’t have to be a survey specialist to get actionable data. You do have to find
and fix the bugs in your questions first, however.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Surveys

Quantitative surveys count results: how many people do this vs. do that (or
rather, how many say that they do this or that). Use quant surveys when you
need to ask questions that can be answered by checkbox or radio button, and
when you want to be sure your data is broadly applicable to a large number of
people. Quantitative surveys follow standard methods for randomly selecting a
large number of participants (from a target group) and use statistical analysis
to ensure that the results are statistically significant and representative for the
whole population.

Qualitative surveys ask open-ended questions. Use them when you need

to generate useful information via a conversation rather than a vote, such as
when you’re not sure what the right set of answers might include. Qualitative
surveys ask for comments, feedback, suggestions, and other kinds of
responses that aren’t as easily classified and tallied as numbers can be. You
can survey fewer people than in a quantitative survey and get rich data.

It’s possible to mix the two kinds of surveys, and it’s especially useful to do
small, primarily qualitative surveys first to help you generate good answers to
count later in a bigger survey. This one-two-punch strategy is much preferable
to going straight to a closed-ended question with response categories you and
your colleagues thought up in your conference room. (Yes, you could add an
“other” option, but don’t count on valid statistics for options left to a catch-all
bucket.)

Tips for Qualitative Surveys

Unordered lists can be more time-consuming to look through than lists that
have an obvious ordering principle, but unordered lists seem to yield better
answers, especially if you can sort the list differently for different respondents.

1. Test your survey. Here’s the procedure that we recommend:

a. Draft questions and get feedback from colleagues.
b. Draft survey and get colleagues to attempt to answer the
questions. Ask for comments after each question to help you
revise questions toward more clarity and usefulness.
c. Revise survey and test iteratively on paper. We typically do 4
rounds of testing, with 1 respondent per round. At this stage, don’t
rely on colleagues, but recruit participants from the target
audience. Revise between each round. Run these tests as think-
aloud studies; do not send out the survey and rely on written
comments — they will never be the same as a realtime stream of
commentary.
d. Randomize some sections and questions of the survey to help
ensure that (1) people quitting partway through don’t affect the
overall balance of data being collected, and (2) the question or
section ordering doesn’t bias people’s responses.
 e. Test the survey-system format with a small set of testers from the
target audience, again collecting comments on each page.
f. Examine the output from the test survey to ensure the data
gathered is in an analyzable, useful format.
g. Revise the survey one more time.

2. Don’t make your own tool for surveys if you can avoid it. Many solid
survey platforms exist, and they can save you lots of time and money.
3. Decide up front what the survey learning goals are. What do you
want to report about? What kind of graphs and tables will you want to
deliver?
4. Write neutral questions that don’t imply particular answers or give
away your expectations.
5. Open vs. closed answers: Asking open-ended questions is the best
approach, but it’s easy to get into the weeds in data analysis when
every answer is a paragraph or two of prose. Plus, users quickly tire of
answering many open-ended questions, which usually require a lot of
typing and explanation. That being said, it’s best to ask open-ended
questions during survey testing. The variability of the answers to
these questions during the testing phase can help you decide whether
the question should be open-ended in the final survey or could be
replaced with a closed-ended question that would be easier to answer
and analyze.
6. Carefully consider how you will analyze and act on the data. The
type of questions you ask will have everything to do with the kind of
analysis you can make: multiple answers, single answers, open or
closed sets, optional and required questions, ratings, rankings, and free-
form answer fields are some of the choices open to you when deciding
what kinds of answers to accept. (If you won’t act on the data, don’t ask
that question. See guideline #12.)
7. Multiple vs. single answers: Often multiple-answer questions are
better than single-answer ones because people usually want to be
 accurate, and often several answers apply to them. Survey testing on
paper can help you find multiple-answer questions, because people will
mark several answers even when you ask them to mark only one (and
they will complain about it). If you are counting answers, consider not
only how many responses each answer got, but also how many choices
people made.
8. Front-load the most important questions, because people will quit
partway through. Ensure that partial responses will be recorded
anyway.
9. Provide responses such as, “Not applicable” and “Don’t use” to
prevent people skipping questions or giving fake answers. People get
angry when asked questions they can’t answer honestly, and it skews
your data if they try to do it anyway.
10. People have trouble understanding required and optional
signals on survey question/forms. It’s common practice to use a red
asterisk “*” to mark required fields, but that didn’t work well enough,
even in a survey of UX professionals — many of whom likely design
such forms. People complained that required fields were not marked.
Pages that stated at the top that all were required or optional also didn’t
help, because many people ignore instruction text. Use “(Optional)”
and/or “(Required)” after each question, to be sure people understand.
11. When marking is not clear enough, many people feel
obligated to answer optional questions. Practically speaking that
means you don’t have to require every question, but you should be
careful not to include so many questions that people quit the survey in
the middle.
12. Keep it short. Every extra question reduces your response rate,
decreases validity, and makes all your results suspect. Better to
administer 2 short surveys to 2 different subsamples of your audience
than to lump everything you want to know into a long survey that won’t
be completed by the average customer. 20 questions are too many
 unless you have a highly motivated set of participants. People are much
more likely to participate in 1-question surveys. Be sensitive to what
your pilot testers tell you, and realistically estimate the time to complete
the survey. The more open-ended questions and complex ranking you
ask people to do, the more you’ll lose respondents.
13. People often overlook examples and instructions that are on
the right, after questions. Move instructions and examples to the left
margin instead (or the opposite side, for languages that read right to
left), to put them in the scannability zone and place them closer to the
person’s focus of attention, which is on the answer area.
14. Use one-line directions if you can. Less is more. Just as in our
original writing for the web studies, people read more text when there is
a lot less of it. People complain about not getting enough information,
but when it’s there they don’t read it because it’s too long.
15. People tend not to read paragraphs or introductions. If you must
use a paragraph, bold important ideas to help ensure that most
people, who scan instead of reading, glean that information.
16. Think carefully about using subjective terms, such as
“essential,” “useful,” or “frequent.” Terms that cause people to make a
judgment call may get at how they feel, but such questions can be
confusing to evaluate logically. Ratings scales are more flexible. If you
do need to know how participants perceive a certain aspect, indicate
that’s what you want them to base their answer on (for example, instead
of asking “Is X essential for Y?” say “Do you feel that X is essential for
Y?”).
17. Define terms as needed in order to start from a shared meaning.
People might quibble about the definition, but it’s better than getting
misleading answers because of a misinterpretation.
18. Don’t ask about things that your analytics can tell you. Ask why
and how questions.
19. Include a survey professional in your test group. Your survey
method may be criticized after the fact, so get expert advice before you
conduct your survey.
20. Answer ordering and first words matter, especially in long lists.
Logical groupings, randomized lists, and short lists work better than
long, alphabetical lists. Ordering issues can skew your data, so test
alternative list orderings when you test your survey. When selecting
from a list, many people choose the first thing that sounds like it might
be right and go to the next question.

o Items at the top and bottom of lists may attract more attention
than items in the middle of long lists.
o Because people scan instead of read, the first words of items in
lists can cause them to overlook the right choice, especially in
alphabetical lists.

21. Test where best to place page breaks. Sometimes it’s important

for people to be able to see all the topic’s questions before they answer
one. Otherwise they volunteer answers for the questions they have not
yet seen and write, “see previous answer” later, which adds extra
interpretation steps in data analysis. To find questions with these kinds
of problems, you can test the survey with each question on its own page
first, and then collocate the questions that need to be shown together on
one page in the next test version. In some cases, simply forcing one
question to come before another one can fix these problems.
22. If possible, don’t annoy people by asking questions that don’t
apply to them. When respondents choose a particular answer, show
them one or two more questions about that topic that would be
applicable in that case. Choose a survey platform that allows conditional
questions, so you can avoid presenting nonapplicable questions and
keep your list of questions as short as possible for each respondent. If
most of your questions are conditional, you might be able to put a key
 conditional question early in the list, then branch to different versions of
the survey for the rest of the questions.

23. Take your data with a grain of salt. Unlike for quantitative

surveys, qualitative survey metrics are rarely representative for the
whole target audience; instead, they represent the opinions of the
respondents. You can still present descriptive statistics (such as how
many people selected a specific response to a multiple-choice question)
to summarize the results of the survey, but, unless you use sound
statistics tools, you cannot say whether these results are the result of
noise or sample selection, as opposed to truly reflecting the attitudes of
your whole user population.
24. Count whatever you can count. Researchers often refer to
coding and normalizing data during analysis. Coding data is the process
of making text answers into something you can count, so you can
extract the bigger trends and report them in a way that makes sense to
your report audience. You can capture rich textual data for
understanding and quoting, and code some types of responses as 0, 1,
or 2 (no, partially, yes; or none, some, all) for example, or you may be
able to define many different phrases as meaning the same thing (for
example when people use synonyms or express the same ideas). This
coding can be done after the data is collected, in a spreadsheet.
25. Show, don’t tell. Use lots of graphs, charts, and tables, with an
executive summary of key takeaways.
26. Consider graphs before you decide on a spreadsheet
layout. Unfortunately some spreadsheets won’t make reasonable
graphs until you switch columns to rows or rows to columns. It’s easiest
to plan for this necessity before you analyze your data. It’s also possible
to take the chart data, put it on its own spreadsheet page, and then
reorder it to make the charts. Just be careful not to make data transfer
errors.
 27. Beware of disappearing chart data. Some spreadsheets hide
data in charts silently when font-size changes or chart-size changes are
made.
28. Don’t embed data if you can screenshot it. Screenshots (PNG
format is recommended) are lovely and robust over time, unlike
embedded data, which tends to cause document corruption, become
unlinked, or could be changed by mistake.

Conclusion
Qualitative surveys are tools for gathering rich feedback. They can also help
you discover which questions you need to ask and the best way to ask them,
for a later quantitative survey. Improve surveys through iterative testing with
open-ended feedback. Test surveys on paper first to save time-consuming
rework in the testing platform. Then test online to see the effects of page order
and question randomization and to gauge how useful the automated results
data may be.

It’s well-established that all forms of research come with their own theories
and implementation methods, qualitative research is much the same.
Qualitative research is conducted to understand the thought process of both,
the respondents as well as researchers. It usually is conducted in a natural
setup where respondents will be their true selves and would respond
transparently. Results achieved from this research will not be generalized to
be the representation of the entire population but asked questions and their
vocabulary gives away the motive of research which makes it easier for
respondents to participate in qualitative market research.

Qualitative research survey questions are created to have a better

understanding of a particular topic or to inspect a new subject to understand
the nerve of respondent experiences.

What should be the process of forming Qualitative

research questions and questionnaires?  
1. Mention the purpose of conducting qualitative research. It
can be in form of either of these sentences:
 This study will be on the topic of ….
 Reason for conducting this research is ….

2. Create qualitative statements with a defined objective that

can be easily communicated to the target audience.
Keep these pointers in mind while designing this statement:

 Try and form single sentence statements. Single statements can be

much more effective than elaborate ones as they help in communicating
important messages in an impactful manner in a short and succinct
sentence.
 Clarify the purpose of conducting qualitative research in clear words so
that respondents understand their contribution towards this research.
 Mention the main topic of research that would prompt respondents to
have a clearer idea about what they’re getting into.
 It’s the words that make all the difference. Use qualitative words that
demonstrate quality or feeling behind your purpose, such as understanding,
describe, explore.
 Specify details that you would want to communicate to your
respondents.
 Mention the name of the research website.

3. Other than the primary qualitative question, you must create

sub-questions so that the purpose is executed in a better
manner.
 The main question might be – “What is the state of illiteracy in your
state?”
 You can create sub-questions such as: “How does illiteracy hamper
progress in your state?” or “How would you best describe your feelings
about illiteracy?”

4. Highlight these questions using ‘qualitative’ words:

 Start the questions with “What” or “How” to make sure the respondents
provide details about their feelings.
 Communicate on what you’re trying to “understand”, “explore” or
“identify” using this Qualitative research online survey questionnaire.
 Questions such as “what happened” can be asked to develop a
description of the topic.
 Questions about “how did respondents interpret the what happened
question” can be asked to examine the outcome.
 Understand the entire qualitative research process by asking questions
about “what happened to you with time?”
5. Develop a skeleton to design the primary questions and also
the sub-questions.  For example:
 Primary Qualitative research survey question: “How do you think
_______ (main topic of research) means?” or “Describe _____(main topic of
research) as you’ve experienced.”
 Sub-question for qualitative research: “What _________ (characteristic)
does __________ (respondents) interest in as a _________ (main topic of
research)?”