Effective questionnaire be designed as a holistic tool; the overall picture should be clear begin with a brief introduction providing clear and simple instructions be concise ask questions clearly, without ambiguity, bias, use of jargon or technical language (unless you know that your particular subjects would expect certain technical terms, and leaving them out could imply you don’t know your subject very well) be short enough to be completed in a reasonable time

Effective questionnaire avoid leading questions avoid asking potentially offensive questions be logical in the order of questions – this means providing an obvious pathway through the questionnaire and avoiding complex instructions on where to go next depending on a previous answer appear uncluttered and inviting – don’t scare people off with tightly packed questions that are almost impossible to read without a magnifying glass provide data that is easily processed – make sure you know how you intend to analyse your data before you distribute your questionnaires.

Leading question引導性問題 「在你有限的視線中，你覺得被告的車速是不 是太快了？」 此問題透露出審訊者認為被告車速太快及被審訊者當時看不清楚。 非引導性的問題應如：先問「你覺得被告的車速有多快？」再問 「你當時能看得清楚嗎？」「你當時能看到多遠？」 How short was Napoleon? The word “short” immediately brings images to the mind of the respondent. Ask: How would you describe Napoleon’s height?

Closed questions dichotomous question allows the respondent to choose from two possible responses (usually a third neutral response will also be offered such as ‘Don’t know’) or questions with a set of fixed alternatives.

Closed questions (2) multiple dichotomous question provides a list of possible responses and allows the respondent to select any number of choices from the list.

Closed questions (3) rank order question respondents are asked to rate or rank each option that applies.

Open-ended questions provide no indication of possible answers and rarely define any parameters to restrict the respondent. Use open-ended questions when: you need more extensive or more individual data you have no way of knowing the range of possible answers it is not a particularly sensitive subject area.

Open-ended questions – example (1) Preventing a Yes/No response:

Open-ended questions – example (2)

Ways of ‘getting it wrong’

Ways of ‘getting it wrong’

Likert scale the scale will reflect the relative attitudes of respondents

Thurstone scale the scale will reflect the absolute attitudes of respondents

Guttman cumulative scale The idea is that a person will get to a certain point and then stop. For example, on a 5-point quiz, if a person gets to question 3 and then stops, it implies they do not agree with questions 4 and 5.

Semantic differential scale multi - dimensional measure measure a person’s attitude to the word “Work” with the following scale: With the Likert scale, people state how much they agree or disagree with a particular statement; with the semantic differential scale, people filling in the questionnaire decide how much of a trait or quality the item has.

Forms of questionnaire Paper-based postal questionnaires Electronic questionnaires