2.4: Creating Questions February 22, 2011

Surveys and Questionnaires Surveys can be conducted in a variety of ways Interviews Mail-in or Telephone questionnaires Electronic Surveys (internet) Focus Groups Anonymous surveys Allow for more honest and forthright responses Alleviate concerns of persecution

Survey and Questionnaire Design “Every questionnaire must be handcrafted. It is not only the questionnaire writing that must be “artful”; each questionnaire is also unique, an original. A designer must cut and try, see how it looks and sounds, see how people react to it, and then cut and try again.” J. Converse and Spresser, Survey Questions: Handcrafting the Standardized Questionnaire (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1986),48.

Question Styles Open questions Questions that will be answered in the respondent’s own words. Allows for a wide variety of answers that may make it difficult to interpret the results. Ex: “How do you feel about salary arbitration for professional athletes?”

Question Styles (cont) Closed Questions Questions that require the respondent to select from a given list of responses. Ex: Which statement best describes your opinions towards salary arbitration for professional athletes? □ Love it □ Hate it □ Couldn’t care less Questions that have exact responses Ex: How many times a day do you think about salary arbitration for professional athletes.

Question types Informative Checklist Ranking Rating What sports do you enjoy watching Checklist Which of the following sports do you enjoy watching Ranking Rank the following sports from most like to watch to least like to watch Rating How satisfied are you after watching sporting events? □ very □ incredibly □ unbelievably □ You have no idea

Bias One of the easiest ways to introduce bias into your questionnaire is through the wording of the questions themselves. This can be done by: Use of adjectives Use of abbreviations and jargon Restriction of choices Use of negatives Insensitivity

Bias (cont) We even have to consider the sequence in which we ask questions We want to avoid scaffolding questions to lead respondents to desired answers

Homework Pg 105 #1 ,2 , 4, 6-8,10,12