Design of questionnaire Holger Diessel University of Jena

 Interview  Questionnaire  Experiment

Steps 1. Establish the goals of the project - What you want to find out 2. Determine your sample - Whom you will ask 3. Choose the medium – How will you ask 4. Create your questionnaire - What you will ask 5. Pre-test the questionnaire - Test the questions 6. Run the study and enter data - Ask questions and categorize answer. 7. Analyze the data - Produce the report

The goal of your study State a precise research question (or hypothesis)

The sample  Who do you want to ask?  How many subjects do you want to ask?  How do you select your subjects?

 Convenient sample  Simple random sample  Stratified random sample  Cluster sample Sampling

Age Gender Educational background Profession Regional background Native language Special interests Features to stratify

Reading questions aloud Written questionnaire in face-to-face situation Written questionnaire by mail or Internet survey The medium

Keep your questionnaire short Keep it simple Form

Welcome message Brief explanation as to why you conduct the study Warming-up Introduction

Question types (1)What do you like? (2)Do you like fish?

Open-ended vs. close-ended (1)What kind of music do you like? (2)What kind of music do you like? (a) classical, (b) pop, (c) rock, (d) country

Rating scales How would you rate this product? 1. Excellent 2. Good 3. Fair 4. Poor

Rating scales On a scale where 10 means you have a great amount of interest in a subject and 1 means you have none at all, how would you rate your interest in each of the following topics? 1. Domestic politics 2. Foreign affairs 3. Science and health 4. Business

Rating scales Strongly agree AgreeDisagreeStrongly disagree The teacher provides constructive criticism The teacher follows the course schedule I would prefer to study more at home How much do you agree with each of the following statements?

Rating scales Jena is a beautiful city. Strongly agree Strongly disagree

Rating scales How often do you speak dialect? AlwaysFrequentlySometimesRarelyNever

Rating scales Compared to other students, how would you rate this student’s performance? Lower 50%Upper 50%Upper 25%Upper 10%Upper 5%

Rating scales Rating scales are also often used to elicit frequency information. How often do you call your Mom? __ Less than once a month __ About once a month __ About twice a month __ Every week __ Twice a week __ Every other day

Rating scales Always present before and >positive> before.

Rating scales How many scores should your rating scale include?

Rating scales Jena is a beautiful city. Strongly agree Strongly disagree Strongly agree 12345Strongly disagree

Rating scales What do you think about product X? It's the best on the market It's about average It's the worst on the market

Direct vs. indirect questions Direct: ‘What is the best instance of X?’ ‘What is the second best instance of X?’ Indirect: ‘What is more similar to X?’

Don’t know / not applicable For some questions it may be appropriate to allow for a “Don't Know” or “Not Applicable” response.

Ordering of questions Motivation Influence

Ordering of questions: Motivation Ideally, the early questions in a questionnaire should be easy and pleasant to answer.

Ordering of questions: Influence Priming Habituation

Wording of questions Make your questionnaire simple.

Wording of questions Avoid ‘double-barreled’ questions’. The subject in German is the first element of the clause and sometimes appears in dative case.

Wording of questions Avoid emotionally charged words or leading questions that point towards a certain answer. 1. What do you think of the XYZ proposal? 2. What do you think of the Republican XYZ proposal?

Wording of questions Make sure your questions accept all the possible answers. Is the NP the subject or object?

Coding If you ask open questions you have to develop a coding scheme.

Layout Always consider the layout of your questionnaire. You want to make it attractive, easy to understand and easy to complete. Pictures and answering cells can serve this purpose.

Pre-test Run a small pre-test before you conduct the study.