Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. DESIGN, PART 2 Questionnaire Design Quality assurance for census 1
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN “Every questionnaire must be handcrafted. It is not only that questionnaire writing 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 again, and try again.” Converse, J. and S. Presser, ‘Survey Questions: Handcrafting the Standardized Questionnaire 2
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. PURPOSE OF A QUESTIONNAIRE To Ask Questions Systematically To Communicate Effectively with Respondents To Record Responses To Allow Efficient & Accurate Transfer from Paper to Electronic Medium 3
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. SYSTEMATIC QUERY MECHANISM 4
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. TO ASK QUESTIONS SYSTEMATICALLY A Questionnaire is the Statistician`s Means of Using the Scientific Method to Obtain Information: Each respondent is asked the same questions, in the same order, in the same way. 5
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. COMMUNICATIONS VEHICLE 6
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. COMMUNICATION VEHICLE A questionnaire transmits the information desires of the NSO and records the respondent`s attempt to meet those desires. Make sure that the question you think you are asking is the same as the question that the respondent thinks he is answering! 7
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. LANGUAGE OF QUESTIONS For better communications, co-operation and reliability: questions should be in the language of the respondent Respondent more comfortable Better comprehension Thus, better answers 8
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. LANGUAGE OF QUESTIONS SUMMARY Where there is more than one major language in the country: If at all possible, the questionnaire should be translated into each of the main languages and independently tested with respondents who speak that language 9
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. CONCEPT OPERATIONALIZATION Census Users want information to study concepts such as: Social status Poverty Economic status Education, etc The NSO needs to transform or operationalize these concepts into simple questions. 10
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. PROMOTING RESPONSE There are many factors that may lead to high or low rates of response – or to high or low quality of the responses obtained The aim of questionnaire design is to prepare a questionnaire that obtains both high rates of response – and high quality of the responses 11
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. THE RESPONSE PROCESS Understanding Retrieval Thinking-judging Communicating 12
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. Maximizing response rates Appropriate collection method Good questionnaire design (wording, layout, etc.) Enumerator Training Publicity, advance letter Confidentiality and/or anonymity Elicit respondent’s interest Explain benefits Offer incentives Provide respondents with census results Call-backs (“best time to call”) Follow-up (reminder notices) 13
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. QUESTION SEQUENCING l start with easy questions l group questions by topic l chronological order l minimize “skip to” (never skip back) l sensitive/personal questions where most meaningful or at end l classification variables at end (unless needed for screening) 14
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. SOURCES OF RESPONSE ERROR l Respondent l understanding l recall l judgement l motivation l Reporting Interviewer – asking the question – recording the response l Questionnaire l wording l question order l complexity l length 15
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. TESTS Useful in identifying problems with: l Question wording l Question order l Layout l Instructions l Length of questionnaire l Non-response 16
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. TO RECORD RESPONSES Accurately Efficiently 17
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. DATA TRANSFER 18
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. DATA TRANSFER The format of the questionnaire needs to be designed to: Facilitate collection by enumerator, Encourage respondent to provide accurate responses, and permit accurate and efficient data capture 19
Copyright 2010, The World Bank Group. All Rights Reserved. DATA CAPTURE REQUIREMENTS Key Entry All responses together in a logical flow OMR Scanning Precise positioning of marking locations OCR/ICR Scanning More flexible, but needs space for writing clearly 20