1. Design of interview schedules, questionnaires and checklist

2. Learning objectives At the end of this session you should be able to:
1. Distinguish between various stages in questionnaire design.
2. Demonstrate appropriate techniques for wording questions and designing interview
guides, questionnaires and checklists to ensure maximum quality of responses.

3. 3. Identify appropriate data-collection techniques for your study.
4. Prepare your data-collection tools, taking care that you cover all important variables.

4. Presentation plan The questionnaire Types of questions
Steps in designing a questionnaire/interview guide
Checklists

5. The questionnaire
The quality of research depends to a large extent on the data collection tools.
Interviewing and administering questionnaire are probably the most commonly used research techniques.
Once the decision on the use of interviews/administering questionnaires has been made, the following questions should be considered before designing them:-

6. What exactly do we want to know?
What techniques should we employ?
Whom will we ask questions and what technique will we use?
is the topic under study sufficiently understood?
Are our informants mainly literate or illiterate?
How large is the sample that will be interviewed?

7. Types of questions
Depending on how questions are asked and recorded we can distinguish two major possibilities:
Open-ended questions (allowing for completely open as well as partially categorized answers)
Closed questions

8. Completely open-ended questions
Permits free responses which should be recorded in the respondent’s own words
Useful for obtaining in-depth information on facts which the researcher is not familiar, opinions, attitudes and suggestions of informants, and sensitive issues.
Allows the researcher to probe more deeply into issues of interest being raised.

9. Issues not previously thought of when planning the study may be explored, thus providing valuable new insights on the problem.
Needs skilled interviewers to get the discussion started and focused on relevant issues and to record all information collected
Analysis is time-consuming and requires experience; otherwise important data may be lost

10. Partially categorized questions
In interviews, questions are often asked as open-ended questions, but to facilitate recording and analysis, some answers can already be pre-categorized.
e.g. How did you become a member of the village Health Committee?
-Volunteered [ ]
-elected at a community meeting [ ]
-nominated by health staff [ ]
-other (specify)______________ [ ]

11. Advantages of partially pre-categorized questions
Pre-categorized answers allows for easy recording and analysis.

12. Disadvantages
If one pre-categorizes too early, a lot of interesting and valuable information may never be recorded, or may end up in the category ‘other’
Interviewers may try to force the information into categories, thus additional valuable information will be lost.
Interviewers may be tempted to present some possible answers when respondents hesitates, thereby causing bias

13. Closed questions
These have a list of possible options or answers from which the respondents must choose.
Commonly used for background variables such as age, marital status, or education.
May be used to get the respondents to express their opinions or attitudes by choosing rating points on a scale.

14. Advantages of closed questions
Saves time
Comparing responses of the same group or different groups over time, becomes easier

15. disadvantages
If there is no question to elaborate on the informant’s reasons for choosing a particular rating, uniformity in rating may still be deceptive, as there are considerable variation in reason for choosing the same ratings.
In case of illiterate respondents, interviewers may be tempted to read the list of possible answers in the given sequence, thereby influencing the choice of response and introducing bias.

16. Steps in designing a questionnaire/ interview guide
Designing a questionnaire usually takes several drafts. The steps involved includes:-
i. Content
ii. Formulating questions
iii. Sequencing the questions
iv. Formatting the questionnaire
v. Translation

17. i. Content
Here one has to consider the objectives and the variables to be measured.
Decide what questions will be needed to measure or to define your variables and reach your objectives.
When developing a questionnaire, you should consider variables you have chosen and if necessary, add, drop or change some. Some objectives may be changed at this stage.

18. ii. Formulating questions
Formulate one or more questions that will provide the information needed for each variable.
Questions should be specific and precise enough so that different respondents don’t interpret them differently. e.g. where do community members seek treatment when they are sick?

19. Check whether each question measures one thing at a time. e. g
Check whether each question measures one thing at a time. e.g. do you think that the war situation leads to mental problems that require treatment by health staff?
This brings three topics, which should be split up.
Avoid leading questions.
Ask sensitive questions in a socially acceptable way

20. iii. Sequencing the questions
Design your interview schedule or questionnaire to be informant friendly.
The sequence of questions must be logical for the informant and allow as much as possible for a natural conversation, even in more structured interviews.
Pose more sensitive questions as late as possible in the interview.
Use simple, everyday language.

21. If interviews are carried out in English, local terminology should be used for crucial concepts that do not have the exact equivalence in the secondary language.

22. iv. Formatting the questionnaire
When finalizing the questionnaire the researcher should observe that:-
i. A separate, introductory page is attached to the questionnaire explaining the purpose of the study, requesting the informant’s consent to be interviewed and assuring confidentiality of the data to be obtained.

23. Ii. Each questionnaire has a heading and space to insert the number, date and location of the interview, and , if required the name of the informant. The interviewer’s name may be added to facilitate on quality control.
Iii. The layout is such that questions belonging together appear together visually. If the questionnaire is long, you may use subheadings for groups of questions
iv. Boxes for pre-categorized questions should be placed in a consistent manner.

24. v. Translation
If interviews will be conducted in one or more local languages, the questionnaire should be translated in order to standardize the way questions will be asked.

25. Self administered (written) questionnaires
All steps listed above apply to written questionnaires as well as guides/questionnaires used in interviews.
Written questionnaires should have clear guidelines on how the answers to questions should be filled in.
Self administered questionnaires are most commonly used in large scale surveys using predominantly pre-categorized answers among literate study populations.

26. CHECKLISTS
Checklists can be used to systematically observe human behavior or the condition of specific equipment. e.g. fridge, expiring dates of medicines, or completeness of records.
Observations can be relatively open or can be predetermined comparisons of reality against fixed standards.
Sometimes the aim is systematic content analysis. (e.g. newspaper articles, health information system)
The objectives of the study determine the content of the checklist.

27. A checklist includes all the items or points that must be considered during an observation in the field, or when extracting data from existing records.

28. QUESTION
What is the difference (s) between a structured and a semi-structured questionnaire.
Give 5 examples of each of the above .