1. CHAPTER 11 – QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN Zikmund & Babin Essentials of Marketing Research – 5 th Edition © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–1

2. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–2 LEARNING OUTCOMES 1.Know the key decisions in questionnaire design 2.Choose between open-ended and fixed-alternative questions 3.Avoid common mistakes in questionnaire design 4.Minimize problems with order bias 5.Understand principles of survey flow 6.Use latest survey technology to reduce respondent error 7.Appreciate the importance of pretesting survey instruments After studying this chapter, you should be able to

3. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–3 Basic Considerations in Questionnaire Design Questionnaire design is one of the most critical stages in the survey research process.  A questionnaire (survey) is only as good as the questions it asks—ask a bad question, get bad results.  The questions must meet the basic criteria of relevance and accuracy.

4. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–4 Decisions in Questionnaire Design 1.What should be asked? 2.How should each question be phrased? 3.In what sequence should the questions be arranged? 4.What questionnaire layout will best serve the research objectives? 5.How can the questionnaire encourage complete responses? 6.How should the questionnaire be pretested and then revised?

5. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–5 What Should Be Asked? Questionnaire Relevancy  All information collected should address a research question in helping the decision maker in solving the current marketing problem. Questionnaire Accuracy  The information is valid; it faithfully represents reality.  Questionnaires should use simple, understandable, unbiased, unambiguous, and nonirritating words.  Questionnaire design should facilitate recall and motivate respondents to cooperate.  Proper question wording and sequencing to avoid confusion and biased answers.

6. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–6 Question Phrasing Open-ended Response Questions  Pose some problem and ask respondents to answer in their own words.  Advantages:  Particularly beneficial in exploratory research, especially when the range of responses is not known.  Identify which words and phrases people spontaneously give.  Valuable at the beginning of an interview.  Disadvantages:  High cost of administering open-ended response questions.  The possibility that interviewer bias will influence the answer.  Bias introduced by articulate individuals’ longer answers.

7. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–7 Question Phrasing (cont’d) Fixed-alternative Questions  Questions in which respondents are given specific, limited-alternative responses and asked to choose the one closest to their own viewpoint.  Advantages:  Require less interviewer skill  Take less time to answer  Are easier for the respondent to answer  Provides comparability of answers  Disadvantages:  Researcher unaware of potential responses  Tendency of respondents to choose more prestigious or socially acceptable alternative

8. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–8 Types of Fixed-Alternative Questions Simple-dichotomy (dichotomous alternative) Question  Requires the respondent to choose one of two alternatives (e.g., yes or no). Multiple-choice Question  Requires the respondent to choose one response from among multiple alternatives (e.g., A, B, or C). Frequency-determination Question  Asks for an answer about general frequency of occurrence (e.g., often, occasionally, or never). Checklist Question  Allows the respondent to provide multiple answers to a single question by checking off items.

9. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–9 Phrasing Questions for Self-Administered, Telephone, and Personal Interview Surveys Influences on Question Phrasing  The means of data collection—telephone interview, personal interview, self-administered questionnaire— will influence the question format and question phrasing.  Questions for mail, Internet, and telephone surveys must be less complex than those used in personal interviews.  Questionnaires for telephone and personal interviews should be written in a conversational style.

10. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–10 Guidelines For Avoiding Mistakes Simpler is better Avoid leading and loaded questions  Loaded question – suggests a socially desirable answer or is emotionally charged. Avoid ambiguity: Be as specific as possible Avoid double-barreled items  Double-barreled question – may induce bias because it covers two or more issues at once. Avoid making assumptions Avoid taxing respondent’s memory

11. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–11 Order Bias Question Sequence  Order bias  Bias caused by the influence of earlier questions in a questionnaire or by an answer’s position in a set of answers.  Funnel technique  Asking general questions before specific questions in order to obtain unbiased responses. Randomized Presentations  Used in electronic questionnaires, but rarely used in printed questionnaires due to coding difficulties. Randomized Response Techniques  Involve randomly assigning respondents to answer either the question of interest (embarrassing) or a mundane and unembarrassing question.

12. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–12 Survey Flow Survey flow  The ordering of questions through a survey. Breakoff  A respondent who stops answering questions before reaching the end of the survey. Filter question  A question that screens out respondents who are not qualified to answer a second question. Branching  Directing respondents to alternative portions of the questionnaire based on their response to a filter question.

13. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–13 Traditional Questionnaires Multiple-grid (matrix table) question  Presents several similar questions of the same format arranged in a grid format.

14. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–14 Survey Technology Physical Features  Heat map question  A graphical question that tracks the parts of an image or advertisement that most capture a respondent’s attention.  Status Bar  A visual indicator that tells the respondent what portion of the survey he or she has completed. Prompting  Informs the respondent that he or she has skipped an item or provided implausible information. Piping Software  Allows question answers to be inserted into later questions.

15. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–15 Pretesting and Revising Questionnaires Pretesting Process  Seeks to determine whether respondents have any difficulty understanding the questionnaire and whether there are any ambiguous or biased questions. Preliminary Tabulation  A tabulation of the results of a pretest to help determine whether the questionnaire will meet the objectives of the research.

16. © 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.11–16 Designing Questionnaires for Global Markets Back Translation  Taking a questionnaire that has previously been translated into another language and having a second, independent translator translate it back to the original language.  A questionnaire developed in one country may be difficult to translate because equivalent language concepts do not exist or because of differences in idiom and vernacular.