It is important to remember that a questionnaire should be viewed as a multi-stage process beginning with definition of the aspects to be examined and ending with interpretation of the results. Every step needs to be designed carefully because the final results are only as good as the weakest link in the questionnaire process. Although questionnaires may be cheap to carry out compared to other data collection methods, they are every bit as expensive in terms of design time and interpretation.
Questionnaires have advantages over some other types of surveys in that they are cheap, do not require as much effort from the questioner as verbal or telephone surveys, and often have standardised answers that make it easy to compile data. However, such standardised answers may frustrate users. Questionnaires are also limited by the fact that respondents must be able to read and understand the questions and respond to them. Thus, for some demographic groups conducting a survey by questionnaire may not be practical. Unfortunatly questionnaires only occur after the event, so participants may forget important issues. Respondents may answer hastily especially if the questionnaire takes a long time to complete. The common mistake of asking too many questions should be avoided. They are standardised therefore it is not possible to explain any points in the questions that participants might misinterpret, however it is possible to amend this partially by piloting the questions on a small group of students or at least friends and colleagues. Open-ended questions can generate large amounts of information that can take a long time to process and analyse, this could be limited by only allowing a limited amount of space for responses. Participants may not be willing to answer the questions, they might not wish to reveal the information or they might think that they will not benefit from responding and perhaps even be penalised by giving their real opinion. Participants should always be informed why the information is being collected and how the results will be beneficial. They should be asked to reply honestly and told that if their response is negative this is just as useful as a more positive opinion. If possible the questionnaire should be anonymous.
Questionnaires must be carefully designed to gather accurate and valid information. Meticulous attention must be paid to ensure that individual questions are relevant, appropriate, intelligible, precise, and unbiased. The order of the questions must be carefully arranged, and the layout of the questionnaire must be clear. It is wise to draft a clear personalised covering letter. Questionnaires must first be piloted and evaluated before the actual survey.
Bibliography
B2B International Ltd. 2008. Good & bad in Questionnaire Design. Available at [Accessed : 29 November 2008].
Bulmer, M. 2003. Francis Galton Pioneer of Heredity and Biometry. United States of America: The John Hopkins University Press.
Goss, T. 2008. About Questionnaires. Available at [Accessed: 29 November 2008].