Questionnaires 6 steps for research method and explanation by presenter in this slight.

1. INSTITUTE OF NEW KHMER
Subject: Research Methodology
Advised By: Lecturer TEP Sopheng
Chapter17 ‘Questionnaires’
Conducted and Prepared By
Presenter
NOU Sovannarout
Room: A2 , Shift: Morning, Semester: 1, Year: 4,
Academic 2016-2017
FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND LANGUAGE
3

2. Overview
 A questionnaires a tool for systematically
gathering information from study
participants.
 Questionnaires can be designed for self-
reporting or as scripts for interviews.

3. CONTENT
What is ‘Questionnaires’?
There are 6 steps:
 Step1: Determine Your Questions
 Step2: Draft the Items
 Step3: Sequence the Items
 Step4: Design the Questionnaire
 Step5: Pilot-test the Questionnaire
 Step6: Develop a Strategy for Data
Collection and Analysis

4. Questionnaire Design Plan

5. What is ‘Questionnaires’?
A questionnaire is a research instrument
consisting of a series of questions and
other prompts for the purpose of gathering
information from respondents. Although
they are often designed for statistical
analysis of the responses, this is not
always the case.

6. 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 standardized answers that
make it simple to compile data. However,
such standardized answers may frustrate
users. Questionnaires are also sharply limited
by the fact that respondents must be able to
read the questions and respond to them.
Thus, for some demographic groups
conducting a survey by questionnaire may
not be concrete.

7. - The questionnaire has become one of the
most used and abused means of collecting
information. If well constructed, a
questionnaire permits the collection of
reliable and reasonably valid data, cheap and
timely manner. However, there are many
sloppy questionnaires and these yield
unreliable data of limited validity and utility.
- The decision to use a questionnaire is often
motivate by a need to collect routine data
from a large number of respondents who may
be in one or several locations,

8. - Researchers who elect to use this form of
data collection are cautioned to think
carefully before they use questionnaires to
gather information which could be gathered
in another more efficient or valid way.
 It will greatly facilitate the data analysis
phase of the research. The task of
developing and implementing a
questionnaire can be accomplished by
following the six essential steps outlined in
this chapter: determine your questions,
draft the questionnaire items, sequence the
items, design the questionnaire, pilot-test

9. And Develop a Strategy for Data Collection
and Analysis.
Step1:
Determine Your Questions
 To develop valid questionnaires, you must
first clearly identify your general
information needs.
 What types of information do you require
and from whom?
 Accurately defining your needs is critical
and will make it easier to write questions
that will answer your research questions

10. And achieve your goals.
 Different target groups may provide
different types of information and a clear
understanding of the purpose of the
research will help you limit your questions
to the relevant information and no more.
 Research Q. should generate a number of
subquestions.
 Finally, before drafting the questionnaire
items, you should highlight, underline or
place a check-mark beside each
subquestion that will be addressed through

11. The questionnaire.
 This will save your time and help
crystalize your thinking.
Step2:
Draft the Items
 Once you have written your research
question and subquestion, questionnaire
items will become immediately apparent.
 Make Brainstorming as many items for
each subquestion as possible to help you
gain a full understanding of the breadth
and depth of each question.

12.  The task complete, you can move on and
select the format(s) for the questions.
Fill-in-the-blank
This common format asks a question and
leaves a blank for the response. The stem
should be a complete sentence rather than
just a phrase. Normally, the answer should
not be more than a word, number or phrase>
Sample Fill-in-the-blank
How many management courses have
you completed in the past two years?
_______

13. Multiple Choice
 Multiple choice questions are similar to Fill-
in-the-blank question, except the
respondent is given a choice of answers
and must check one. Sometimes there are
discrete response (e.g. sex: male or
female) in other instances a range of values
is presented (e.g. annual income: $10,000-
$50,000).
Sample Multiple choice items
How many days of training have you completed during the past 12
months?
None
6-10

14. Comment-on
 The Comment-on are similar to Fill-in-the-
blank question, except for one critical
difference.
 The comment-on question attempts to
elicit an extensive answer by posing a
question and leaving enough space for the
respondent to write a short paragraph.
Sample Comment-on item
To what extent did the training session relate to your job
needs?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

15. List
 Ask the respondent to list things is a good
way to find out views in an unbiased way.
This open format forces the respondent to
think up answers without having a list of
‘acceptable’ options from which to choose.
Sample List Item
List three most important skills you acquired
during this training session.
1. ________________________________
2. ________________________________
3. ________________________________

16. Likert Scales
The Likert Scales is one of the most useful
question forms. The scale is named after
Rensis Likert who developed this format in
1932. In its most popular form, the
respondent is presented a sentence and is
asked to agree or disagree on a three, 5 or 7
point scale.
Sample Likert Scales Item
I use research Disagree Not Sure Agree
Methods in
My job

17. Step3:
Sequence the Items
is a common type of test item, where the
user is required to place a number of items
into the 'correct' order. This order may be
temporal, preference, logical, or other
order, and must be clearly specified in the
question. As with Multiple Choice questions,
this type of question works best with a
reasonable number of possible answers,
say at least five pairs to be matched. Good
questionnaires, unless they are very short,
generally contain subsections.

19. Sample Sequence the item

23. Step4:
Design the Questionnaire
The format of a questionnaire is extremely
important because it is a major factor in
determining whether the questionnaire will be
completed.
There are two important aspects to design:
Individual questions and the whole
questionnaire.
Individual questions, certain types of
questionnaire layout can reduce confusion
and contribute to valid responses.

24. Six rules to AID Questionnaire Design
1. Lay out items to avoid confusion
• use the formats shown in the examples;
• do not change pages in the middle of a question;
• give instructions on what you want the respondent to do
for each type of question;
• number the questions consecutively.
2. Use a booklet
• to make it professional;
• to facilitate flip side French/English versions.
3. Include a title and introductory explaination
• to let your clients know what you are doing;
• to help them fill it out properly.

25. 4. Organize into sections, each with a title
• to help structure thinking;
• to facilitate analysis.
5. Group similar types of items together
• especially rating scales;
• fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice can be mixed.
6. Use all available space
• try to limit it to 4 pages;
• use space for comments to fill in pages;
• ensure it is visually appealing to the eye.

27. Step5:
Pilot-test the Questionnaire
A pilot test (pretest) of the questionnaire is
helpful for checking content, clarity, layout,
timing, and other factors.
Volunteers from the target population (but
not the sample population) should be asked
to complete the preliminary survey and
provide feedback on it.
The survey instrument should be revised
based on these observations.
Several rounds of pilot testing may be
required.

28. Here are a few things to keep in mind
when conducting a pilot test:
Keep it practicable by testing your survey on a
small group of people
Test your survey on individuals that are
similar to your actual survey population
After completing the survey, ask participants
to provide feedback on the intelligibility of
questions and response options, as well as the
length of time it took them to complete the
survey. Assess if the questionnaire has issues
(too long, too complex, too ambiguous etc.)

29. Review the test responses to the
survey, looking for any
inconsistencies or unexpected
answers.
Make any necessary changes to
the survey before implementing it
on a large scale. Consider
conducting a second pilot test if
extensive changes have been made
to the original survey.

30. Step6:
Develop a Strategy for Data Collection
and Analysis
Now we have a questionnaire ready to go!
You will need to work out a strategy for how
and where to send it. The first part of your
strategy is to select a representative sample
that represents all the subjects you want to
reach. Then prepare a list. The second part of
your strategy is do decide on the technology
you will use to send out your questionnaire.
There are three basic options:

31. 1. Standard
Questionnaire can be printed, in your
office or by a printer, and mailed to
respondents. Respondents fill them out and
mail them back. Alternatively, sometime it is
possible to administer them in a group
meeting with the targeted respondents.
Result are manually entered into a database
or statistical program for analysis.

32. 2. Optical Scanning
It is possible to print questionnaires so
they can be read by an optical scanner that
picks up the responses automatically. This
approach is only beneficial when you have
hundreds of questionnaires. Smaller sample
probably do not justify the printing and set-
up costs.

33. 3. Electronic Questionnaires
The advent of electronic communication
has created yet another way to administer a
questionnaire. Sending questionnaires via
electronic mail (e-mail) is growing in
popularity for professionals, organizations
and individuals networked through the
internet. This form of questionnaire is
designed on a computer and sent as a
computer file to the subject via e-mail.
- And feed back, this is useful for in
house surveys.

34. SUMMARIZE

35. Questionnaire Content
The questionnaire must include questions
confirming that participants meet the
eligibility criteria for the study.
The questionnaire must also be able to
accurately place participants into key
categories, such confirming that all cases
in a case-control study meet the case
definition.
A survey should be neither too short nor
too long (Depending on the audience
too).

36. Types of Questions
After determining the broad categories of
questions and the specific topics to be
addressed in each section, each question
topic should be assigned a specific type of
question.
Close-ended questions allow a limited
number of possible answers
Open-ended questions allow participants
to give free-response answers

37. Open-Ended Questions
Open-ended questions allow participants to:
explain their selections and qualify their
responses
give multiple answers
provide responses not anticipated by the
researcher
However:
they take longer to ask and answer
they may result in irrelevant answers
recoding for statistical analysis is often difficult

38. Close-Ended Questions
Close-ended questions come in a
variety of formats, including:
Date and time variables
Numeric variables
Categorical variables
Paired-comparison variables
Rank-order variables

39. Close-Ended Questions
Categorical variables come in a
variety of formats:
Dichotomous variables have only two
response options (like yes/no)
Ordinal variables are ranked based on
an inherent order
Nominal variables are have no built-in
order

40. Examples of
Types of
Questions

41. Conclusion
Well constructed questionnaires permit researchers to
gather reasonably valid quantitative and qualitative data
in a simple, timely and cost efficient manner. This chapter
has presented how to develop and implement a
questionnaire in six steps. These steps in their major
components are summarized in Sample multiple choice
item. By following these six steps you should be able to
produce an effective questionnaires are so important in
educational research, I have included a complete sample
questionnaire Sample comment-on and the cover letter for
a study that evaluated training taking by supervisors in
industry. Developing a questionnaire requires thought,
care and time, but the end of product can be satisfying.

42. Thank You For
Your Pay
Attention.