How to Design a Questoinare

Education

How to design a questionnaire

Wai-Ching Leung has some practical advice on questionnaires

As discussed in a previous issue a survey involves directly collecting information from people (or sometimes organisations) whom we are interested in.1 The types of information will take account of the people’s or organisations’ level of knowledge, attitude, personalities, beliefs, or preferences. Questionnaires are widely used to collect such information. Well designed questionnaires are highly structured to allow the same types of information to be collected from a large number of people in the same way and for data to be analysed quantitatively and systematically. Questionnaires are best used for collecting factual data and appropriate questionnaire design is essential to ensure that we obtain valid responses to our questions.

Objectives in designing questionnaires

There are two main objectives in designing a questionnaire: q To maximise the proportion of subjects answering our questionnaire—that is, the response rate. q To obtain accurate relevant information for our survey. To maximise our response rate, we have to consider carefully how we administer the questionnaire, establish rapport, explain the purpose of the survey, and remind those who have not responded. The length of the questionnaire should be appropriate. In order to obtain accurate relevant information, we have to give some thought to what questions we ask, how we ask them, the order we ask them in, and the general layout of the questionnaire.

dependent factors include the students’ level of relevant knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The independent factors might include students’ learning styles, GCSE and A level grades, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, etc. Confounding variables might include the types and quality of teaching in each medical school. Sometimes, additional questions are used to detect the consistency of the subject’s responses. For example, there may

be a tendency for...