Overview of Questionnaires as a Research Instrument

QUESTIONNAIRE It 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. The questionnaire was invented by Sir Francis Galton.

It refers to paper and pencil data gathering method by letting the subject or respondent complete the questionnaire before the researcher or his representative, or it can be mailed 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 practical. Questionnaire is also the most commonly used tool to generate data. Sometimes, it is called the survey form. TYPES A distinction can be made between questionnaires with questions that measure separate variables, and questionnaires with questions that are aggregated into either a scale or index.

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Questionnaires within the former category are commonly part of surveys, whereas questionnaires in the latter category are commonly part of tests. Questionnaires with questions that measure separate variables could for instance include questions on: * preferences (e. g. political party) * behaviors (e. g. food consumption) * facts (e. g. gender) Questionnaires with questions that are aggregated into either a scale or index include for instance questions that measure: * latent traits (e. g. personality traits such as extroversion) * attitudes (e. . towards immigration) * an index (e. g. Social Economic Status) Question types Usually, a questionnaire consists of a number of questions that the respondent has to answer in a set format. A distinction is made between open-ended and closed-ended questions. An open-ended question asks the respondent to formulate his own answer, whereas a closed-ended question has the respondent pick an answer from a given number of options. The response options for a closed-ended question should be exhaustive and mutually exclusive.

Four types of response scales for closed-ended questions are distinguished: * Dichotomous * Nominal-polytomous * Ordinal-polytomous * (Bounded)Continuous A respondent's answer to an open-ended question is coded into a response scale afterwards. An example of an open-ended question is a question where the testee has to complete a sentence (sentence completion item). What Are the Criteria of a good Questionnaire? 1. The language must be clear. 2. The content of the question must be specific. . The question should show singleness of purpose. 4. The question must be free from assumptions. 5. The question must be free from suggestions. 6. The question should have linguistic completeness and grammatical consistency. Questionnaire administration modes Main modes of questionnaire administration are: * Face-to-face questionnaire administration * Paper-and-pencil questionnaire administration * Computerized questionnaire administration * Adaptive computerized questionnaire administration

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