how to write a questionnaire for research

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How to Develop a Questionnaire for Research

Last Updated: July 21, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed. . Alexander Ruiz is an Educational Consultant and the Educational Director of Link Educational Institute, a tutoring business based in Claremont, California that provides customizable educational plans, subject and test prep tutoring, and college application consulting. With over a decade and a half of experience in the education industry, Alexander coaches students to increase their self-awareness and emotional intelligence while achieving skills and the goal of achieving skills and higher education. He holds a BA in Psychology from Florida International University and an MA in Education from Georgia Southern University. There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 592,688 times.

A questionnaire is a technique for collecting data in which a respondent provides answers to a series of questions. [1] X Research source To develop a questionnaire that will collect the data you want takes effort and time. However, by taking a step-by-step approach to questionnaire development, you can come up with an effective means to collect data that will answer your unique research question.

Designing Your Questionnaire

• Come up with a research question. It can be one question or several, but this should be the focal point of your questionnaire.
• Develop one or several hypotheses that you want to test. The questions that you include on your questionnaire should be aimed at systematically testing these hypotheses.

• Dichotomous question: this is a question that will generally be a “yes/no” question, but may also be an “agree/disagree” question. It is the quickest and simplest question to analyze, but is not a highly sensitive measure.
• Open-ended questions: these questions allow the respondent to respond in their own words. They can be useful for gaining insight into the feelings of the respondent, but can be a challenge when it comes to analysis of data. It is recommended to use open-ended questions to address the issue of “why.” [2] X Research source
• Multiple choice questions: these questions consist of three or more mutually-exclusive categories and ask for a single answer or several answers. [3] X Research source Multiple choice questions allow for easy analysis of results, but may not give the respondent the answer they want.
• Rank-order (or ordinal) scale questions: this type of question asks your respondent to rank items or choose items in a particular order from a set. For example, it might ask your respondents to order five things from least to most important. These types of questions forces discrimination among alternatives, but does not address the issue of why the respondent made these discriminations. [4] X Research source
• Rating scale questions: these questions allow the respondent to assess a particular issue based on a given dimension. You can provide a scale that gives an equal number of positive and negative choices, for example, ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” [5] X Research source These questions are very flexible, but also do not answer the question “why.”

• Write questions that are succinct and simple. You should not be writing complex statements or using technical jargon, as it will only confuse your respondents and lead to incorrect responses.
• Ask only one question at a time. This will help avoid confusion
• Asking questions such as these usually require you to anonymize or encrypt the demographic data you collect.
• Determine if you will include an answer such as “I don’t know” or “Not applicable to me.” While these can give your respondents a way of not answering certain questions, providing these options can also lead to missing data, which can be problematic during data analysis.
• Put the most important questions at the beginning of your questionnaire. This can help you gather important data even if you sense that your respondents may be becoming distracted by the end of the questionnaire.

• Only include questions that are directly useful to your research question. [8] X Trustworthy Source Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations Specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for leading international efforts to end world hunger and improve nutrition Go to source A questionnaire is not an opportunity to collect all kinds of information about your respondents.
• Avoid asking redundant questions. This will frustrate those who are taking your questionnaire.

• Consider if you want your questionnaire to collect information from both men and women. Some studies will only survey one sex.
• Consider including a range of ages in your target demographic. For example, you can consider young adult to be 18-29 years old, adults to be 30-54 years old, and mature adults to be 55+. Providing the an age range will help you get more respondents than limiting yourself to a specific age.
• Consider what else would make a person a target for your questionnaire. Do they need to drive a car? Do they need to have health insurance? Do they need to have a child under 3? Make sure you are very clear about this before you distribute your questionnaire.

• Consider an anonymous questionnaire. You may not want to ask for names on your questionnaire. This is one step you can take to prevent privacy, however it is often possible to figure out a respondent’s identity using other demographic information (such as age, physical features, or zipcode).
• Consider de-identifying the identity of your respondents. Give each questionnaire (and thus, each respondent) a unique number or word, and only refer to them using that new identifier. Shred any personal information that can be used to determine identity.
• Remember that you do not need to collect much demographic information to be able to identify someone. People may be wary to provide this information, so you may get more respondents by asking less demographic questions (if it is possible for your questionnaire).
• Make sure you destroy all identifying information after your study is complete.

Writing your questionnaire

• My name is Jack Smith and I am one of the creators of this questionnaire. I am part of the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan, where I am focusing in developing cognition in infants.
• I’m Kelly Smith, a 3rd year undergraduate student at the University of New Mexico. This questionnaire is part of my final exam in statistics.
• My name is Steve Johnson, and I’m a marketing analyst for The Best Company. I’ve been working on questionnaire development to determine attitudes surrounding drug use in Canada for several years.

• I am collecting data regarding the attitudes surrounding gun control. This information is being collected for my Anthropology 101 class at the University of Maryland.
• This questionnaire will ask you 15 questions about your eating and exercise habits. We are attempting to make a correlation between healthy eating, frequency of exercise, and incidence of cancer in mature adults.
• This questionnaire will ask you about your recent experiences with international air travel. There will be three sections of questions that will ask you to recount your recent trips and your feelings surrounding these trips, as well as your travel plans for the future. We are looking to understand how a person’s feelings surrounding air travel impact their future plans.

• Beware that if you are collecting information for a university or for publication, you may need to check in with your institution’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) for permission before beginning. Most research universities have a dedicated IRB staff, and their information can usually be found on the school’s website.
• Remember that transparency is best. It is important to be honest about what will happen with the data you collect.
• Include an informed consent for if necessary. Note that you cannot guarantee confidentiality, but you will make all reasonable attempts to ensure that you protect their information. [11] X Research source

• Time yourself taking the survey. Then consider that it will take some people longer than you, and some people less time than you.
• Provide a time range instead of a specific time. For example, it’s better to say that a survey will take between 15 and 30 minutes than to say it will take 15 minutes and have some respondents quit halfway through.
• Use this as a reason to keep your survey concise! You will feel much better asking people to take a 20 minute survey than you will asking them to take a 3 hour one.

• Incentives can attract the wrong kind of respondent. You don’t want to incorporate responses from people who rush through your questionnaire just to get the reward at the end. This is a danger of offering an incentive. [12] X Research source
• Incentives can encourage people to respond to your survey who might not have responded without a reward. This is a situation in which incentives can help you reach your target number of respondents. [13] X Research source
• Consider the strategy used by SurveyMonkey. Instead of directly paying respondents to take their surveys, they offer 50 cents to the charity of their choice when a respondent fills out a survey. They feel that this lessens the chances that a respondent will fill out a questionnaire out of pure self-interest. [14] X Research source
• Consider entering each respondent in to a drawing for a prize if they complete the questionnaire. You can offer a 25$ gift card to a restaurant, or a new iPod, or a ticket to a movie. This makes it less tempting just to respond to your questionnaire for the incentive alone, but still offers the chance of a pleasant reward.

• Always proof read. Check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.
• Include a title. This is a good way for your respondents to understand the focus of the survey as quickly as possible.
• Thank your respondents. Thank them for taking the time and effort to complete your survey.

Distributing Your Questionnaire

• Was the questionnaire easy to understand? Were there any questions that confused you?
• Was the questionnaire easy to access? (Especially important if your questionnaire is online).
• Do you feel the questionnaire was worth your time?
• Were you comfortable answering the questions asked?
• Are there any improvements you would make to the questionnaire?

• Use an online site, such as SurveyMonkey.com. This site allows you to write your own questionnaire with their survey builder, and provides additional options such as the option to buy a target audience and use their analytics to analyze your data. [18] X Research source
• Consider using the mail. If you mail your survey, always make sure you include a self-addressed stamped envelope so that the respondent can easily mail their responses back. Make sure that your questionnaire will fit inside a standard business envelope.
• Conduct face-to-face interviews. This can be a good way to ensure that you are reaching your target demographic and can reduce missing information in your questionnaires, as it is more difficult for a respondent to avoid answering a question when you ask it directly.
• Try using the telephone. While this can be a more time-effective way to collect your data, it can be difficult to get people to respond to telephone questionnaires.

• Make your deadline reasonable. Giving respondents up to 2 weeks to answer should be more than sufficient. Anything longer and you risk your respondents forgetting about your questionnaire.
• Consider providing a reminder. A week before the deadline is a good time to provide a gentle reminder about returning the questionnaire. Include a replacement of the questionnaire in case it has been misplaced by your respondent.

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.questionpro.com/blog/what-is-a-questionnaire/
• ↑ https://www.hotjar.com/blog/open-ended-questions/
• ↑ https://www.questionpro.com/a/showArticle.do?articleID=survey-questions
• ↑ https://surveysparrow.com/blog/ranking-questions-examples/
• ↑ https://www.lumoa.me/blog/rating-scale/
• ↑ http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Soc_survey.shtml
• ↑ http://www.fao.org/docrep/W3241E/w3241e05.htm
• ↑ http://managementhelp.org/businessresearch/questionaires.htm
• ↑ https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/survey-rewards/
• ↑ http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/how-to-develop-a-questionnaire
• ↑ https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/take-a-tour/?ut_source=header

About This Article

To develop a questionnaire for research, identify the main objective of your research to act as the focal point for the questionnaire. Then, choose the type of questions that you want to include, and come up with succinct, straightforward questions to gather the information that you need to answer your questions. Keep your questionnaire as short as possible, and identify a target demographic who you would like to answer the questions. Remember to make the questionnaires as anonymous as possible to protect the integrity of the person answering the questions! For tips on writing out your questions and distributing the questionnaire, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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• Aug 21, 2020
• 10 min read

How To Design A Good Questionnaire

Updated: 3 days ago

Many people tend to have the perception that it’s really easy to write a questionnaire until they actually try to then have difficulty in structuring the questionnaire, when they had only a few questions in mind or don’t know where to start. There is an art in knowing how to design a good questionnaire but it is more straight forward, once you know how. This post will run through the steps with questionnaire examples to help you along the way.

Table of contents:

What is a questionnaire?

4 key parts in designing a good research questionnaire (organising the questionnaire layout), different types of questions to use, 3 types of questionnaire structures to use, top 10 common mistakes to avoid when writing a questionnaire, pre-test questionnaire, remember the main benefits of a questionnaire.

[Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning we get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through these links at no additional cost to you.]

The table above shows the top 10 tips for how to write a good questionnaire design.

A questionnaire is a data collection technique consisting of a series of questions that are structured to be asked of people taking part using different forms of communication whether it’s verbal or written. The feedback from a questionnaire can be measurable or used to delve deeper into people’s minds.

There are 4 key parts in knowing how to write a good research questionnaire:

1. A short introduction at the beginning stating the purpose of the questionnaire

At the beginning of the questionnaire, there should be an introduction that is short, to the point in stating the purpose of the survey and sound appealing to entice people to take part. Ensure legitimacy is also included and their answers will not be shared to outside parties.

2. Screening section to filter through the target audience of the research

The first questions should be part of the screening section to ensure you are interviewing your target audience by setting criteria specific questions, which maybe a couple of demographic questions if relevant as well as topic specific. Otherwise you don’t want to be interviewing someone for car buying if they don’t drive or are not looking to buy a car in the next 12 months. Keep in mind, the screening section should not be too long.

3. Main body of the questionnaire will be different types of questions of interest to help achieve the market research objectives that have been outlined

The main body of the questionnaire should follow the screening section with all the questions you’re interested in asking your target audience by using many of the question types mentioned previously. It’s best to do a mix but not too much to keep it consistent as well as engaging for the people your interviewing. This section will help to answer the objectives you have set in writing the questionnaire.

Remember if you are using list for multiple choice or scale questions, don’t go crazy and make it too long, otherwise a lot people will drop out of the interview . For a list of behavioural or attitudinal statements it’s best to use a maximum of 10 statements. You have to see it from the participant’s perspective, would you get bored of answering endless lists of statements?

It’s good to get creative with the questionnaire to keep up engagement levels and receive better responses.

4. The final part of the questionnaire tends to be for classification purposes of the target audience such as demographic questions

The final part of the questionnaire tends to be for classification purposes and asking any sensitive questions like income. Normally it includes the rest of the demographic questions you have not asked at the screening section. Don’t forget the closing of the questionnaire survey in thanking the participants for their time and the feedback they have given will be kept confidential.

There are two main question types that you need to be aware of – open ended questions and closed ended questions , where a number of sub type of questions fall under. These questions serve three main purposes behavioural, attitudinal and classification.

Open ended questions

Open ended questions give participants the opportunity to answer the question in their own words, where they can express the reasons why they bought a certain brand or what they don’t like about an advert rather than being prompted to select an answer. The open responses are either recorded by the interviewer or written down/typed by the participant depending on the method used (telephone, face to face, video call or online).

This can add a lot of time to the interview especially if more than two open questions are used in a quantitative survey that will affect whether the questionnaire gets completed or not by many of the participants.

The other thing to keep in mind is it will generate a lot of verbatim comments to analyse, so additional tasks of grouping these comments into the most popular themes let alone taking a further step in coding responses will take a lot time to do. However, verbatim comments can bring results to life through snippets to help back up certain measurable findings.

EXAMPLE – Q. Please tell us your first impressions of this ad. What did you make of it?

Closed ended questions

Closed questions give participants a choice of options to choose from like a single response with a yes or no answer to multiple responses to a question like mobile brands you are aware of from a list.

Below are a number of types of closed questions you can use in your questionnaire.

Single response

Single response as the name suggests is where only one answer is allowed like what gender they are. Even many questions covering attitudes of the participant are single response from a pre-determined list.

EXAMPLE - Q. Have you seen this ad before?

Multiple choice questions

Multiple choice questions allow participants to offer more than one answer. This could be from a list of brands that they may be aware of, consider, bought or used and is easy for people to fill out. If your using a list of answer options, please make sure the list is randomised to avoid bias.

EXAMPLE – Q. Thinking now about all financial products and services, which of these brands would you be prepared to consider for ANY financial products or services? RANDOMISE LIST

Select all that apply

Rating scale questions

Rating scale questions are a scale of numbers that tend to be from 1 to 10 and are used to ask participants to rate a product or service on a number of things. These types of questions are normally used for customer satisfaction .

EXAMPLE – Q. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being not at all to 10 being extremely likely, how likely are you to recommend Brand X to friends or family?

Likert scale questions

Likert scale questions helps to determine the level of agreement from the participant for each statement on a 5 or 7 point scale about a brand or the participants behaviour. Normally this is “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” but can also be the level of likelihood to buy as well.

EXAMPLE – Q. To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statements?

I enjoy entertaining people at home

1. Strongly agree

2. Slightly agree

3. Neither agree nor disagree

4. Slightly disagree

5. Strongly disagree

Ranking questions

Ranking questions are needed to find out what aspects participants rate in order of importance for a website, product or service. It’s best practice to ask the participants their top 3 factors in order of first, second and third from a list of factors. The list of factors should be randomised for every interview to avoid any bias towards the factors at the top of the list.

EXAMPLE – Q. You will now be shown a list of factors that could be important to you when selecting a car to buy. Would you look at the list and tell me which is the most important factor in influencing your choice? RANK JUST 3 FACTORS

RANDOMISE LIST

And what would be the second most important factor?

And what would be the third most important factor?

Rank Factors

Competitive price

Model of the car

There are three types of questionnaires that meet the needs of how a questionnaire is administered, whether this is via telephone, face to face or online:

1. Structured questionnaire

This can be used for large surveys (from 30 to 200+) consisting of closed (like yes or no answers) and prompted questions. This is where you add all the possible answer options that a participant can give to your questionnaire. Can be used over the phone, video calls and online for quantitative research (measurable) .

2. Semi-structured questionnaire

This is a mix of open and closed questions, where like a structured questionnaire, you can get measurable results but it also gives the participant the opportunity to express themselves at certain points with open answers such as the reasons why they like brand X.

3. Unstructured questionnaire

This is more of an open way of allowing participants to express themselves through open questions that are not so rigid like the other two types of questionnaires but there is some order to it. The interviewer has the flexibility to probe to explore different lines of questioning around the subject area. This is used for qualitative research in focus groups or depth interviews.

In knowing how to make a questionnaire for research, you have to understand the common mistakes to avoid making them yourselves.

The following is a checklist of the top 10 mistakes to avoid when writing a questionnaire:

Mistake 1: Using two questions in one

Do not include more than one idea or question as this will cause confusion if you have multiple questions in one. Questions need to be short and not overcomplicated.

Mistake 2: Asking leading questions

Questions should not be leading the participants to give a certain answer. For example, excluding “poor” or “very poor” from the scale when asking customers to rate their recent experience of company B.

Mistake 3: Asking vague questions

There should not be any vagueness in the questions you use and need to be very specific as the words “frequently” or “usually” are not specific for a time period. Instead you should use words like “daily”, “weekly” and “monthly”. You can be even more specific by using numbers when asking questions like how often they go to the supermarket in a month.

Mistake 4: Using technical jargon, abbreviations and uncommon words

It’s important not to include jargon and acronyms unless they are used as everyday terms. If you have to include a technical term in the questionnaire, it’s best to include the definition of that term before the question.

Mistake 5: Including words that could be misheard

This is very relevant if the questionnaire is to be used over the phone, face to face or video calls. For example, if you are asking the question ‘what do you think are the differences between the sects?’ This could lead to interesting or amusing responses that are irrelevant to the actual question being asked.

Mistake 6: Asking questions with a negative in them

Understanding of the question will be more difficult if they are asked in a negative way such as “Do you never…?” when it should be “Do you ever…?”.

Mistake 7: Not applying bands for numeric data

This is really good for sensitive type of questions such as income, where bands can be applied for different levels of income like less than $100,000, $100,000-$200,000 and so on. The order of these bands should be sequential and don’t overlap.

Mistake 8: Not keeping in mind the frame of reference for the respondents

There is no point asking them how much milk they consumed in the last 6 months, when it’s better to ask them how many pints of milk they buy in a typical week as it will be hard for the participants to remember the true amount over a lengthy period of time. Besides you can make a simple calculation for a specific period of time from the feedback you get.

Mistake 9: Not including Other (specify) when you are presenting a list of options

Need to include other specify option when using list of options in a questionnaire, as you may not cover everything off such as a list of brands you buy from a supermarket.

Mistake 10: Asking sensitive type of questions at the start of the questionnaire

By having these questions like income or number of people in household at the back of the questionnaire, you have already developed some trust early on to complete the questionnaire rather than the other way round. Remember this is only if they are not an essential part of the screening process at the start of the questionnaire.

Once a questionnaire is drafted it's best to pre-test the questionnaire with colleagues, family or friends. A pre test uses a small number of respondents to help check if a questionnaire reads well, is easy to follow, see if there are any errors to fix, test the routing has been applied correctly and ensuring the survey length is not too long.

If your doing an online survey then it should not take more than 10 to 15 minutes to complete before people start dropping out.

Once all the relevant checks are made and any issues have been fixed then you are ready to go and launch your survey.

The main purpose of a questionnaire is obviously to get information out of participants but there are other benefits of a questionnaire, which are:

Serves as an aid for the interviewer without having to remember the questions.

To provide consistency in how all interviews are conducted.

Avoids having the interviewer using their own discretion throughout in making up questions.

Allows results to be recorded in a consistent way in order for results to be analysed easily later on.

Can be inexpensive when online and mobile survey methods are used.

Survey questionnaire allows you to collect information from a large audience.

An easy way to interview your target audience is by screening participants early on who meet your set criteria.

Allows comparability when questionnaire results are measurable and the questionnaire is asked of participants every quarter or yearly.

If you are considering DLY online survey then survey platforms like 123FormBuilder.com are great to use as they are inexpensive and are really intuitive to use. Plus, you can use them for more than just surveys with all kinds of online forms and templates for apps, tables, stores, approvals and more.

Another alternative if you just want to run a quick poll to compare or rank designs, ideas, logos, book covers or even Amazon sales pages including running short surveys then you should use PickFu, which is straight forward and not expensive to run (starting from $15). You can take advantage of their large online panel of 15 million across countries like the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Germany and Spain to ask questions to.

So give PickFu a try and get 50% off your first poll with the promo code - ANPAR.

Watch the video below for more information.

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#goodquestionnairedesign #anparresearch

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Your ultimate guide to questionnaires and how to design a good one

The written questionnaire is the heart and soul of any survey research project. Whether you conduct your survey using an online questionnaire, in person, by email or over the phone, the way you design your questionnaire plays a critical role in shaping the quality of the data and insights that you’ll get from your target audience. Keep reading to get actionable tips.

What is a questionnaire?

A questionnaire is a research tool consisting of a set of questions or other ‘prompts’ to collect data from a set of respondents.

When used in most research, a questionnaire will consist of a number of types of questions (primarily open-ended and closed) in order to gain both quantitative data that can be analyzed to draw conclusions, and qualitative data to provide longer, more specific explanations.

A research questionnaire is often mistaken for a survey - and many people use the term questionnaire and survey, interchangeably.

But that’s incorrect.

Which is what we talk about next.

Get started with our free survey maker with 50+ templates

Survey vs. questionnaire – what’s the difference?

Before we go too much further, let’s consider the differences between surveys and questionnaires.

These two terms are often used interchangeably, but there is an important difference between them.

Survey definition

A survey is the process of collecting data from a set of respondents and using it to gather insights.

Survey research can be conducted using a questionnaire, but won’t always involve one.

Questionnaire definition

A questionnaire is the list of questions you circulate to your target audience.

In other words, the survey is the task you’re carrying out, and the questionnaire is the instrument you’re using to do it.

By itself, a questionnaire doesn’t achieve much.

It’s when you put it into action as part of a survey that you start to get results.

Advantages vs disadvantages of using a questionnaire

While a questionnaire is a popular method to gather data for market research or other studies, there are a few disadvantages to using this method (although there are plenty of advantages to using a questionnaire too).

Let’s have a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of using a questionnaire for collecting data.

Advantages of using a questionnaire

1. questionnaires are relatively cheap.

Depending on the complexity of your study, using a questionnaire can be cost effective compared to other methods.

You simply need to write your survey questionnaire, and send it out and then process the responses.

You can set up an online questionnaire relatively easily, or simply carry out market research on the street if that’s the best method.

2. You can get and analyze results quickly

Again depending on the size of your survey you can get results back from a questionnaire quickly, often within 24 hours of putting the questionnaire live.

It also means you can start to analyze responses quickly too.

3. They’re easily scalable

You can easily send an online questionnaire to anyone in the world and with the right software you can quickly identify your target audience and your questionnaire to them.

4. Questionnaires are easy to analyze

If your questionnaire design has been done properly, it’s quick and easy to analyze results from questionnaires once responses start to come back.

This is particularly useful with large scale market research projects.

Because all respondents are answering the same questions, it’s simple to identify trends.

5. You can use the results to make accurate decisions

As a research instrument, a questionnaire is ideal for commercial research because the data you get back is from your target audience (or ideal customers) and the information you get back on their thoughts, preferences or behaviors allows you to make business decisions.

6. A questionnaire can cover any topic

One of the biggest advantages of using questionnaires when conducting research is (because you can adapt them using different types and styles of open ended questions and closed ended questions) they can be used to gather data on almost any topic.

There are many types of questionnaires you can design to gather both quantitative data and qualitative data - so they’re a useful tool for all kinds of data analysis.

Disadvantages of using a questionnaire

1. respondents could lie.

This is by far the biggest risk with a questionnaire, especially when dealing with sensitive topics.

Rather than give their actual opinion, a respondent might feel pressured to give the answer they deem more socially acceptable, which doesn’t give you accurate results.

2. Respondents might not answer every question

There are all kinds of reasons respondents might not answer every question, from questionnaire length, they might not understand what’s being asked, or they simply might not want to answer it.

If you get questionnaires back without complete responses it could negatively affect your research data and provide an inaccurate picture.

3. They might interpret what’s being asked incorrectly

This is a particular problem when running a survey across geographical boundaries and often comes down to the design of the survey questionnaire.

If your questions aren’t written in a very clear way, the respondent might misunderstand what’s being asked and provide an answer that doesn’t reflect what they actually think.

Again this can negatively affect your research data.

4. You could introduce bias

The whole point of producing a questionnaire is to gather accurate data from which decisions can be made or conclusions drawn.

But the data collected can be heavily impacted if the researchers accidentally introduce bias into the questions.

This can be easily done if the researcher is trying to prove a certain hypothesis with their questionnaire, and unwittingly write questions that push people towards giving a certain answer.

In these cases respondents’ answers won’t accurately reflect what is really happening and stop you gathering more accurate data.

5. Respondents could get survey fatigue

One issue you can run into when sending out a questionnaire, particularly if you send them out regularly to the same survey sample, is that your respondents could start to suffer from survey fatigue.

In these circumstances, rather than thinking about the response options in the questionnaire and providing accurate answers, respondents could start to just tick boxes to get through the questionnaire quickly.

Again, this won’t give you an accurate data set.

Questionnaire design: How to do it

It’s essential to carefully craft a questionnaire to reduce survey error and optimize your data . The best way to think about the questionnaire is with the end result in mind.

How do you do that?

Start with questions, like:

• What is my research purpose ?
• What data do I need?
• How am I going to analyze that data?
• What questions are needed to best suit these variables?

Once you have a clear idea of the purpose of your survey, you’ll be in a better position to create an effective questionnaire.

Here are a few steps to help you get into the right mindset.

1. Keep the respondent front and center

A survey is the process of collecting information from people, so it needs to be designed around human beings first and foremost.

In his post about survey design theory, David Vannette, PhD, from the Qualtrics Methodology Lab explains the correlation between the way a survey is designed and the quality of data that is extracted.

“To begin designing an effective survey, take a step back and try to understand what goes on in your respondents’ heads when they are taking your survey.

This step is critical to making sure that your questionnaire makes it as likely as possible that the response process follows that expected path.”

From writing the questions to designing the survey flow, the respondent’s point of view should always be front and center in your mind during a questionnaire design.

2. How to write survey questions

Your questionnaire should only be as long as it needs to be, and every question needs to deliver value.

That means your questions must each have an individual purpose and produce the best possible data for that purpose, all while supporting the overall goal of the survey.

A question must also must be phrased in a way that is easy for all your respondents to understand, and does not produce false results.

To do this, remember the following principles:

Get into the respondent's head

The process for a respondent answering a survey question looks like this:

• The respondent reads the question and determines what information they need to answer it.
• They search their memory for that information.
• They make judgments about that information.
• They translate that judgment into one of the answer options you’ve provided. This is the process of taking the data they have and matching that information with the question that’s asked.

When wording questions, make sure the question means the same thing to all respondents. Words should have one meaning, few syllables, and the sentences should have few words.

Only use the words needed to ask your question and not a word more .

Note that it’s important that the respondent understands the intent behind your question.

If they don’t, they may answer a different question and the data can be skewed.

Some contextual help text, either in the introduction to the questionnaire or before the question itself, can help make sure the respondent understands your goals and the scope of your research.

Use mutually exclusive responses

Be sure to make your response categories mutually exclusive.

Consider the question:

What is your age?

Respondents that are 31 years old have two options, as do respondents that are 40 and 55. As a result, it is impossible to predict which category they will choose.

This can distort results and frustrate respondents. It can be easily avoided by making responses mutually exclusive.

The following question is much better:

This question is clear and will give us better results.

Ask specific questions

Nonspecific questions can confuse respondents and influence results.

Do you like orange juice?

• Like very much
• Neither like nor dislike
• Dislike very much

This question is very unclear. Is it asking about taste, texture, price, or the nutritional content? Different respondents will read this question differently.

A specific question will get more specific answers that are actionable.

How much do you like the current price of orange juice?

This question is more specific and will get better results.

If you need to collect responses about more than one aspect of a subject, you can include multiple questions on it. (Do you like the taste of orange juice? Do you like the nutritional content of orange juice? etc.)

Use a variety of question types

If all of your questionnaire, survey or poll questions are structured the same way (e.g. yes/no or multiple choice) the respondents are likely to become bored and tune out. That could mean they pay less attention to how they’re answering or even give up altogether.

Instead, mix up the question types to keep the experience interesting and varied. It’s a good idea to include questions that yield both qualitative and quantitative data.

For example, an open-ended questionnaire item such as “describe your attitude to life” will provide qualitative data – a form of information that’s rich, unstructured and unpredictable. The respondent will tell you in their own words what they think and feel.

A quantitative / close-ended questionnaire item, such as “Which word describes your attitude to life? a) practical b) philosophical” gives you a much more structured answer, but the answers will be less rich and detailed.

Open-ended questions take more thought and effort to answer, so use them sparingly. They also require a different kind of treatment once your survey is in the analysis stage.

3. Pre-test your questionnaire

Always pre-test a questionnaire before sending it out to respondents. This will help catch any errors you might have missed. You could ask a colleague, friend, or an expert to take the survey and give feedback. If possible, ask a few cognitive questions like, “how did you get to that response?” and “what were you thinking about when you answered that question?” Figure out what was easy for the responder and where there is potential for confusion. You can then re-word where necessary to make the experience as frictionless as possible.

If your resources allow, you could also consider using a focus group to test out your survey. Having multiple respondents road-test the questionnaire will give you a better understanding of its strengths and weaknesses. Match the focus group to your target respondents as closely as possible, for example in terms of age, background, gender, and level of education.

Note: Don't forget to make your survey as accessible as possible for increased response rates.

Questionnaire examples and templates

There are free questionnaire templates and example questions available for all kinds of surveys and market research, many of them online. But they’re not all created equal and you should use critical judgement when selecting one. After all, the questionnaire examples may be free but the time and energy you’ll spend carrying out a survey are not.

If you’re using online questionnaire templates as the basis for your own, make sure it has been developed by professionals and is specific to the type of research you’re doing to ensure higher completion rates. As we’ve explored here, using the wrong kinds of questions can result in skewed or messy data, and could even prompt respondents to abandon the questionnaire without finishing or give thoughtless answers.

You’ll find a full library of downloadable survey templates in the Qualtrics Marketplace , covering many different types of research from employee engagement to post-event feedback . All are fully customizable and have been developed by Qualtrics experts.

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How to Design Effective Research Questionnaires for Robust Findings

As a staple in data collection, questionnaires help uncover robust and reliable findings that can transform industries, shape policies, and revolutionize understanding. Whether you are exploring societal trends or delving into scientific phenomena, the effectiveness of your research questionnaire can make or break your findings.

In this article, we aim to understand the core purpose of questionnaires, exploring how they serve as essential tools for gathering systematic data, both qualitative and quantitative, from diverse respondents. Read on as we explore the key elements that make up a winning questionnaire, the art of framing questions which are both compelling and rigorous, and the careful balance between simplicity and depth.

Table of Contents

The Role of Questionnaires in Research

So, what is a questionnaire? A questionnaire is a structured set of questions designed to collect information, opinions, attitudes, or behaviors from respondents. It is one of the most commonly used data collection methods in research. Moreover, questionnaires can be used in various research fields, including social sciences, market research, healthcare, education, and psychology. Their adaptability makes them suitable for investigating diverse research questions.

Questionnaire and survey  are two terms often used interchangeably, but they have distinct meanings in the context of research. A survey refers to the broader process of data collection that may involve various methods. A survey can encompass different data collection techniques, such as interviews , focus groups, observations, and yes, questionnaires.

Pros and Cons of Using Questionnaires in Research:

While questionnaires offer numerous advantages in research, they also come with some disadvantages that researchers must be aware of and address appropriately. Careful questionnaire design, validation, and consideration of potential biases can help mitigate these disadvantages and enhance the effectiveness of using questionnaires as a data collection method.

Structured vs Unstructured Questionnaires

Structured questionnaire:.

A structured questionnaire consists of questions with predefined response options. Respondents are presented with a fixed set of choices and are required to select from those options. The questions in a structured questionnaire are designed to elicit specific and quantifiable responses. Structured questionnaires are particularly useful for collecting quantitative data and are often employed in surveys and studies where standardized and comparable data are necessary.

Advantages of Structured Questionnaires:

• Easy to analyze and interpret: The fixed response options facilitate straightforward data analysis and comparison across respondents.
• Efficient for large-scale data collection: Structured questionnaires are time-efficient, allowing researchers to collect data from a large number of respondents.
• Reduces response bias: The predefined response options minimize potential response bias and maintain consistency in data collection.

Limitations of Structured Questionnaires:

• Lack of depth: Structured questionnaires may not capture in-depth insights or nuances as respondents are limited to pre-defined response choices. Hence, they may not reveal the reasons behind respondents’ choices, limiting the understanding of their perspectives.
• Limited flexibility: The fixed response options may not cover all potential responses, therefore, potentially restricting respondents’ answers.

Unstructured Questionnaire:

An unstructured questionnaire consists of questions that allow respondents to provide detailed and unrestricted responses. Unlike structured questionnaires, there are no predefined response options, giving respondents the freedom to express their thoughts in their own words. Furthermore, unstructured questionnaires are valuable for collecting qualitative data and obtaining in-depth insights into respondents’ experiences, opinions, or feelings.

Advantages of Unstructured Questionnaires:

• Rich qualitative data: Unstructured questionnaires yield detailed and comprehensive qualitative data, providing valuable and novel insights into respondents’ perspectives.
• Flexibility in responses: Respondents have the freedom to express themselves in their own words. Hence, allowing for a wide range of responses.

Limitations of Unstructured Questionnaires:

• Time-consuming analysis: Analyzing open-ended responses can be time-consuming, since, each response requires careful reading and interpretation.
• Subjectivity in interpretation: The analysis of open-ended responses may be subjective, as researchers interpret and categorize responses based on their judgment.
• May require smaller sample size: Due to the depth of responses, researchers may need a smaller sample size for comprehensive analysis, making generalizations more challenging.

Types of Questions in a Questionnaire

In a questionnaire, researchers typically use the following most common types of questions to gather a variety of information from respondents:

1. Open-Ended Questions:

These questions allow respondents to provide detailed and unrestricted responses in their own words. Open-ended questions are valuable for gathering qualitative data and in-depth insights.

Example: What suggestions do you have for improving our product?

2. Multiple-Choice Questions

Respondents choose one answer from a list of provided options. This type of question is suitable for gathering categorical data or preferences.

Example: Which of the following social media/academic networking platforms do you use to promote your research?

• ResearchGate
• Academia.edu

3. Dichotomous Questions

Respondents choose between two options, typically “yes” or “no”, “true” or “false”, or “agree” or “disagree”.

Example: Have you ever published in open access journals before?

4. Scaling Questions

These questions, also known as rating scale questions, use a predefined scale that allows respondents to rate or rank their level of agreement, satisfaction, importance, or other subjective assessments. These scales help researchers quantify subjective data and make comparisons across respondents.

There are several types of scaling techniques used in scaling questions:

i. Likert Scale:

The Likert scale is one of the most common scaling techniques. It presents respondents with a series of statements and asks them to rate their level of agreement or disagreement using a range of options, typically from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”.For example: Please indicate your level of agreement with the statement: “The content presented in the webinar was relevant and aligned with the advertised topic.”

• Strongly Agree
• Strongly Disagree

ii. Semantic Differential Scale:

The semantic differential scale measures respondents’ perceptions or attitudes towards an item using opposite adjectives or bipolar words. Respondents rate the item on a scale between the two opposites. For example:

• Easy —— Difficult
• Satisfied —— Unsatisfied
• Very likely —— Very unlikely

iii. Numerical Rating Scale:

This scale requires respondents to provide a numerical rating on a predefined scale. It can be a simple 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 scale, where higher numbers indicate higher agreement, satisfaction, or importance.

iv. Ranking Questions:

Respondents rank items in order of preference or importance. Ranking questions help identify preferences or priorities.

Example: Please rank the following features of our app in order of importance (1 = Most Important, 5 = Least Important):

• User Interface
• Functionality
• Customer Support

By using a mix of question types, researchers can gather both quantitative and qualitative data, providing a comprehensive understanding of the research topic and enabling meaningful analysis and interpretation of the results. The choice of question types depends on the research objectives , the desired depth of information, and the data analysis requirements.

Methods of Administering Questionnaires

There are several methods for administering questionnaires, and the choice of method depends on factors such as the target population, research objectives , convenience, and resources available. Here are some common methods of administering questionnaires:

Each method has its advantages and limitations. Online surveys offer convenience and a large reach, but they may be limited to individuals with internet access. Face-to-face interviews allow for in-depth responses but can be time-consuming and costly. Telephone surveys have broad reach but may be limited by declining response rates. Researchers should choose the method that best suits their research objectives, target population, and available resources to ensure successful data collection.

How to Design a Questionnaire

Designing a good questionnaire is crucial for gathering accurate and meaningful data that aligns with your research objectives. Here are essential steps and tips to create a well-designed questionnaire:

1. Define Your Research Objectives : Clearly outline the purpose and specific information you aim to gather through the questionnaire.

2. Identify Your Target Audience : Understand respondents’ characteristics and tailor the questionnaire accordingly.

3. Develop the Questions :

• Write Clear and Concise Questions
• Avoid Leading or Biasing Questions
• Sequence Questions Logically
• Group Related Questions
• Include Demographic Questions

4. Provide Well-defined Response Options : Offer exhaustive response choices for closed-ended questions.

5. Consider Skip Logic and Branching : Customize the questionnaire based on previous answers.

6. Pilot Test the Questionnaire : Identify and address issues through a pilot study .

7. Seek Expert Feedback : Validate the questionnaire with subject matter experts.

8. Obtain Ethical Approval : Comply with ethical guidelines , obtain consent, and ensure confidentiality before administering the questionnaire.

9. Administer the Questionnaire : Choose the right mode and provide clear instructions.

10. Test the Survey Platform : Ensure compatibility and usability for online surveys.

By following these steps and paying attention to questionnaire design principles, you can create a well-structured and effective questionnaire that gathers reliable data and helps you achieve your research objectives.

Characteristics of a Good Questionnaire

A good questionnaire possesses several essential elements that contribute to its effectiveness. Furthermore, these characteristics ensure that the questionnaire is well-designed, easy to understand, and capable of providing valuable insights. Here are some key characteristics of a good questionnaire:

1. Clarity and Simplicity : Questions should be clear, concise, and unambiguous. Avoid using complex language or technical terms that may confuse respondents. Simple and straightforward questions ensure that respondents interpret them consistently.

2. Relevance and Focus : Each question should directly relate to the research objectives and contribute to answering the research questions. Consequently, avoid including extraneous or irrelevant questions that could lead to data clutter.

3. Mix of Question Types : Utilize a mix of question types, including open-ended, Likert scale, and multiple-choice questions. This variety allows for both qualitative and quantitative data collections .

4. Validity and Reliability : Ensure the questionnaire measures what it intends to measure (validity) and produces consistent results upon repeated administration (reliability). Validation should be conducted through expert review and previous research.

5. Appropriate Length : Keep the questionnaire’s length appropriate and manageable to avoid respondent fatigue or dropouts. Long questionnaires may result in incomplete or rushed responses.

6. Clear Instructions : Include clear instructions at the beginning of the questionnaire to guide respondents on how to complete it. Explain any technical terms, formats, or concepts if necessary.

7. User-Friendly Format : Design the questionnaire to be visually appealing and user-friendly. Use consistent formatting, adequate spacing, and a logical page layout.

8. Data Validation and Cleaning : Incorporate validation checks to ensure data accuracy and reliability. Consider mechanisms to detect and correct inconsistent or missing responses during data cleaning.

By incorporating these characteristics, researchers can create a questionnaire that maximizes data quality, minimizes response bias, and provides valuable insights for their research.

In the pursuit of advancing research and gaining meaningful insights, investing time and effort into designing effective questionnaires is a crucial step. A well-designed questionnaire is more than a mere set of questions; it is a masterpiece of precision and ingenuity. Each question plays a vital role in shaping the narrative of our research, guiding us through the labyrinth of data to meaningful conclusions. Indeed, a well-designed questionnaire serves as a powerful tool for unlocking valuable insights and generating robust findings that impact society positively.

Have you ever designed a research questionnaire? Reflect on your experience and share your insights with researchers globally through Enago Academy’s Open Blogging Platform . Join our diverse community of 1000K+ researchers and authors to exchange ideas, strategies, and best practices, and together, let’s shape the future of data collection and maximize the impact of questionnaires in the ever-evolving landscape of research.

Frequently Asked Questions

A research questionnaire is a structured tool used to gather data from participants in a systematic manner. It consists of a series of carefully crafted questions designed to collect specific information related to a research study.

Questionnaires play a pivotal role in both quantitative and qualitative research, enabling researchers to collect insights, opinions, attitudes, or behaviors from respondents. This aids in hypothesis testing, understanding, and informed decision-making, ensuring consistency, efficiency, and facilitating comparisons.

Questionnaires are a versatile tool employed in various research designs to gather data efficiently and comprehensively. They find extensive use in both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, making them a fundamental component of research across disciplines. Some research designs that commonly utilize questionnaires include: a) Cross-Sectional Studies b) Longitudinal Studies c) Descriptive Research d) Correlational Studies e) Causal-Comparative Studies f) Experimental Research g) Survey Research h) Case Studies i) Exploratory Research

A survey is a comprehensive data collection method that can include various techniques like interviews and observations. A questionnaire is a specific set of structured questions within a survey designed to gather standardized responses. While a survey is a broader approach, a questionnaire is a focused tool for collecting specific data.

The choice of questionnaire type depends on the research objectives, the type of data required, and the preferences of respondents. Some common types include: • Structured Questionnaires: These questionnaires consist of predefined, closed-ended questions with fixed response options. They are easy to analyze and suitable for quantitative research. • Semi-Structured Questionnaires: These questionnaires combine closed-ended questions with open-ended ones. They offer more flexibility for respondents to provide detailed explanations. • Unstructured Questionnaires: These questionnaires contain open-ended questions only, allowing respondents to express their thoughts and opinions freely. They are commonly used in qualitative research.

Following these steps ensures effective questionnaire administration for reliable data collection: • Choose a Method: Decide on online, face-to-face, mail, or phone administration. • Online Surveys: Use platforms like SurveyMonkey • Pilot Test: Test on a small group before full deployment • Clear Instructions: Provide concise guidelines • Follow-Up: Send reminders if needed

Thank you, Riya. This is quite helpful. As discussed, response bias is one of the disadvantages in the use of questionnaires. One way to help limit this can be to use scenario based questions. These type of questions may help the respondents to be more reflective and active in the process.

Thank you, Dear Riya. This is quite helpful.

Great insights there Doc

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Writing Survey Questions

Perhaps the most important part of the survey process is the creation of questions that accurately measure the opinions, experiences and behaviors of the public. Accurate random sampling will be wasted if the information gathered is built on a shaky foundation of ambiguous or biased questions. Creating good measures involves both writing good questions and organizing them to form the questionnaire.

Questionnaire design is a multistage process that requires attention to many details at once. Designing the questionnaire is complicated because surveys can ask about topics in varying degrees of detail, questions can be asked in different ways, and questions asked earlier in a survey may influence how people respond to later questions. Researchers are also often interested in measuring change over time and therefore must be attentive to how opinions or behaviors have been measured in prior surveys.

Surveyors may conduct pilot tests or focus groups in the early stages of questionnaire development in order to better understand how people think about an issue or comprehend a question. Pretesting a survey is an essential step in the questionnaire design process to evaluate how people respond to the overall questionnaire and specific questions, especially when questions are being introduced for the first time.

For many years, surveyors approached questionnaire design as an art, but substantial research over the past forty years has demonstrated that there is a lot of science involved in crafting a good survey questionnaire. Here, we discuss the pitfalls and best practices of designing questionnaires.

Question development

There are several steps involved in developing a survey questionnaire. The first is identifying what topics will be covered in the survey. For Pew Research Center surveys, this involves thinking about what is happening in our nation and the world and what will be relevant to the public, policymakers and the media. We also track opinion on a variety of issues over time so we often ensure that we update these trends on a regular basis to better understand whether people’s opinions are changing.

At Pew Research Center, questionnaire development is a collaborative and iterative process where staff meet to discuss drafts of the questionnaire several times over the course of its development. We frequently test new survey questions ahead of time through qualitative research methods such as  focus groups , cognitive interviews, pretesting (often using an  online, opt-in sample ), or a combination of these approaches. Researchers use insights from this testing to refine questions before they are asked in a production survey, such as on the ATP.

Measuring change over time

Many surveyors want to track changes over time in people’s attitudes, opinions and behaviors. To measure change, questions are asked at two or more points in time. A cross-sectional design surveys different people in the same population at multiple points in time. A panel, such as the ATP, surveys the same people over time. However, it is common for the set of people in survey panels to change over time as new panelists are added and some prior panelists drop out. Many of the questions in Pew Research Center surveys have been asked in prior polls. Asking the same questions at different points in time allows us to report on changes in the overall views of the general public (or a subset of the public, such as registered voters, men or Black Americans), or what we call “trending the data”.

When measuring change over time, it is important to use the same question wording and to be sensitive to where the question is asked in the questionnaire to maintain a similar context as when the question was asked previously (see  question wording  and  question order  for further information). All of our survey reports include a topline questionnaire that provides the exact question wording and sequencing, along with results from the current survey and previous surveys in which we asked the question.

The Center’s transition from conducting U.S. surveys by live telephone interviewing to an online panel (around 2014 to 2020) complicated some opinion trends, but not others. Opinion trends that ask about sensitive topics (e.g., personal finances or attending religious services ) or that elicited volunteered answers (e.g., “neither” or “don’t know”) over the phone tended to show larger differences than other trends when shifting from phone polls to the online ATP. The Center adopted several strategies for coping with changes to data trends that may be related to this change in methodology. If there is evidence suggesting that a change in a trend stems from switching from phone to online measurement, Center reports flag that possibility for readers to try to head off confusion or erroneous conclusions.

Open- and closed-ended questions

One of the most significant decisions that can affect how people answer questions is whether the question is posed as an open-ended question, where respondents provide a response in their own words, or a closed-ended question, where they are asked to choose from a list of answer choices.

For example, in a poll conducted after the 2008 presidential election, people responded very differently to two versions of the question: “What one issue mattered most to you in deciding how you voted for president?” One was closed-ended and the other open-ended. In the closed-ended version, respondents were provided five options and could volunteer an option not on the list.

When explicitly offered the economy as a response, more than half of respondents (58%) chose this answer; only 35% of those who responded to the open-ended version volunteered the economy. Moreover, among those asked the closed-ended version, fewer than one-in-ten (8%) provided a response other than the five they were read. By contrast, fully 43% of those asked the open-ended version provided a response not listed in the closed-ended version of the question. All of the other issues were chosen at least slightly more often when explicitly offered in the closed-ended version than in the open-ended version. (Also see  “High Marks for the Campaign, a High Bar for Obama”  for more information.)

Researchers will sometimes conduct a pilot study using open-ended questions to discover which answers are most common. They will then develop closed-ended questions based off that pilot study that include the most common responses as answer choices. In this way, the questions may better reflect what the public is thinking, how they view a particular issue, or bring certain issues to light that the researchers may not have been aware of.

When asking closed-ended questions, the choice of options provided, how each option is described, the number of response options offered, and the order in which options are read can all influence how people respond. One example of the impact of how categories are defined can be found in a Pew Research Center poll conducted in January 2002. When half of the sample was asked whether it was “more important for President Bush to focus on domestic policy or foreign policy,” 52% chose domestic policy while only 34% said foreign policy. When the category “foreign policy” was narrowed to a specific aspect – “the war on terrorism” – far more people chose it; only 33% chose domestic policy while 52% chose the war on terrorism.

In most circumstances, the number of answer choices should be kept to a relatively small number – just four or perhaps five at most – especially in telephone surveys. Psychological research indicates that people have a hard time keeping more than this number of choices in mind at one time. When the question is asking about an objective fact and/or demographics, such as the religious affiliation of the respondent, more categories can be used. In fact, they are encouraged to ensure inclusivity. For example, Pew Research Center’s standard religion questions include more than 12 different categories, beginning with the most common affiliations (Protestant and Catholic). Most respondents have no trouble with this question because they can expect to see their religious group within that list in a self-administered survey.

In addition to the number and choice of response options offered, the order of answer categories can influence how people respond to closed-ended questions. Research suggests that in telephone surveys respondents more frequently choose items heard later in a list (a “recency effect”), and in self-administered surveys, they tend to choose items at the top of the list (a “primacy” effect).

Because of concerns about the effects of category order on responses to closed-ended questions, many sets of response options in Pew Research Center’s surveys are programmed to be randomized to ensure that the options are not asked in the same order for each respondent. Rotating or randomizing means that questions or items in a list are not asked in the same order to each respondent. Answers to questions are sometimes affected by questions that precede them. By presenting questions in a different order to each respondent, we ensure that each question gets asked in the same context as every other question the same number of times (e.g., first, last or any position in between). This does not eliminate the potential impact of previous questions on the current question, but it does ensure that this bias is spread randomly across all of the questions or items in the list. For instance, in the example discussed above about what issue mattered most in people’s vote, the order of the five issues in the closed-ended version of the question was randomized so that no one issue appeared early or late in the list for all respondents. Randomization of response items does not eliminate order effects, but it does ensure that this type of bias is spread randomly.

Questions with ordinal response categories – those with an underlying order (e.g., excellent, good, only fair, poor OR very favorable, mostly favorable, mostly unfavorable, very unfavorable) – are generally not randomized because the order of the categories conveys important information to help respondents answer the question. Generally, these types of scales should be presented in order so respondents can easily place their responses along the continuum, but the order can be reversed for some respondents. For example, in one of Pew Research Center’s questions about abortion, half of the sample is asked whether abortion should be “legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, illegal in all cases,” while the other half of the sample is asked the same question with the response categories read in reverse order, starting with “illegal in all cases.” Again, reversing the order does not eliminate the recency effect but distributes it randomly across the population.

Question wording

The choice of words and phrases in a question is critical in expressing the meaning and intent of the question to the respondent and ensuring that all respondents interpret the question the same way. Even small wording differences can substantially affect the answers people provide.

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An example of a wording difference that had a significant impact on responses comes from a January 2003 Pew Research Center survey. When people were asked whether they would “favor or oppose taking military action in Iraq to end Saddam Hussein’s rule,” 68% said they favored military action while 25% said they opposed military action. However, when asked whether they would “favor or oppose taking military action in Iraq to end Saddam Hussein’s rule  even if it meant that U.S. forces might suffer thousands of casualties, ” responses were dramatically different; only 43% said they favored military action, while 48% said they opposed it. The introduction of U.S. casualties altered the context of the question and influenced whether people favored or opposed military action in Iraq.

There has been a substantial amount of research to gauge the impact of different ways of asking questions and how to minimize differences in the way respondents interpret what is being asked. The issues related to question wording are more numerous than can be treated adequately in this short space, but below are a few of the important things to consider:

First, it is important to ask questions that are clear and specific and that each respondent will be able to answer. If a question is open-ended, it should be evident to respondents that they can answer in their own words and what type of response they should provide (an issue or problem, a month, number of days, etc.). Closed-ended questions should include all reasonable responses (i.e., the list of options is exhaustive) and the response categories should not overlap (i.e., response options should be mutually exclusive). Further, it is important to discern when it is best to use forced-choice close-ended questions (often denoted with a radio button in online surveys) versus “select-all-that-apply” lists (or check-all boxes). A 2019 Center study found that forced-choice questions tend to yield more accurate responses, especially for sensitive questions.  Based on that research, the Center generally avoids using select-all-that-apply questions.

It is also important to ask only one question at a time. Questions that ask respondents to evaluate more than one concept (known as double-barreled questions) – such as “How much confidence do you have in President Obama to handle domestic and foreign policy?” – are difficult for respondents to answer and often lead to responses that are difficult to interpret. In this example, it would be more effective to ask two separate questions, one about domestic policy and another about foreign policy.

In general, questions that use simple and concrete language are more easily understood by respondents. It is especially important to consider the education level of the survey population when thinking about how easy it will be for respondents to interpret and answer a question. Double negatives (e.g., do you favor or oppose  not  allowing gays and lesbians to legally marry) or unfamiliar abbreviations or jargon (e.g., ANWR instead of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) can result in respondent confusion and should be avoided.

Similarly, it is important to consider whether certain words may be viewed as biased or potentially offensive to some respondents, as well as the emotional reaction that some words may provoke. For example, in a 2005 Pew Research Center survey, 51% of respondents said they favored “making it legal for doctors to give terminally ill patients the means to end their lives,” but only 44% said they favored “making it legal for doctors to assist terminally ill patients in committing suicide.” Although both versions of the question are asking about the same thing, the reaction of respondents was different. In another example, respondents have reacted differently to questions using the word “welfare” as opposed to the more generic “assistance to the poor.” Several experiments have shown that there is much greater public support for expanding “assistance to the poor” than for expanding “welfare.”

We often write two versions of a question and ask half of the survey sample one version of the question and the other half the second version. Thus, we say we have two  forms  of the questionnaire. Respondents are assigned randomly to receive either form, so we can assume that the two groups of respondents are essentially identical. On questions where two versions are used, significant differences in the answers between the two forms tell us that the difference is a result of the way we worded the two versions.

One of the most common formats used in survey questions is the “agree-disagree” format. In this type of question, respondents are asked whether they agree or disagree with a particular statement. Research has shown that, compared with the better educated and better informed, less educated and less informed respondents have a greater tendency to agree with such statements. This is sometimes called an “acquiescence bias” (since some kinds of respondents are more likely to acquiesce to the assertion than are others). This behavior is even more pronounced when there’s an interviewer present, rather than when the survey is self-administered. A better practice is to offer respondents a choice between alternative statements. A Pew Research Center experiment with one of its routinely asked values questions illustrates the difference that question format can make. Not only does the forced choice format yield a very different result overall from the agree-disagree format, but the pattern of answers between respondents with more or less formal education also tends to be very different.

One other challenge in developing questionnaires is what is called “social desirability bias.” People have a natural tendency to want to be accepted and liked, and this may lead people to provide inaccurate answers to questions that deal with sensitive subjects. Research has shown that respondents understate alcohol and drug use, tax evasion and racial bias. They also may overstate church attendance, charitable contributions and the likelihood that they will vote in an election. Researchers attempt to account for this potential bias in crafting questions about these topics. For instance, when Pew Research Center surveys ask about past voting behavior, it is important to note that circumstances may have prevented the respondent from voting: “In the 2012 presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, did things come up that kept you from voting, or did you happen to vote?” The choice of response options can also make it easier for people to be honest. For example, a question about church attendance might include three of six response options that indicate infrequent attendance. Research has also shown that social desirability bias can be greater when an interviewer is present (e.g., telephone and face-to-face surveys) than when respondents complete the survey themselves (e.g., paper and web surveys).

Lastly, because slight modifications in question wording can affect responses, identical question wording should be used when the intention is to compare results to those from earlier surveys. Similarly, because question wording and responses can vary based on the mode used to survey respondents, researchers should carefully evaluate the likely effects on trend measurements if a different survey mode will be used to assess change in opinion over time.

Question order

Once the survey questions are developed, particular attention should be paid to how they are ordered in the questionnaire. Surveyors must be attentive to how questions early in a questionnaire may have unintended effects on how respondents answer subsequent questions. Researchers have demonstrated that the order in which questions are asked can influence how people respond; earlier questions can unintentionally provide context for the questions that follow (these effects are called “order effects”).

One kind of order effect can be seen in responses to open-ended questions. Pew Research Center surveys generally ask open-ended questions about national problems, opinions about leaders and similar topics near the beginning of the questionnaire. If closed-ended questions that relate to the topic are placed before the open-ended question, respondents are much more likely to mention concepts or considerations raised in those earlier questions when responding to the open-ended question.

For closed-ended opinion questions, there are two main types of order effects: contrast effects ( where the order results in greater differences in responses), and assimilation effects (where responses are more similar as a result of their order).

An example of a contrast effect can be seen in a Pew Research Center poll conducted in October 2003, a dozen years before same-sex marriage was legalized in the U.S. That poll found that people were more likely to favor allowing gays and lesbians to enter into legal agreements that give them the same rights as married couples when this question was asked after one about whether they favored or opposed allowing gays and lesbians to marry (45% favored legal agreements when asked after the marriage question, but 37% favored legal agreements without the immediate preceding context of a question about same-sex marriage). Responses to the question about same-sex marriage, meanwhile, were not significantly affected by its placement before or after the legal agreements question.

Another experiment embedded in a December 2008 Pew Research Center poll also resulted in a contrast effect. When people were asked “All in all, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in this country today?” immediately after having been asked “Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?”; 88% said they were dissatisfied, compared with only 78% without the context of the prior question.

Responses to presidential approval remained relatively unchanged whether national satisfaction was asked before or after it. A similar finding occurred in December 2004 when both satisfaction and presidential approval were much higher (57% were dissatisfied when Bush approval was asked first vs. 51% when general satisfaction was asked first).

Several studies also have shown that asking a more specific question before a more general question (e.g., asking about happiness with one’s marriage before asking about one’s overall happiness) can result in a contrast effect. Although some exceptions have been found, people tend to avoid redundancy by excluding the more specific question from the general rating.

Assimilation effects occur when responses to two questions are more consistent or closer together because of their placement in the questionnaire. We found an example of an assimilation effect in a Pew Research Center poll conducted in November 2008 when we asked whether Republican leaders should work with Obama or stand up to him on important issues and whether Democratic leaders should work with Republican leaders or stand up to them on important issues. People were more likely to say that Republican leaders should work with Obama when the question was preceded by the one asking what Democratic leaders should do in working with Republican leaders (81% vs. 66%). However, when people were first asked about Republican leaders working with Obama, fewer said that Democratic leaders should work with Republican leaders (71% vs. 82%).

The order questions are asked is of particular importance when tracking trends over time. As a result, care should be taken to ensure that the context is similar each time a question is asked. Modifying the context of the question could call into question any observed changes over time (see  measuring change over time  for more information).

A questionnaire, like a conversation, should be grouped by topic and unfold in a logical order. It is often helpful to begin the survey with simple questions that respondents will find interesting and engaging. Throughout the survey, an effort should be made to keep the survey interesting and not overburden respondents with several difficult questions right after one another. Demographic questions such as income, education or age should not be asked near the beginning of a survey unless they are needed to determine eligibility for the survey or for routing respondents through particular sections of the questionnaire. Even then, it is best to precede such items with more interesting and engaging questions. One virtue of survey panels like the ATP is that demographic questions usually only need to be asked once a year, not in each survey.

U.S. Surveys

Other research methods.

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How to write a survey questionnaire

The questionnaire is a researcher’s most important tool! You need to ask the right questions, in the right way to get the insight you need. This guide explains what makes a good survey, be it online or telephone, and what pitfalls to avoid.

Starting the questionnaire

Before starting to write your survey, you should revisit the original project objectives to keep your line of questioning on-track.

It’s a good idea to start with a ‘wish list’ – noting down all the questions that you and your stakeholders would like to include. It’s helpful to have everything in contention written down so you can prioritise which are the most important questions. It’s also helpful to start grouping these questions together by broad topic area to have an overview of what you’re covering and help get the order right.

Top tip: Once you have written the first draft of your questionnaire go through and note next to each question which objective it helps to answer. If a question doesn’t help answer any of the objectives – ditch it!

The key things to consider when structuring a questionnaire are:

• Introduction and screening:  In a few sentences, explain what the research is about, how you will use the answers and how long it will take to complete. Be honest, if you say it will take 5 minutes to complete but actually it’s going to take 10 minutes, people are likely to drop out halfway through.

You might also need to ask some screening questions which collect basic profiling characteristics to make sure you are talking to the right type or enough of a certain type of student (e.g. subject area or home / overseas) or business (e.g. location or sector).

• Create a natural flow:  It’s useful to think about the order in which people would normally talk about a topic. For example, if you are running a survey to measure student satisfaction during the pandemic, you might want to consider structuring your questionnaire chronologically, starting with arrival in Freshers’ Week through to current views on course delivery.

Linked to this, if you need to tackle harder or more sensitive topics, ‘warm up’ respondents by asking easier or more general questions first. Likewise, if you need to collect more personal information, then place these questions at the end, unless the information is needed to screen at the beginning of the survey. And remember to include a ‘Prefer not to say’ option.

• Vary question types:  Try and add different types of question to maintain interest, for example, when capturing how satisfied students are with various aspects of their learning experience, you could combine agree-disagree statements with questions that ask them to rank different elements of learning by level of satisfaction.

Top tip: Consider ‘routing’ respondents through the survey so that they are only asked questions that are relevant to them. For example, you’ve already established earlier in the survey whether or not a local employer is able to offer a work placement to your students. If they are, you’ll want to ask them a series of follow-up questions to collect more details. If they aren’t, then they should skip past these questions. Be aware not all survey platforms allow for routing, so if you can’t apply this, make sure you acknowledge this at the follow-up questions by including an appropriate response option like ‘Not applicable’.

Types of question.

How you ask your questions will determine the sort of data you collect and the type of analysis you can conduct. Think about how you will use your survey data at the end and what this means for how you ask your questions. Some common question types include:

• Scales with labels or numbers , for example ‘very good, fairly good, neither good nor poor, fairly poor, very poor’ or a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being ‘very good’ and 5 being ‘very poor’. Scales should always be balanced with the same number of ‘positive’ options as ‘negative’ options and the two ends of the scales should be genuine polar opposites (e.g. ‘very good’ and ‘very poor’ rather than ‘excellent’ at one end and ‘very poor’ at the other end).
• Open questions , where a respondent answers in their own words and are best used when you don’t have a good idea of what the answer might be or if you want to collect quotes for example, ‘What have you enjoyed most about your time at university?’
• Closed questions , where an answer is selected from a pre-determined list. Be careful not to introduce any response bias by rotating the order in which response options appear so the same answer doesn’t always appear at the top of the list. Make sure important answers aren’t missing from the list – add an ‘Other (specify) as a safety net – or that two or more contradictory answers can’t both be selected.
• Ranking  used to find order of preference for items on a list. This type of question is most useful to differentiate between items when everything is obviously either a ‘good thing’ or a ‘bad thing’. The list should be limited to 7 or 8 items – for longer lists, asking for 1 st , 2 nd  and 3 rd  preference would be a better option.

Top Tip: Consider limiting the number of open questions you include in your survey – firstly they are more burdensome for the respondent to answer and secondly, they are more time consuming for you to analyse.

Question wording.

The way a question is worded is critical in how it is interpreted. Badly worded questions can lead to careless, inaccurate or dishonest answers. Keep in mind the following:

• Simplicity – keep language simple, but tailor it accordingly, how you ask questions to students will be different to how you ask them to employers.
• Length – use short sentences, but say enough to be specific (e.g. rather than ‘Where do you live?’ use ‘In what town or city do you live?’)
• Ambiguity – be aware of common words that are ambiguous and use definitions wherever necessary (for example, if asking ‘Do you  regularly  travel to the university campus by bus?’ include ‘By regularly, we mean at least twice a week).
• Assumption – keep in mind not everyone will be able to answer the question or know something (for example if asking an employer, ‘How often do you take on apprentices?’ this should be split into ‘Have you ever taken on an apprentice?’ and then  if yes  ‘In the last three years, how many apprentices have you taken on?’).
• Leading wording – Steer clear of phrasing that guides the respondent to an answer or implies certain responses are more ‘normal’ or expected.
• Avoid asking about more than one thing in the same question e.g. How would you rate your accommodation and the on-site support services? You won’t know if a student is rating the overall accommodation, the on-site support services or giving an average across the two.
• Avoid double-negatives, for example ‘Do you disagree with the university’s decision not to run face to face lectures this term? – Yes or No’ Such questions are difficult to understand and are likely to cause confusion and yield inaccurate answers.
• Memory limitations – err on the side of using shorter reference periods and avoid ambiguity by stating precise timeframes you are interested in.

Top tip: Once drafted, get a colleague to complete the survey to test comprehension and understanding and to see how long it takes to complete!

A few final pointers on format, accessibility and length.

As part of planning the project, you will have already decided how you are going to run your survey –online, telephone, or indeed a mix of these.

Remember,  how you run your survey can influence how questions are answered . For example, you want to ask an applicant a closed question – Why did you shortlist this university in your application?  When you display this question on an online survey, the applicant will see a list of response options to choose from. However, unless you  read out  these options in the equivalent telephone survey, they will not ‘have sight’ of them. Their exposure to the list of response options is different depending on how they are surveyed which may result in different answers being given.

Make sure you cater for all needs, for example large font or high contrast colours when completing an online survey for those with visual impairments or advance sight of the questions for those completing a telephone survey but are hard of hearing.

Typically, the shorter the questionnaire, the better. The longer a questionnaire is, the higher the dropout rate. As rule of thumb it is good practice to keep an online questionnaire to no more than 10 minutes, and a telephone questionnaire to 15 minutes.

Top tip: If you are running an online survey you should think about how each question will look visually. Make sure questions display correctly for all devices including mobile phones. Don’t let bad formatting put respondents off completing the survey!

Creating a Questionnaire

Create the perfect questionnaire and collect actionable data using our online guide!

Table of Contents

• How to Create

Questionnaire Types

• Collecting Responses
• Analyzing Results
• Getting Started

What is a Questionnaire?

Definition: A questionnaire is a convenient way to collect feedback. A questionnaire can be used to measure customer satisfaction, capture employee feedback, or even conduct product research. Responses can be collected via email, web link, QR code, or using a survey panel.

The term "survey" and "questionnaire" are commonly used interchangeably. A questionnaire refers to the questions used to collect feedback (the form itself). A survey relates to the entire research process, including summarizing and analyzing questionnaire data.

Getting Started + Tips

How to make a questionnaire: Keep questions short and focused on one topic at a time. Use multiple-choice questions to fit answers into a specific category. Use an open-ended question to capture comments. A Likert scale or MaxDiff question can be used for market research. Collect responses for your questionnaire using an email collector, an anonymous link, or even a QR code.

The following 6 tips will help you create the perfect questionnaire:

1) Use 10 Questions or Less

The shorter you keep your survey, the higher your completion rates. Longer questionnaires usually tend to have a high drop-off percentage. Keeping your surveys to 10 questions or fewer forces you to draft a study that only includes important questions; you should remove trivial questions during the draft process.

2) One Idea Per Question

Make sure each question only covers one topic. Try to include only one topic at a time. For example, in an employee survey, you would not want to ask, "Do you feel satisfied with your compensation and career advancement?". Instead, you would like to separate "compensation" and "career advancement" into two questions or use a Likert scale , putting each question on a separate row.

3) Group Similar Questions Together

Suppose the survey is more than ten questions; similar questions should be grouped on separate pages. If you don't want to use more than one page, add extra spacing between groups of the question; extra white space can increase the increase the readability of your questionnaire.

4) Use Skip/Display Logic

If you have questions that only apply to certain people, consider using skip or display logic to show those questions conditionally. This will help reduce the length of your survey and boost response rates.

If you have questions that only apply to certain people, consider using skip or display logic to show those questions conditionally. This will help reduce the length of your survey and boost response rates. For example, if you asked, "Are you currently looking for new employment opportunities?". If the answer were "yes," a follow-up question would ask, "Why?"

5) Use Research Questions Like MaxDiff

Research questions are an excellent tool for customer or product questionnaires. Instead of asking multiple questions on which features are essential or what price is desirable, question types like MaxDiff and Conjoint will provide you with high-quality, actionable data that can be used for feature prioritization and product pricing. In addition, these question types will reduce the length of your questionnaire.

6) Keep the Audience in Mind

An employee questionnaire should use an anonymous link to collect responses; this will help boost trust and increase honest answers. If doing a customer study, consider adding custom data to the weblink to help identify responses. A survey panel and current customers can lend fresh perspectives for general market research.

Questionnaire Templates

Adding customer surveys to your Google review strategy will add additional data points to improve customer satisfaction. In addition, surveys are a valuable tool to identify ways to improve, establish internal benchmarks, and conduct pricing and product research to improve your company's products.

While there are numerous types of questionnaires (or survey types), these are the five most common general categories:

1) Customer Satisfaction

Capturing customer feedback is one of the most common uses of questionnaires. A good customer satisfaction survey will always revolve around a Net Promoter Score question. When the Net Promoter Score question results are tallied, one number from -100 is 100 is displayed. This number is ideal for benchmarks. Net Promoter provides quick and actionable feedback when combined with an open-ended text question.

2) Customer Effort

Measuring how easily customers can complete a purchase or take a specific action is crucial for the customer experience strategy. A customer effort score question is a rating scale from 1 to 7 (disagree to agree). Results for this question are averaged; the higher the score, the easier it is for your customers to complete tasks.

3) Employee Satisfaction & Engagement

Employee satisfaction and engagement are often used interchangeably but measure different things. Both types of surveys often use opinion scales to ask questions.

Employee satisfaction measures how satisfied employees are with their job and work environment. Standard measures of employee satisfaction include salary, benefits, and co-worker relationships.

Employee engagement relates to the emotional commitment employees have to an organization. It goes beyond simple satisfaction. Standard measures of engagement include belief in the company mission, opportunities for career growth, and being inspired to perform at a high level.

4) Employee Exit Interviews

When employees leave for new opportunities, sending a questionnaire is a great way to understand why that employee is leaving. The feedback obtained here can be used to improve the workplace and reduce employee turnover.

5) Product Research

MaxDiff is used to identify what is most important to your audience. For example, if building a new mobile application, asking a group of users what they think is least and most important will help guide product strategy; your team should only focus on the important areas.

For pricing a new product, Van Westendorp will give you a range of prices the market is willing to expect. You could price your product too high or too low without a question like this, reducing your market penetration.

Collecting Responses For Your Questionnaire

There are a few different ways to collect feedback for questionnaires. Depending on your needs, each one could have an advantage.

With email distribution, you would upload a list of email addresses, and the platform would automatically place a link to your questionnaire inside the email body. One advantage is sending email reminders to respondents who still need to complete your survey. In addition, the email links are unique for each respondent, so you can track email open and click rates. As a result, email surveys are ideal for customer research.

A web link is a convenient way to collect feedback at your convenience. You can place a web link on social media, your website, or even inside your CRM email program (instead of an email collector with a unique link to each person). Custom data can be included in the link, such as store location. This custom data can be used to segment and filter results.

Anonymous Link

When you want to protect your respondents' identities, you use an anonymous link . Anonymous inks do not store respondent information, IP address, or email address. Because of this, anonymous survey links are perfect for employee surveys.

QR code Surveys

QR code surveys can be placed on paper receipts, product packaging, or flyers. In addition, QR codes are a great way to collect feedback after or during an event or even during in-person focus groups.

Survey Panels

If you're conducting market research and need access to a customer base, using a survey panel will get you the responses required. A good survey panel will allow you to target specific demographics, job titles, or interest levels (such as car enthusiasts). When using survey panels, you'll want to double-check and clean your data for low-quality responses. People who speed through your survey or mark the first answer for all questions should be removed.

How to Analyze Questionnaire Data

When analyzing the data from a questionnaire, consider a few advanced techniques like the ones below. These techniques will give you better insights than just simple graphs and charts.

Creating a segment or a cross-tabulation is the easiest way to dive deeper into your results. For example, if you conducted an employee satisfaction survey, the overall scores for the company could be high. But that might only tell part of the story. For example, if your company has multiple departments, you should create a cross-tabulation for each department. You might notice that there is one department with low scores. or one department with high scores.

If your company conducted its first Net Promoter Score survey and the results were -10, that score would be your benchmark. Each subsequent customer survey you run should be compared against that initial number to improve it each time.

TURF Analysis

This is an advanced research technique but very valuable. TURF analysis analysis stands for "Total Unduplicated Reach and Frequency" and is used to find the combination of items that would provide the highest reach level. For example, suppose you ask, "Which of the following flavor of ice cream would you buy?" If you run a TURF analysis on the results, you could find the top 3 or 4 combinations of flavors that would result in the highest sales.

Unsure Where to Start?

Creating a questionnaire can be a challenging process. However, these three suggestions can help you with the perfect questionnaire strategy.

1) Talk With Your Team

Some departments might want to conduct pricing research and do simple Net Promoter Score surveys. Having your organization aligned on strategy will simplify the process and eliminate any possibility of re-work. An aligned strategy will also mean a shorter study with fewer overlapping questions.

2) Start with a Template

A pre-made template will show you how to format and word questions. Next, try multiple templates to understand the various question types.

3) Look at Competitor Surveys

You might notice competitors asking specific questions - this would be a sign that those questions provide valuable metrics. If you can incorporate the great things your competition does while making it more efficient for respondents, your questionnaire campaigns will have a greater chance of success.

Get Started Now

We have you covered on anything from customer surveys, employee surveys, to market research. Get started and create your first survey for free.