设计一个高质量的问卷.doc

How to Design a High-quality Questionnaire
The questionnaire is ubiquitous in streets, schools, communities and so on, namely, questionnaire is part of people’s daily lives because it plays a crucial role in helping people with many social issues. But when confronted with the question that what is the definition of the questionnaire, many people hesitate to give a proper answer. Actually, the questionnaire is designed to record opinions or suggestions from different groups of people. It is widely used in business for researching the preference of customers, investigating public attitudes towards certain issues, requesting the opinions of staff, etc. As such, it is a useful technique.
However, the result of the questionnaires are often very disappointing when the questionnaires the researchers send out as part of their course have a very low response rate, and that may even affect the validity of their research. It is very important, therefore, that questionnaires be well-prepared with high quality in order to minimize non-response and get a quite accurate result. There are five main parts in finishing a high-quality questionnaire, including
(1) The title and the cover letter
2) Confidentiality
(3) Requirements on answering the following questions
(4) A set of open questions and closed questions and
(5) The Thank-you note

The title and the cover letter
The title of the questionnaire is to summarize the research theme, so that the respondents have a general understanding of the questions to be answered. The title should be concise and to the point of respondents and research theme. So does the cover letter. The cover letter explains the researchers’ identities, their task and why, how the research results will be used, and why the respondents’ help will be so valuable to them. The letter also gives clear instructions on when, how, and to whom the completed questionnaires should be returned.

Confidentiality
If the questionnaire contains sensitive or personal questions, such as the respondent’s gender, age, job and so on, you need to convince potential respondents that their answers will be confidential. If not, they may not be willing to respond.

Requirements on answering the following questions
Making requirements on what kind of pen and what form to choose can help researchers simplify the calculation about the respondents’ choices of each question and draw the conclusion efficiently. For example, select the answer with a blue or black pen or HB pencil. 5 is a highly positive response to a particular question. 1 is a highly negative response.

A set of open questions and closed questions
It is a necessity for a questionnaire to contain both closed questions and open questions in that the two kinds of questions maintain different unique functions in a questionnaire. As for closed questions, they are targeted to the points without the danger of diversion and much easier and quicker to answer compared with the closed questions. However, the open questions are fixed and restrict respondents’ divergent thinking. Therefore, adding several open questions in the questionnaire can make up the disadvantages of closed questions. But there are still several tips the researchers need to pay attention to.
(1) Keep the questions clear and brief. Phrase your questions in simple and unambiguous language, which will be instantly understood. Don’t use any jargon or abbreviations which might be unknown to some of the target sample.
(2) Avoid loaded questions. These questions which presume a specific response are hard to answer. For example, “Which train company do you use most often?” presumes that the respondent travels by train. If they don’t have the experience, they can’t answer the question.
(3) Include one or two couples of cross-referencing questions. Cross-referencing questions are those that ask for basically the same information but take the different forms. Respondents may not have answered all the questions carefully, so the cross-referencing questions provide a check on reliability of their responses.
(4) Avoid potentially biased questions. Rhetorical questions like “Why don’t you” or “Don’t you think” lead respondents to think that researchers themselves are against the idea. This may cause them to give biased answers. As a result, accurate and honest information cannot be gathered.
(5) Arrange the questions properly. Starting with easier and safer questions may create a conductive atmosphere for the respondents. When the respondents feel comfortable with the questionnaire, they have a tendency to answer more specific and complicated questions.
(6) The choices must be accurate and specific. Try to avoid central options like “unsure” in case of respondents’ tendency to the safer alternative. Also, be careful with stereotypical responses

The Thank-you note
It is a common practice to add a Thank-you note to show the gratitude and politeness
to the respondents because they volunteer to finish the questionnaire. For example,
“Thank you very much for your precious time”.

To conclude, a high-quality questionnaire will be formed after the above steps and several tips. It is an essential component in getting to know the particular people’s opinions on some issue or coming up with the solutions about some problem. I hope that my How to Design a High-quality Questionnaire is helpful to the people who want to design a standard and well-organized questionnaire.

ON THE FOLLOWING PAGES, THERE IS A SAMPLE QUESTIONNAIRE.