Points to consider when
designing your Questionnaire
The physical layout the
questionnaire is key for both self-completion
questionnaire and interview surveys – but for very
different reasons.
Self-completion questions
need clear and simple layout so that the respondent
finds it easy to complete the questionnaire. This
clarity is usually more important than confining the
amount of space or number of pages in the questionnaire
– high response rates can be achieved by clear but
lengthy questionnaires.
For interview surveys,
the respondent will be interviewed by a trained
interviewer. The questionnaires used therefore look
very different to a self-completion questionnaire – they
have lots of instructions for the interviewer and
prompts that they are allowed to use to encourage
response – they often look much more cluttered and
untidy, but are being used by a person who is used to
this format.
The sequence of wording
is also important in a questionnaire. Please click
for some ‘rules of thumb'
for layout of questionnaires.
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