Lesson 1: Writing a Questionnaire ( for Research Paper)

Tips for Writing a Great Survey

Questionnaire is used to know the attitudes, feelings, and opinions of people about a certain or particular
issue that you discussed in your research paper.

Tips for Writing a Great Survey

1. Focus on asking closed-ended questions. Open-ended questions (also known as free-response

questions) require more effort and time to answer. As a result, asking too many of them can lead
respondents to leave your survey sooner than if they were asked closed-ended questions instead.

Try to ask no more than 2 open-ended questions per survey, and if possible, put them on a separate
page at the end. That way, even if a respondent drops out of the survey, you’re able to collect their
responses from the questions on previous pages.\

2. Keep a balanced set of answer choices. Along the lines of our last point, respondents need a way to
provide honest and thoughtful feedback. Otherwise, the credibility of their responses is at risk.

The answer choices you include can be another potential source of bias. Let’s assume we included
the following as answer options when asking respondents how helpful or unhelpful your customer
service reps are:

a. Extremely helpful
b. Very helpful
c. Helpful

You’ll notice that there isn’t an opportunity for respondents to say that the reps aren’t helpful. Again,
we need to make the tone objective, but this time by adding a more balanced set of answer options:

a. Very helpful
b. Helpful
c. Neither helpful nor unhelpful
d. Unhelpful
e. Very unhelpful
3. Don’t ask for two things at once. Confusing respondents is equally as bad as influencing their
answers. In both cases, they’ll choose an answer that doesn’t reflect their true opinions and
preferences.

A common culprit in causing confusion is the “double-barreled” question. It asks

respondents to assess two different things at the same time. For example:

“How would you rate our customer service and product reliability?”

Customer service and product reliability are two separate topics. Including both in the same
question can push the respondent to either evaluate one or to skip the question altogether.

Fortunately, there’s an easy fix here. Simply separate these two topics into their own
closed-ended questions:

“How would you rate our customer service?”

And…

“How would you rate our product’s reliability?”

4. Keep your questions different from each other. Imagine if someone asked you the same question
over, and over, and over again.

You’d probably get annoyed, right?

That’s how respondents may feel if you repeatedly ask questions that use the same question
prompt or answer choices. It leads respondents to either leave your survey or, equally as
bad, engage in “straightlining”—answering your questions without putting much thought
into them.

You can proactively address this by varying the types of questions you ask, how you ask
them, and by spacing out questions that look similar.

5. Let most of your questions be optional to answer. Respondents may not know the answers to all of
your questions. And there may be some questions they simply don’t feel comfortable answering.
 Keep both of these things in mind when deciding which questions to require answers to.
And when you’re unsure whether to make a certain question optional or required, lean on
making it optional. We’ve found that forcing respondents to answer your questions make
them more likely to quit your survey or select an answer at random.

3 quick tips to improve survey response rates

Here are some ideas to ensure that respondents will answer your surveys.

1. Be quick

If your survey is short and sweet, there's a greater chance that more respondents will complete it.

2. Offer incentives

Offer a small reward or token, affirm their participation with your interview it can help ensure respondents
complete your survey.

3. Know your targeted audience

Knowing your audience will be easy for you to create your questionnaire
 Different types of Questionnaire that you can use in your research paper

1. Questionnaire that are answerable with “YES” or “NO”

Ex.

Do you agree and in favor of extra Judicial killing Yes No

Direction: Put a check mark on the blank which applies:

1. Do you use the Internet for research purposes?

____Yes

____No

2. Rating scale checklist

Ex.

Directions: Please indicate your level of agreement or disagreement with each of these statements

Encircle 4 if (Agree), 3 if (Strongly Agree), 2 if (Disagree), and 1 if (Strongly Disagree)

Agree SA Disagree SD

1. Construction of trains in MLA 4 3 2 1

2. Increase of tax for flavored drinks 4 3 2 1

Direction: Put check is if you Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree

Please indicate your level of agreement or disagreement with each of these statements regarding QRZ Family
Restaurant.

SA Agree Neutral Disagree SD

1. The store is accessibly located.

2. Store hours are convenient for my dining needs.

3. Advertised dish was in stock.

  Values Integration

 How do you properly interact with the person you’re going to interview, in regards of their
own differences and opinion?

 Interdisciplinary Focus

 How it became necessary for an interviewer to have good manners in speaking, thinking
and interacting?

(Call 2 students to cite the importance of having a good questionnaire in conducting a survey for their research
paper)
“Okay thank you for sharing your ideas and I know that you guys learn today, now that we know how
important to write a good questionnaire and series of questions for you your action research, now it will be
easy for you to finish your research paper, as well as building good human relationship, the fact that we do this
for the welfare of the people!”

“remember that in conducting your interview, always show respect to the person you’re going to
interview be sensitive specially in approaching and talking to that person , make them feel that you care
about their opinion and how important that they have a say in the issue that you discuss in your
questionnaire and in your research paper.