Question and Questionnaire Design

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Table of Contents

Introduction. Cognitive Process and Question Types
Rating Scale and Its Length
Labeling and Order Response
No-Opinion Answers
Response Bias
Error Sources
Question Order
Questionnaires Evaluation
Reference

Introduction. Cognitive Process and Question Types

Four steps: interpretation, information, judgment, response
Optimizing behavior: self-expression, self-understanding, altruism, challenge
Weak and strong satisficing: arbitral, irrelevant
Satisficing factors: task difficulty, respondent ability, motivation
Open questions: rich in meaning, time-consuming
Closed questions: comprehensive, less reliable

Rating Scale and Its Length

Scale length affects validity, reliability, clarity, satisficing
Dichotomous scale: clear in meaning and inconsistent
Trichotomous scale: clear and not accurate
Long scales (101-points): incomprehensible, prone to errors
Midpoints lower motivation, improve reliability
“7-point scales are optimal in many instances” Krosnick & Presser (2009, p. 283)

Labeling and Order Response

Verbal labeling increases respondent’s satisfaction and reliability
“Yes/no” questions: practical, promote “acquiescence” Krosnick & Presser (2009, p. 21)
Acquiescence reasons: fatigue, politeness, personal characteristics
Possible approaches: adjust/exclude answers, “item reversal”
Primacy effects: attributable to “weak satisficing”, verbal
Recency effects: attributable to short-memory, oral

No-Opinion Answers

+“Don’t know” answers help not to appear uninformed
+ the lack of necessary information and experience
+/-Help to escape socially undesirable images
-DK options prevent generation of meaningful answers
-Do not increase reliability and validity of the survey
-Encourage satisficing by providing shortcuts

Response Bias

Reasons: favorable image, reduce punishment, increase rewards

Possible spheres: racial prejudice, political views

Ways of counteraction:

“Bogus pipeline technique”
“Randomized response”
“Item count method” Krosnick and Presser (2009, p. 301)
Anonymity: self-administered questionnaire, web surveys

Error Sources

Main sources: “comprehension” and “frailties of memory” Krosnick and Presser (2009, p. 305)

Possible ways to avoid errors:

Interviewer’s instructions to the respondent
Long, redundant phrases and sentences
Explicit instructions about the importance of survey
Simplified tasks and wording of items, decomposition

Question Order

The main aim is to minimize errors
Question order major types: serial, semantic
Serial order affects: motivation, fatigue, learning
Semantic order affects: coherency, logic
“Funnel” order (general and specific items) Krosnick and Presser (2009, p. 313)
Reasons for specific order: context, survey focus

Questionnaires Evaluation

Methods without data collection:

Expert review (critiques of the questionnaire)
The Questionnaire Appraisal System
The Question Understanding Aid

Methods with data collection:

Behavior coding
Response latency

Reference

Krosnick J.A., & Presser S. (2009). Question and questionnaire design. In J.D. Wright & P.V. Marsden (Eds.), Handbook of survey research (pp. 263-314). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing.