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Unit Overview
Unit Overview
"Thinking about your sociology professors, would you say they are somewhat super, totally super, or super duper?"
"Thinking about your sociology professors, would you say they are somewhat super, totally super, or super duper?"
Once we know that a survey will meet our needs and help us collect meaningful data it's time to develop a questionnaire. At first, this seems like it should be the easy part! How hard can it possibly be to write a few questions? But as we'll discuss in this unit, creating good questions is critical because the quality of our questions will determine the quality of our data. Along with covering how to write questions, we'll discuss how to organize them so that the items flow and keep your participants engaged.
Key Terms
Key Terms
Costs: what a person expects to give up to complete an activity.
Closed-ended questions: questions that ask respondents to select a fixed answer option.
Dichotomous questions: questions with two unordered answer options, i.e., "yes" and "no."
Open-ended question: questions that ask respondents to write in a response.
Ordinal questions: questions with answer options arranged on an ordered scale, i.e., "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree."
Privacy: the right to control access to ourselves and our own personal information.
Rewards: what a person expects to gain from an activity.
Unordered questions: questions that ask a respondent to select from one or multiple categories, i.e., selecting racial/ethnic identity.
Writing Survey Questions
Writing Survey Questions
People who are motivated to complete a survey typically have an interest in the topic and believe that they have a stake in the outcome of the survey. Giving people the sense that someone cares about what they have to say encourages people to include their voices. Learn more in the slide presentation at left.
Food for Thought
Food for Thought
Designing Questionnaires
Designing Questionnaires
Inspiring people to be willing to participate in your survey hinges on reducing the perceived costs relative to the perceived rewards of doing so. Ensuring that the respondent can answer a question without excessive effort is key. Learn more in the slide presentation at right.
Example Questionnaires
Example Questionnaires
Below you will find several examples of questionnaires used in previous studies. These may serve as a starting point for inspiration.
Sample Solicitation Letter
Sample Solicitation Letter
Customize the email solicitation below and add it to the beginning of your survey.
Summary
Summary
Designing an effective survey is crucial to motivating people to respond and making sure you end up with useful data. What to ask, how to ask it, and where to lay it out on a page are important considerations that affect the quality of the information obtained through survey research. Investing the time to construct a solid instrument at the outset is worth the effort.
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