For any questionnaire to be effective in collecting valuable and
reliable information, it is important to concentrate on its design.
The questionnaire can be designed effectively by following the
steps mentioned below.
- The first step is to decide what kind of information is
required from the answerers of the questionnaire. This can be
accomplished by keeping in mind the main objective of the
questionnaire and then deciding the relative information.
- The next step is to write down as many questions possible which
would help in collecting the information sought from the answerer.
The more the questions, the better it would be to perform the next
step.
- The third step is to select and streamline the most relevant
questions from the prepared list. The final list must help attain
the ultimate goal of the questionnaire.
- The next step should be to determine what kind of response
format would be suitable for each question. Where there are limited
options, a Multiple Choice Question(MCQ) format can be used. Or for
users to provide personal answers in detail, open-ended questions
can be used too.
- The next step is to decide what should be the order of the
questions in the questionnaire. In this step, it is important to
implement a smooth flow within the questionnaire to make it
effective. For example, easy questions are often asked first to
increase the interest of the responder and the difficult ones or
which require detailed answers are often asked in the end.
- The next step is to finalizing the layout of the questionnaire
to ensure that the responder is given proper instructions to
respond. Also, the questions which require the responder to provide
detailed answer must be given adequate space along with proper
spacing between the questions.
- The next step is to pretest some colleagues with the
questionnaire. This will help in finding any deficiency and will
help in revising the questionnaire.
The questionnaire is ready to collect information.