QUESTIONNAIRES

 Questionnaires

What is a Questionnaire?

A questionnaire is a research instrument that consists of a set of questions or other types of prompts that aims to collect information from a respondent. A research questionnaire is typically a mix of close-ended questions and open-ended questions.

Open-ended, long-form questions offer the respondent the ability to elaborate on their thoughts. Research questionnaires were developed in 1838 by the Statistical Society of London.

The data collected from a data collection questionnaire can be both qualitative as well as quantitative in nature. A questionnaire may or may not be delivered in the form of a survey, but a survey always consists of a questionnaire.

Advantages of a good questionnaire design

•    With a survey questionnaire, you can gather a lot of data in less time.

•   There is less chance of any bias creeping in if you have a standard set of questions to be used for your target audience. You can apply logic to questions based on the respondents’ answers, but the questionnaire will remain standard for a group of respondents that fall in the same segment.

•    Surveying online survey software is quick and cost-effective. It offers you a rich set of features to design, distribute, and analyze the response data.

•   It can be customized to reflect your brand voice. Thus, it can be used to reinforce your brand image.

•   The responses can be compared with the historical data and understand the shift in respondents’ choices and experiences.

•   Respondents can answer the questionnaire without revealing their identity. Also, many survey software complies with significant data security and privacy regulations.

 Characteristics of a good questionnaire

•     Your survey design depends on the type of information you need to collect from respondents. Qualitative questionnaires are used when there is a need to collect exploratory information to help prove or disprove a hypothesis. Quantitative questionnaires are used to validate or test a previously generated hypothesis. However, most questionnaires follow some essential characteristics:

• Uniformity: Questionnaires are very useful to collect demographic information, personal opinions, facts, or attitudes from respondents. One of the most significant attributes of a research form is uniform design and standardization. Every respondent sees the same questions. This helps in data collection and statistical analysis of this data. For example, the retail store evaluation questionnaire template contains questions for evaluating retail store experiences. Questions relate to purchase value, range of options for product selections, and quality of merchandise. These questions are uniform for all customers.
• Exploratory: It should be exploratory to collect qualitative data. There is no restriction on questions that can be in your questionnaire. For example, you use a data collection questionnaire and send it to the female of the household to understand her spending and saving habits relative to the household income. Open-ended questions give you more insight and allow the respondents to explain their practices. A very structured question list could limit the data collection.
• Question Sequence: It typically follows a structured flow of questions to increase the number of responses. This sequence of questions is screening questions, warm-up questions, transition questions, skip questions, challenging questions, and classification questions. For example, our motivation and buying experience questionnaire template covers initial demographic questions and then asks for time spent in sections of the store and the rationale behind purchases.

Types & Definitions

•   As we explored before, questionnaires can be either structured or free-flowing. Let’s take a closer look at what that entails for your surveys.

•  Structured Questionnaires: Structured questionnaires collect quantitative data. The questionnaire is planned and designed to gather precise information. It also initiates a formal inquiry, supplements data, checks previously accumulated data, and helps validate any prior hypothesis.

• Unstructured Questionnaires: Unstructured questionnaires collect qualitative data. They use a basic structure and some branching questions but nothing that limits the responses of a respondent. The questions are more open-ended to collect specific data from participants.

Types of Questions in a Questionnaire

•     You can use multiple question types in a questionnaire. Using various question types can help increase responses to your research questionnaire as they tend to keep participants more engaged. The best customer satisfaction survey templates are the most commonly used for better insights and decision-making.
•      Some of the widely used types of questions are:

•    Open-Ended Questions: Open-ended questions help collect qualitative data in a questionnaire where the respondent can answer in a free form with little to no restrictions.

•   Dichotomous Questions: The dichotomous question is generally a “yes/no” close-ended question. This question is usually used in case of the need for necessary validation. It is the most natural form of a questionnaire.

•   Multiple-Choice Questions: Multiple-choice questions are a close-ended question type in which a respondent has to select one (single-select multiple-choice question) or many (multi-select multiple-choice question) responses from a given list of options. The multiple-choice question consists of an incomplete stem (question), right answer or answers, incorrect answers, close alternatives, and distractors. Of course, not all multiple-choice questions have all of the answer types. For example, you probably won’t have the wrong or right answers if you’re looking for customer opinion.

•    Scaling Questions: These questions are based on the principles of the four measurement scales – nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio. A few of the question types that utilize these scales’ fundamental properties are rank order questions, Likert scale questions, semantic differential scale questions, and Stapel scale questions.

Pictorial Questions: This question type is easy to use and encourages respondents to answer. It works similarly to a multiple-choice question. Respondents are asked a question, and the answer choices are images. This helps respondents choose an answer quickly without overthinking their answers, giving you more accurate data.

Advantages of Questionnaires

Questionnaires are inexpensive

First of all, questionnaires are one of the most affordable ways to gather quantitative data.

Especially self-administered questionnaires, where you don’t have to hire surveyors to perform face-to-face interviews, are a cost-efficient way to quickly collect massive amounts of information from a large number of people in a relatively short period of time.

A questionnaire can be placed on your website or emailed to your customers. These methods have little to no cost, though strong targeting is necessary if you want to have the highest possible response rate and receive the most accurate results.

Still, no matter what type of questionnaires you pick, it will be more affordable than outsourcing to a market research company.

 Questionnaires are practical

Apart from being inexpensive, questionnaires are also a practical way to gather data. They can be targeted to groups of your choosing and managed in various ways. You can pick and choose the questions asked as well as the format (open-ended or multiple-choice). They offer a way to gather vast amounts of data on any subject. They can be used in a wide variety of ways, like customer feedback.

Questionnaires offer a quick way to get results

It’s quick and easy to collect results with online and mobile tools. This means that you can gain insights in as little as 24 hours (or less!), depending on the scale and reach of your questionnaire.

You don’t need to wait for another company to deliver the answers you need.

Dajo Associates needed quality feedback fast. The South African consulting firm needed a way to make informed decisions quickly. An online questionnaire allowed them to collect the data they needed in the shortest time frame possible.

Scalability

Questionnaires and surveys allow you to gather information from a large audience.

Online, you can literally distribute your questions to anyone, anywhere in the world (provided they have an internet connection). All you have to do is send them a link to your survey page. And you don’t even need to do this manually. This could be done through an automated email in your customer onboarding or lead nurturing campaigns.

This means that for a relatively low cost, you can target a city or a country.

You can use multiple data collection points, for example via multiple tablets in kiosk mode.

Geography no longer stands in the way of market research either, thanks to the internet. But be aware of cultural differences between people and countries when conducting worldwide research. Thanks to Pointerpro’s multiple languages features, you can easily create a single questionnaire available in multiple languages.

Comparability

When data has been quantified, it can be used to compare and contrast other research and may be used to measure change. This makes monthly or yearly questionnaires more and more valuable over time.

Improving comparability implies that errors due to translation have to be minimized. In terms of questionnaire translation for multi-national, multi-cultural, and multi-regional surveys the aim is to achieve a level of comparability across all local versions.

Easy Analysis and visualization

Most survey- and questionnaire providers are quantitative in nature and allow easy analysis of results. With built-in tools, it’s easy to analyze your results without a background in statistics or scientific research.

You might think that questionnaires are not fun and that getting respondents to actually complete them can be tricky. However, you can use interactive forms that will give you visual data insights to draw experienced user stories organized in dynamic timelines.

Questionnaires offer actionable data

The more data you gather, the clearer the painting becomes. All this information gives marketers the capability to create new strategies and follow trends in their audience. Analyzing data and building reports can be used to generate predictions and even create benchmarks for follow-up questions or questionnaires.

Respondent anonymity

Online and email surveys allow respondents to maintain their anonymity.

Mail-in questionnaires also allow for complete invisibility, which maximizes comfort for those answering. Even phone interviews are not face-to-face, thereby making it a more private communication. This concealment puts respondents at ease and encourages them to answer truthfully; however, there is still a human touch to these phone interviews.

Digital questionnaires give the best sense of anonymity and privacy. This type of questionnaire is great for all sorts of businesses and subject matter and results in the most honest answers.

You can be sure your results will be much more accurate when you have the opportunity to complete them anonymously.

Questionnaires don’t have time constraints

When using mail-in, online, or email questionnaires, there’s no time limit and there is no one on the other end waiting for an answer. Respondents can take their time to complete the questionnaire at their own leisure.

As a bonus, they will often answer more truthfully, as research has shown that having a researcher present can lead to less honest and more socially desirable answers.

Questionnaires can cover every aspect of a topic

One of the biggest advantages is being able to ask as many questions as you like. Of course, it benefits the marketer to keep each individual questionnaire short, since respondents may find a long questionnaire frustrating. We suggest a limit of 10 questions for online surveys.

However, since they are efficient, cost-effective in nature, and have an easy mode of delivery, there is no harm in creating multiple questionnaires, each covering a subtopic of the main subject, that builds upon one another.

 

Disadvantages of Questionnaire

Dishonest answers

While there are many positives to questionnaires, dishonesty can be an issue.

Respondents may not be 100% truthful with their answers.

This can happen for a variety of reasons, including social desirability bias and attempting to protect privacy. Stop dishonesty in its tracks by assuring respondents that their privacy is valued and that the process prevents personal identification.

Unanswered questions

When using questionnaires, there is a chance that some questions will be ignored or left unanswered.

If questions are not required, there is always that risk they won’t be answered. Online questionnaires offer a simple solution to this issue: make answering the question required.

Otherwise, make your survey short and your questions uncomplicated and you will avoid question skipping and get better completion rates.

 

Differences in understanding and interpretation

The trouble with not presenting questions to users face-to-face is that each may have different interpretations of your questions.

Without someone to explain the questionnaire fully and ensure each individual has the same understanding, results can be subjective.

Respondents may have trouble grasping the meaning of some questions that may seem clear to the creator.

This miscommunication can lead to skewed results. The best way to combat this situation is to create simple questions that are easy to answer.

Hard to convey feelings and emotions

A survey or questionnaire cannot fully capture the emotional responses or feelings of respondents. Without administering the questionnaire face-to-face, there is no way to observe facial expressions, reactions, or body language.

Without these subtleties, useful data can go unnoticed.

Don’t get stuck trying to interpret emotion in data, instead go for a Likert scale, the response scale that often uses a rating scale from “slightly agree” to “strongly disagree.” This allows for strength and assertion in responses rather than multiple choice.

 Some questions are difficult to analyze

Questionnaires produce a lot of data. Multiple-choice questions can be tabulated and graphed, but open-ended questions are different.

Open-ended questions allow for individualized answers which cannot be quantified and must be reviewed by a human.

Too many open-ended questions can produce a flood of data, that can take forever to analyze. Fix this pitfall by choosing your question types carefully. If you have ten questions, you probably don’t want more than one to be open-ended since these have no way to be quantified.

That’s why it’s important to select the right type of question as a questionnaire is only as effective as its questions.

The survey questions need to be evaluated quickly and they need to produce data that can be acted upon.

If you make questions too difficult or confusing to answer, you may end up with meaningless data.

Choosing the wrong type of question can also lead to incomplete results or data that is hard to interpret.

The main question types are open-ended, closed-ended, and semi-closed-ended questions. Within these types, there is an abundance of ways to present your query from ratings to yes/no questions.

Learn how to select the right types of survey questions for your needs in our essential guide

Respondents may have a hidden agenda

As with any sort of research, respondent bias can be an issue.

Participants in your survey may have an interest in your product, idea, or service. Others may be influenced to participate based on the subject of your questionnaire. These proclivities can lead to inaccuracies in your data, generated from an imbalance of respondents who see your topic in an overly positive or negative light.

Filter out a hidden agenda with pre-screening. Come up with a few indirect questions that will remove those results wreckers.

Lack of personalization

Any piece of marketing material is at risk of seeming impersonal unless time and care are taken to personalize it. If you’re unable to add touches of personalization, some potential respondents may be put off and ignore it.

This can be particularly difficult when the questionnaire or survey is taken voluntarily on a website, regardless of purchase or email.

Fix this by always sending emails containing respondents’ names. Use dynamic content on websites, and strive to use names, personal data, and personalized content in all communication.

Unconscientious responses

Every administrator hopes for conscientious responses, but there’s no way to know if the respondent has really understood the question or read it thoroughly before answering.

At times, answers will be chosen before fully reading the question or the potential answers. Sometimes respondents will skip through questions, or split-second choices may be made, affecting the validity of your data.

This drawback is tough to defeat, but if you make your survey short and your questions simple you’re likely to get the most accurate responses.

 Accessibility issues

No matter what form of delivery is used, lack of accessibility is a threat. Surveys may be unsuitable for users with a visual or hearing impairment, or other impediments such as illiteracy. This should be considered when choosing to do research in this manner.

Always choose a questionnaire platform that has accessibility options built-in.

Questionnaire or survey fatigue

We’ve all received survey invitations and the trend of companies using customer feedback surveys is up. This means that some level of survey fatigue is setting in with respondents.

In general, we can identify two types of survey fatigue:

Survey Response Fatigue: This occurs before the survey begins. Overwhelmed by the growing number of surveys, respondents will be less inclined to take part in your survey. As a result, you’ll suffer from a low response rate.

Survey-Taking Fatigue: This type of respondent fatigue happens during the survey. It’s the result of surveys that are perceived as too long and include questions irrelevant to the respondent. An indicator of survey-taking fatigue can be found in a low completion rate.

How much survey fatigue affects your questionnaire depends on you. If you make it easy for respondents to answer and you actually do something with the information then fatigue will be lower.