A Practical Guide to Surveys and Questionnaires

Abstract

Surveys with questionnaires play a vital role in decision and policy making in society. Within medicine, including otolaryngology, surveys with questionnaires may be the only method for gathering data on rare or unusual events. In addition, questionnaires can be developed and validated to be used as outcome measures in clinical trials and other clinical research architecture. Consequently, it is fundamentally important that such tools be properly developed and validated. Just asking questions that have not gone through rigorous design and development may be misleading and unfair at best; at worst, they can result in under- or overtreatment and unnecessary expense. Furthermore, it is important that consumers of the data produced by these instruments understand the principles of questionnaire design to interpret results in an optimal and meaningful way. This article presents a practical guide for understanding the methodologies of survey and questionnaire design, including the concepts of validity and reliability, how surveys are administered and implemented, and, finally, biases and pitfalls of surveys.

First additional language teaching in selected grade 4 – 6 classes in Western Cape urban schools: The case of Afrikaans

“…Questionnaires refer to a specific tool, also known as an instrument, for gathering information directly by asking people questions and using the responses as data for analysis (Slattery et al 2011). Questionnaires are also known as scales (Slattery et al 2011) when their assessment generates a quantified score.…”

“…Questionnaires are also known as scales (Slattery et al 2011) when their assessment generates a quantified score. Questionnaires consist of a series of questions and can be administered in a number of different ways, e.g.…”

“…The latter two are also referred to as self-administered questionnaires. The questions address specific concepts of interest or items deemed worthy of investigation (Slattery et al 2011;Czaja & Blair 1996).…”

“…An instrument that is closely spaced, with tiny print or long questions will not be inviting to many respondents. Respondents can also be quickly put off by long or complex instructions for answering questions, so instructions should be clear and to the point (Struwig & Stead 2001;Czaja & Blair 1998;Slattery et al 2011). The following elements of questionnaire design will be discussed in the sections to follow: question structure, order of questions, piloting, and recognising biases 4.6.3.2.1 Question structure…”

“…As mentioned earlier, questionnaires lend themselves to both types of questions. In research where the focus is more on numbers and weights to prove a hypothesis or test a theory, (deductive) closed-ended questions will be asked, whereas research focusing on developing theory or describing phenomena (inductive) will include more open-ended questions (Slattery et al 2011;McKay 2006;Czaja & Blair 1996). Because a mixed methods research design was adopted for this study, the questionnaire that was used as the data-collection instrument for the quantitative strand of this study was comprised …”