Questionnaire Design

9 Pages 2344 Words

Institute. This sample has been chosen because the students will have first hand experiences of the library system.
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To gain the best possible results to the questionnaire, a more specific stratified sample has to be used. Surveying 10 males and 10 females, with also variations in their years of study, and place of questioning has been chosen for this report. As the questionnaire is aimed at students, it’s very important that the sample is closely followed. As for example, if the survey doesn’t capture the thoughts and opinions of students in all years of study, then the results are not a true reflection of all the students’ opinions on the question subject. By being so careful in establishing the sample, the questionnaire results will be unbiased, broad and produce a wide scope of thoughts and opinions.
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Although a carefully chosen sample helps to reduce bias in the results, it doesn’t totally eliminate it. The questions, which are on the questionnaire, can also be bias and written in ways that can lure the student to give a bias answer. This means care must be taken when deciding and designing which questions appear on the final draft of the questionnaire. The questions must not voice any personal opinions or be written suggestively, they must be totally neutral, to encourage genuine answers. When deciding upon what questions will appear on the questionnaire, it’s also important that the questions are clear, and encourage genuine answers.

Bill Gillham discussing The Research Interview (Continum) states that:

“Questions that are distinct will throw up material which is distinctive in its content. This greatly eases the task of analysis.” (p21)

It is also important to use a range of open and closed questions, to produce qualitative and quantitative results for analysing. The questionnaire used for this report mainly consists of closed questions, as open questions can produce generalised ...