978-0135078228 Chapter 8 Lecture Note

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CHAPTER 8

Designing Data Collection Forms

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

To gain an overview of the questionnaire design process

To learn the four “do’s” of question wording

To learn the four “don’ts” of question wording

To understand the basics of questionnaire organization

To understand the advantages of computer-assisted questionnaire design software

To learn how to precode questionnaires

To know what to consider to properly pretest a questionnaire

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Types of Data Collection Forms

Survey Questionnaires and Observation Forms

The Functions of a Questionnaire

The Questionnaire Design Process

Developing Questions

Four “Do’s” of Question Wording

The Question Should Focus on One Topic

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The Question Should Be Brief

The Question Should Be a Grammatically Simple Sentence If Possible

The Question Should Be Crystal Clear

Four “Don’ts” of Question Wording

Do Not “Lead” the Respondent to a Particular Answer

Do Not Have “Loaded” Wording or Phrasing

Do Not Use a “Double-Barreled” Question

Do Not Use Words to Overstate the Condition

Questionnaire Organization

The Introduction

Question Flow

Computer-Assisted Questionnaire Design

Questionnaire Creation

Data Collection and Creation of Data Files

Data Analysis and Graphs

Coding the Questionnaire

Performing the Pretest of the Questionnaire

KEY TERMS

Anonymity

Classification questions

Computer-assisted questionnaire design

Confidentiality

Pretest

Question bias

Question development

Question evaluation

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Cover letter

Disguised survey

Double-barreled question

Face validity

Incentives

Leading question

Loaded question

Overstated question

Question flow

Questionnaire

Questionnaire design

Questionnaire organization

Screening questions

Skip question

Transitions

Undisguised survey

Warm-up questions

TEACHING SUGGESTIONS

1. Examples of good (and bad) questionnaires are helpful teaching aids because students

are generally unfamiliar with questionnaires. So, examining actual questionnaires or

parts of questionnaires is a useful way for students to become familiar with this

critical marketing research tool. Create multimedia presentation files, overhead

transparencies, or make copies of questionnaires that you have developed, or ones

developed by students in previous classes and go over the opening comments, format,

question flow, response scales, and logic.

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2. Contrasting a telephone questionnaire to one that is self-administered will emphasize how

telephone administration constrains the choice of scales and further requires the interviewer

to describe the scale to the respondent. With self-administered questionnaires, the format and

instructions are facilitated by the visual context. Divide the class into two teams and have one

team design a telephone questionnaire, while the other designs a mail questionnaire. The

topic might be to determine the satisfaction level of car buyers with the automobile’s style,

handling, fuel efficiency, and passenger compartment roominess. The need to tailor the

questions to the form of data collection can be emphasized by comparing the two

questionnaires.

3. Invariably, some students will misspell “questionnaire” by omitting one of the n’s. Write

“questionnnnnnnnaire” on the chalk board, or on a presentation slide to drive the point home.

4. The four do’s and four do not’s described in the chapter may not be easy for students to

remember. A divide-and-conquer strategy is to assign each student one “do” or a “do not”

with instructions to formulate a question that illustrates each the point quite well. Students

can share the questions they formulate in class. You might have a contest by class vote as to

which one is the best (easiest to relate to, or remember) for each of the eight items. Prepare a

list of the winners for distribution the next time you teach the class.

5. Questionnaire design is a learned skill, and, unfortunately, the learning is gradual because

each questionnaire design problem is unique. The more questionnaire design practice that

instructors demand of their students, the better. Case 8.2 requires students to design a

questionnaire.

6. Cover letters are becoming increasing personalized and sophisticated. Some instructors

maintain a file folder of cover letters that are good examples and share them with students.

7. Computer-assisted questionnaire design programs are advancing rapidly, and there are a

number of computer-assisted questionnaire design programs on the market. Many of these

companies have websites, and some allow downloading of evaluation copies of their

products. One approach is to have students, or student teams review and demonstrate

different computer-assisted questionnaire design software.

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