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Keyton: Communication Research, 5e IM-1
Chapter 8
Surveys and Questionnaires
Activity: News Polls
Polls are often conducted by news or other organizations that collect and present data about political
issues. If your students are interested in political communication, I recommend Professor Groeling’s
Activity: Survey Checklist
The following set of questions can be used to design a survey study or to evaluate a survey study
reported in the literature.
1. What is the general purpose of the survey?
2. Who is the population? What is the estimated size of the population?
3. How will the sample be selected? What is the size of the sample?
4. What format will the survey take? (telephone, mail, e-mail, online, face-to-face)
Activity: Developing Topics for Surveys
Assign students to select at least three topics they believe would be appropriate for a survey. Students
should complete the following steps:
2. From the citations, select at least three citations to read.
3. If a questionnaire exists, how is the questionnaire described? What are its uses? Are issues of reliability
and validity addressed? How could you use it for research?
5. Report what you find as conclusions and recommendations for adopting or adapting questionnaires
developed by others, or for developing an original questionnaire.
Activity: Examining Surveys
James McCroskey created this website to organize the considerable number of quantitative measures
developed by scholars who are or were at West Virginia University. It’s a good one-stop source for
showing students different surveys. It also invites a discussion about the purpose of surveys. I have
Activity: Writing Survey Items
Most researchers would agree that writing survey items is often more difficult than expected. Below are
four specific activities you can assign to students to develop their skill at writing items for surveys.
1. Develop a specific survey objective about a communication topic on your campus. Do not write any
specific survey items until you have finalized the survey objective. Write 10 survey items that you believe
will help you meet your survey objective. For each question ask yourself, “Why do I want to know this
information?” and “How will this information help me meet my survey objective?”
3. To meet your survey objective, you need to collect information about whether, and how, respondents
maintain relationships with older relatives. How many questions and what type of response sets will you
need to write to obtain both pieces of information? Test the questions on at least five people to see if you
4. To meet your survey objective, you need to collect information about respondents’ attitudes about
maintaining relationships with older relatives. Think carefully about the uses of closed versus open
questions. Which form will be better to collect this type of information? Why?
Activity: Converting Open Questions into Closed Questions
Many survey questions written in an open format can be turned into closed questions. The advantage of
doing so is that respondents provide more comparable answers. Have students convert the following
open questions into closed questions. Warn students that some open questions will require two closed
1. How would you describe the type of university you attend?
2. How satisfying is your interaction with your employer?
3. What, if anything, would you change about your interaction with your friends at college?
4. When did you decide to attend college?
5. At what point in your college career did you make a choice about your major?
Activity: Writing Introductions for Surveys
Ask students to write an introduction for a telephone survey conducted by your department and
university for the purpose of collecting information about voting behavior in the last presidential election.
Activity: Reporting Survey Data
1. Ask students to respond to the first four questionnaire items and the demographic questions on the
Communicative Adaptability Scale (pages 150-151). After collecting the data, use statistical software (e.g.,
Excel, SPSS, SAS) to display the data on at least two different types of bar graphs, pie charts, or other data
displays (or use data visualization software; e.g., Tableau). Discussion questions include the following:
• Which graphical display best displays the data? Why?
2. In almost every daily issue of USA Today (type survey in the search box), results of a survey are
reported. Ask students to examine several of these graphical reports. Discussion questions include the
following:
Activity: Online Surveys
Many researchers are using web-based or online questionnaires or surveys. In essence, research
participants are given a URL (usually via e-mail; or posted on a website) to access an online survey. Using
pull down boxes, radio buttons, and short write-in boxes, participants provide discrete, continuous, and
Keyton: Communication Research, 5e IM-4
textual data to participate in the research project. When participants submit the survey, it is delivered
electronically to the researcher, often in the form of numerical and text responses on a spreadsheet.
After explaining (and potentially exploring) an online survey, use the following questions to facilitate
a classroom discussion:
• What ethical issues could arise from collecting data online? How would these issues differ when
the researcher is collecting survey data face-to-face? Over the telephone? In a mail survey?
• An informed consent form provides contact information if participants want more information
Activity: Self-Training for Online Methodology
This website is generally too sophisticated for undergraduate students, but it does have effective self-
training modules. I especially like the section on Online Questionnaires. The site is posted by the ESRC
Keyton: Communication Research, 5e IM-5
Activity: Selecting Response Sets for Survey Questions
This exercise is designed to help students understand the importance of selecting the best word anchors
for Likert-type scales. Write on the board any complete row of the following series of words:
Very often
Fairly often
Occasionally
Rarely
Never
Always
Usually
Sometimes
Rarely
Never
Very positive
Generally positive
Mixed
Generally negative
Very
negative
Excellent
Very good
Good
Fair
Poor
Completely
Mostly
Unsure
Mostly
Completely
satisfied
satisfied
dissatisfied
dissatisfied
Completely
Generally
Unsure
Generally
Completely
agree
agree
disagree
disagree
Completely
Somewhat
Unsure
Somewhat
Completely
true
true
untrue
untrue
None
Very mild
Mild
Moderate
Severe
Much more
Somewhat more
About the
Somewhat less
Much less
than others
than others
same as others
than others
than others
Ask students to associate a percentage (or a value from 0 to 100) with each of the five anchors. Although
students are likely to achieve consensus on the end anchors (e.g., always as 100% and never as 0%), there is
likely to be disparity for the three anchors in the middle. Discuss this disparity with students and discuss
the implications of using Likert-type scales with and without numerical anchors.
Keyton: Communication Research, 5e IM-6
Worksheet—Surveys and Questionnaires
2. Select a questionnaire from Communication Research Measures II: A Sourcebook, edited by R. B. Rubin, A.
M. Rubin, E. E. Graham, E. M. Perse, & D. R. Seibold (2009), New York, NY: Routledge, or select a
questionnaire included in a journal article. Attach a copy of the questionnaire to this completed
worksheet.
a. Identify the primary construct and, if appropriate, its subscales. Identify the number of
questionnaire items, the minimum score, and the maximum score for the entire scale and each
subscale.
b. Could any of the items be rewritten for clarity? Select one item and rewrite it here:
Original item:
Revised item:
c. For which type of research participants would this questionnaire be inappropriate?
d. What type of response scale is used for this questionnaire?
Keyton: Communication Research, 5e IM-7
Additional Resources
Lepkowski, J. M., Tucker, C., Brick, J. M., de Leeus, E. D., Japec, L., Lavrakas, P. J. . . . Sansger, R. L. (Eds.).
(2008). Advances in telephone survey methodology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
If your students are conducting telephone surveys or polls, this is a must read.
Reynolds, R. A., Woods, R., & Baker, J. D. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of research on electronic surveys and
measurements. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Reference.
If you are using online technology as part of the method, or if the study is about technology, I
recommend checking out this volume.
Rimal R. N., & Real, K. (2003). Perceived risk and efficacy beliefs as motivators of change: Use of the risk
perception (RPA) framework to understand health behaviors. Human Communication Research,
29, 370-399. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2003.tb00844.x
Sargent, J. (2002). Topic avoidance: Is this the way to a more satisfying relationship? Communication Research
Reports, 19, 175-182. doi:10.1080/08824090209384845
Easy to understand article on how the researcher adapted an existing questionnaire.
Web Resources
