Questionnaire Design
In this set of notes we’ll take a look at the various components to creating a good questionnaire which
will elicit the desired information from respondents. Various factors such as question type, question
order and question wording can affect how people will answer the questions presented to them.
Therefore, careful consideration must be taken to ensure the questions presented are going to elicit the
most accurate answers from respondents.
Some important things to keep in mind when creating a questionnaire are:
 Make sure you have a clear goal/objective/intent of the survey/questionnaire. For example,
don’t just say “I want to learn about the homeless.” Instead your objective might be “What
percent of persons using homeless shelters in Detroit, MI between January and March 2012 are
younger than 16?” Using specific, clear questions will help get the responses intended.

If possible, you should always test your questions on a small sample from the target population.
This will allow you to evaluate the questions given and determine whether they might be
confusing or eliciting the incorrect information. However, this sample should not be made up of
friends and colleagues since they have a greater chance of matching your personality or
interpreting questions in the same way you would.

The questions should be simple and clear. Even though a question may seem clear to you, it
might not be to the respondent. Ambiguous questions may lead to a number of different
answers if the respondents interpret the question differently. For example, suppose you ask
“How many time did you work out in the last week?” To some respondents the last week might
mean Sunday – Saturday where others might interpret last week as Monday - Friday.

Don’t write questions with multiple parts (this is referred to as double-barreled questions) and
then ask respondents for a single answer. For example, suppose you asked WSU students
whether they agree or disagree to the following statement: “WSU should abandon the laptop
program and lower student fees.” Therefore, when writing survey questions the word “and”
should be avoided as much as possible. This will help to minimize the questions which
technically warrant two replies when respondents are only given the chance to answer once.

Creating an atmosphere where respondents feel safe to answer honestly might also be
something to consider. For example, a respondent might have what they feel is a minority
opinion, so will answer in a manner which they think is “correct” so they don’t seem out of the
ordinary. Anonymous mail in or email surveys could help with this, but if you are interviewing
the respondents this could still affect the answers given.

Questions should avoid using double negatives. For example, “Do you favor or oppose not
allowing drivers to use cell phones while driving?” might not get the intended answers. A lot of
times a respondent might pass over the word not and answer the question “Do you favor or
oppose allowing drivers to use cell phones while driving?” Most people might answer oppose to
this question when they really do favor cell phone bans while driving.
1

Using forced choice questions may be preferable to agree/disagree questions. Some people
might be more inclined to agree because they are very agreeable people. Forcing the
respondents to make a choice will get them to think about what the answer is they really favor.

Avoid asking leading/loaded questions. In the May 17, 1994 issue of The Wall Street Journal
reported the following questions asked by the Gallup Organization in a survey commissioned by
the American Paper Institute: “It is estimated that disposable diapers account for less than 2
percent of the trash in today’s landfills. In contrast, beverage containers, third-class mail, and
yard waste are estimated to account for about 21 percent of trash in landfills. Given this, in
your opinion, would it be fair to tax or ban disposable diapers?” Sometimes changes in the
wording of a question can impact the response given. For example, the following phrases
gained more or less support based on the phrasing used.
More Support
“Assistance to the poor”
“Halting rising crime rate”
“Dealing with drug addiction”
“Solving problems of big cities”
Protecting social security”

Less Support
“Welfare”
“Law enforcement”
“Drug rehabilitation”
“Assistance to big cities”
“Social security”
There are two main types of questions: ______________________________ and
______________________________.
Open-ended Questions
o The respondent is asked to provide his/her answer to the question without any
prompting.
o
These types of questions might be preferred on a pilot survey to narrow down the
option choices for a follow-up or large scale survey which uses closed-ended questions.
o
Respondents might not recall an answer they would have liked to give without some
sort of prompting.
o
Compiling the results/analyzing the answers collected often requires the researcher to
interpret the meaning of the responses which can lead to misunderstanding or
researcher bias.
o
Compiling the results/analyzing the answers may not give a straightforward analysis or
summary which can be time consuming when reporting the results.
2
Closed-ended Questions
o The respondent is asked to provide his/her answer to the question from a list of possible
choices given to them.

o
Closed-ended questions will provide more uniformity of the responses from a survey.
o
When constructing a closed-ended question the response categories should be as
exhaustive as possible. Adding an option of Other: Please Specify _____ can help to
keep the list manageable.
o
The answer choices must also be mutually exclusive so that respondents don’t want to
pick more than one answer.
o
The researcher’s ordering of the possible choices may inadvertently sway the way
respondents answer or may not include the answer the respondent really wanted to
pick. Therefore, respondents are forced to choose the answer “that best fits their
opinion” without the ability to give their true answer.
Question ordering should also be considered when writing a survey. The answer to one
question may influence/change a person’s answer to subsequent questions. For example, in
1980 the following two questions were asked:
A. Do you think the United States should let Communist newspaper reporters from
other countries come in here and send back to their papers the news as they see it?
B. Do you think a Communist country like Russia should let American newspaper
reporters come in and send back to America the news as they see it?
When the questions appeared in the order (A, B), 54.7% of the respondents answered yes to A
and 63.7% answered yes to B. When the questions appeared in the order (B, A), 74.6% of the
respondents answered yes to A and 81.9% answered yes to B. This suggests that asking
question B first puts respondents in a more lenient frame of mind than when question A is asked
first.
One way to assess whether question ordering is impacting the results of the survey is to print
surveys with questions in different orders. Therefore, not everyone will necessarily have the
same train of thought throughout the survey.
Questions:
1. Give an example of a closed-ended question you could construct from each of the following
open-ended questions.
a. What was your family’s total income last year?
3
b. How do you feel about the space program?
c. How important is religion in your life?
d. What was your main reason for attending college?
e. What do you feel is the biggest problem facing your community?
2. Frankovic (2008) reported that in 1970, a poll conducted by the Harris organization for Virginia
Slims, a brand of cigarettes marketed primarily to women, had the following question: “There
won’t be a woman president of the U.S. for a long time and that’s probably just as well.” Sixtypercent of female respondents agreed with the statement. Critique this question.
3. On March 21, 1993, NBC televised “The First National Referendum – Government Reform
Presented by Ross Perot.” During the show, 1992 U.S. presidential candidate Perot asked
viewers to express their opinions by mailing The National Referendum on Government Reform,
printed in the March 20 issue of TV Guide. Critique the following sample of the questions given
on the survey:

Do you believe that for every dollar of tax increase there should be a $2.00 in
spending cuts with the savings earmarked for deficit and debt reduction?
4

Should the President present an overall plan including spending cuts, spending
increases, and tax increases and present the net result of the overall plan, so
that the people can know the net result before paying more taxes?

Should the electoral college be replaced with a popular vote for the Presidential
election?

Was this TV forum worthwhile? Do you wish to continue participating as a
voting member of United We Stand America?
5