CREATING AN AUDIENCE SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE AND ANALYSIS
Student Objectives:
1. To practice creating and using an audience analysis questionnaire.
2. To meet and work with other students in the class and thus continue to promote a
supportive class atmosphere.
Instructions:
1. Choose a topic of interest or concern for a college-level audience. Narrow your
subject down to an appropriate speech topic for a persuasive, 8 minute speech.
2. Develop a specific purpose and central idea for your topic.
3. Create a dispositional (for assessing audience attitude toward the topic) audience
analysis questionnaire of six (6) questions. (See your textbook, pp. 124-127—a
dispositional questionnaire will assess your audience’s attitude toward the topic,
interest in the topic, and knowledge about the topic.) Create two (2) fixedalternative questions, two (2) scale questions, and two (2) open-ended questions.
(See the sample questionnaires and principles on pp. 129-130 in the textbook.)
4. Pass out your questionnaire to the class and have them answer your questions.
5. When you get your questionnaires back, tally the responses and analyze the
interest, knowledge, and attitude your audience has about the topic. Write a brief
sentence or paragraph description of the results for each question.
6. Create an introduction for a persuasive speech on that topic. Use statistics or
quotations from your tally and surveys so that you create interest and relate to
your audience’s knowledge and attitudes.
Optional Assignment:
Form a team of 3-4 students. Together, complete a questionnaire on one of the
speech topics chosen by group members for the upcoming persuasive speech. Be sure to
make the questions clear and understandable. Make copies of the questionnaire (the
“Instrument”). Then, have each group members fill out a copy. Tally the results from
the group. Write a group paragraph describing the results of each question.
Note:
If you decide to ask demographic questions in addition to your dispositional ones, they
should be in addition to the six questions listed above. A “demographic” survey or
questionnaire does not measure attitudes, interest, or knowledge of the audience about
your topic. It measures characteristics of the audience such as: Gender, Ethnicity, Marital
Status, Hometown, Religion, Employment, Political Affiliation, Club or Group
Memberships, or Hobbies. While these characteristics may be very useful in your
speech, they are not required for this assignment.
Source:
Adapted from Dwyer, K. (2002). Public Speaking Workbook, 7th Ed. Boston:
McGraw-Hill Primis.