Questionnaire design: asking questions with a purpose

This guide, written by Ellen Taylor-Powell for Cooperative Extension, provides detailed guidance and examples for designing and writing questionnaires. It includes advice on constructing, formatting and pre-testing and the development of effective questions.

Contents

  • Constructing a questionnaire 2
  • Kinds of information 2
    • Knowledge – What people know 2
    • Beliefs – attitudes – opinions 2
    • Behaviour – What people do 3
    • Attributes – What people are 3
  • Wording the questions 3
    • Types of questions 5
    • Close-ended questions with one-choice answers 7
  • Formatting the questionnaire 11
  • Pretesting the questionnaire 14

Sources

Taylor-Powell, E., (1998), Questionnaire design: Asking questions with a purpose. Cooperative Extension. Retrieved from: http://learningstore.uwex.edu/assets/pdfs/g3658-2.pdf