How to Design a Good Survey Questionnaire

In order for a research to arrive at accurate conclusions, proper data collection is necessary. This involves the proper selection of the data collection tool to use, and its design. For this article, the focal point is designing a survey questionnaire.

Undergraduate researches require data collection methods. As discussed in other articles, this is the part where you need to decide what kind of information you need for your study and how to get it. The most common data collection tool today is the use of a survey questionnaire. However, there are a few guidelines that separates a good data collection tool from a useless one.

Guidelines for the design of a good survey questionnaire

1. Concise - By the term itself, a questionnaire must be direct to the point and as short as possible. Researchers must always take in consideration that the respondents of the study would be spending their valuable time to provide responses. Thus, a concise set of questions is much favored by respondents. A lengthy questionnaire would always tend to look similar to an exam and would most likely be responded to hastily, sacrificing accuracy.
   
2. Clear - As researchers design the items and/or questions in a survey questionnaire, the use of overly technical terms is often overlooked. Unless the respondents are selected purposely to be highly intellectual individuals, questionnaires are best written using layman terms to avoid confusion for the respondents.
   
3. Comprehensive - Lastly, a survey questionnaire must be designed in a way that it would be able to collect data to completely provide information for all the research objectives. This affects the outcome and accuracy of a research. In addition, the overall design of how the questions are presented and how the respondents would be providing answers is affected by this characteristic as well.