Questionnaires play an important role in research. They let us gather data that can reveal hidden information about people. But they’re not without their limitations.
Questions can be self-administered, with participants answering all questions themselves, or researcher-administered, where the research team interviews a sample of respondents by phone, in-person, or online. Self-administered questionnaires tend to have lower response rates than researcher-administered questionnaires, due in part to the impersonal nature of mailed paper surveys and automated telephone menu systems.
Web-based questionnaires offer a variety of advantages, including a wider audience than traditional surveys that are conducted via mail or phone and the ability to reach an international audience. However, they also come with some issues including the challenge of reaching a demographically representative sample. They are also affected by factors such as screen dimensions as well as hardware platforms operating systems, browser settings.
When creating a questionnaire, it is crucial to consider the research aims and objectives. When designing questions, it’s important to know the people who will be using your questionnaire. For example you should know if they can understand and respond to the questions or if they have the time to fill out a lengthy questionnaire.
It’s also essential to test new questionnaires before they are released through qualitative methods like focus groups or cognitive interviews, or testing them in the pretesting phase (often by using an opt-in form of survey) to ensure that they’re functioning as intended. The questionnaires are subject to “question-order effects”, where answers to earlier questions can affect the answers to subsequent ones.