sample of questionnaire for research project

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21 Questionnaire Templates: Examples and Samples

Questionnaire: Definition

A questionnaire is defined a market research instrument that consists of questions or prompts to elicit and collect responses from a sample of respondents. A questionnaire is typically a mix of open-ended questions and close-ended questions ; the latter allowing for respondents to enlist their views in detail.

A questionnaire can be used in both, qualitative market research as well as quantitative market research with the use of different types of questions .

LEARN ABOUT: Open-Ended Questions

Types of Questionnaires

We have learnt that a questionnaire could either be structured or free-flow. To explain this better:

• Structured Questionnaires: A structured questionnaires helps collect quantitative data . In this case, the questionnaire is designed in a way that it collects very specific type of information. It can be used to initiate a formal enquiry on collect data to prove or disprove a prior hypothesis.
• Unstructured Questionnaires: An unstructured questionnaire collects qualitative data . The questionnaire in this case has a basic structure and some branching questions but nothing that limits the responses of a respondent. The questions are more open-ended.

LEARN ABOUT:   Structured Question

Types of Questions used in a Questionnaire

A questionnaire can consist of many types of questions . Some of the commonly and widely used question types though, are:

• Open-Ended Questions: One of the commonly used question type in questionnaire is an open-ended question . These questions help collect in-depth data from a respondent as there is a huge scope to respond in detail.
• Dichotomous Questions: The dichotomous question is a “yes/no” close-ended question . This question is generally used in case of the need of basic validation. It is the easiest question type in a questionnaire.
• Multiple-Choice Questions: An easy to administer and respond to, question type in a questionnaire is the multiple-choice question . These questions are close-ended questions with either a single select multiple choice question or a multiple select multiple choice question. Each multiple choice question consists of an incomplete stem (question), right answer or answers, close alternatives, distractors and incorrect answers. Depending on the objective of the research, a mix of the above option types can be used.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) Question: Another commonly used question type in a questionnaire is the Net Promoter Score (NPS) Question where one single question collects data on the referencability of the research topic in question.
• Scaling Questions: Scaling questions are widely used in a questionnaire as they make responding to the questionnaire, very easy. These questions are based on the principles of the 4 measurement scales – nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio .

Questionnaires help enterprises collect valuable data to help them make well-informed business decisions. There are powerful tools available in the market that allows using multiple question types, ready to use survey format templates, robust analytics, and many more features to conduct comprehensive market research.

LEARN ABOUT: course evaluation survey examples

For example, an enterprise wants to conduct market research to understand what pricing would be best for their new product to capture a higher market share. In such a case, a questionnaire for competitor analysis can be sent to the targeted audience using a powerful market research survey software which can help the enterprise conduct 360 market research that will enable them to make strategic business decisions.

Now that we have learned what a questionnaire is and its use in market research , some examples and samples of widely used questionnaire templates on the QuestionPro platform are as below:

LEARN ABOUT: Speaker evaluation form

Customer Questionnaire Templates: Examples and Samples

QuestionPro specializes in end-to-end Customer Questionnaire Templates that can be used to evaluate a customer journey right from indulging with a brand to the continued use and referenceability of the brand. These templates form excellent samples to form your own questionnaire and begin testing your customer satisfaction and experience based on customer feedback.

LEARN ABOUT: Structured Questionnaire

USE THIS FREE TEMPLATE

Employee & Human Resource (HR) Questionnaire Templates: Examples and Samples

QuestionPro has built a huge repository of employee questionnaires and HR questionnaires that can be readily deployed to collect feedback from the workforce on an organization on multiple parameters like employee satisfaction, benefits evaluation, manager evaluation , exit formalities etc. These templates provide a holistic overview of collecting actionable data from employees.

Community Questionnaire Templates: Examples and Samples

The QuestionPro repository of community questionnaires helps collect varied data on all community aspects. This template library includes popular questionnaires such as community service, demographic questionnaires, psychographic questionnaires, personal questionnaires and much more.

Academic Evaluation Questionnaire Templates: Examples and Samples

Another vastly used section of QuestionPro questionnaire templates are the academic evaluation questionnaires . These questionnaires are crafted to collect in-depth data about academic institutions and the quality of teaching provided, extra-curricular activities etc and also feedback about other educational activities.

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Your ultimate guide to questionnaires and how to design a good one

The written questionnaire is the heart and soul of any survey research project. Whether you conduct your survey using an online questionnaire, in person, by email or over the phone, the way you design your questionnaire plays a critical role in shaping the quality of the data and insights that you’ll get from your target audience. Keep reading to get actionable tips.

What is a questionnaire?

A questionnaire is a research tool consisting of a set of questions or other ‘prompts’ to collect data from a set of respondents.

When used in most research, a questionnaire will consist of a number of types of questions (primarily open-ended and closed) in order to gain both quantitative data that can be analyzed to draw conclusions, and qualitative data to provide longer, more specific explanations.

A research questionnaire is often mistaken for a survey - and many people use the term questionnaire and survey, interchangeably.

But that’s incorrect.

Which is what we talk about next.

Get started with our free survey maker with 50+ templates

Survey vs. questionnaire – what’s the difference?

Before we go too much further, let’s consider the differences between surveys and questionnaires.

These two terms are often used interchangeably, but there is an important difference between them.

Survey definition

A survey is the process of collecting data from a set of respondents and using it to gather insights.

Survey research can be conducted using a questionnaire, but won’t always involve one.

Questionnaire definition

A questionnaire is the list of questions you circulate to your target audience.

In other words, the survey is the task you’re carrying out, and the questionnaire is the instrument you’re using to do it.

By itself, a questionnaire doesn’t achieve much.

It’s when you put it into action as part of a survey that you start to get results.

Advantages vs disadvantages of using a questionnaire

While a questionnaire is a popular method to gather data for market research or other studies, there are a few disadvantages to using this method (although there are plenty of advantages to using a questionnaire too).

Let’s have a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of using a questionnaire for collecting data.

Advantages of using a questionnaire

1. questionnaires are relatively cheap.

Depending on the complexity of your study, using a questionnaire can be cost effective compared to other methods.

You simply need to write your survey questionnaire, and send it out and then process the responses.

You can set up an online questionnaire relatively easily, or simply carry out market research on the street if that’s the best method.

2. You can get and analyze results quickly

Again depending on the size of your survey you can get results back from a questionnaire quickly, often within 24 hours of putting the questionnaire live.

It also means you can start to analyze responses quickly too.

3. They’re easily scalable

You can easily send an online questionnaire to anyone in the world and with the right software you can quickly identify your target audience and your questionnaire to them.

4. Questionnaires are easy to analyze

If your questionnaire design has been done properly, it’s quick and easy to analyze results from questionnaires once responses start to come back.

This is particularly useful with large scale market research projects.

Because all respondents are answering the same questions, it’s simple to identify trends.

5. You can use the results to make accurate decisions

As a research instrument, a questionnaire is ideal for commercial research because the data you get back is from your target audience (or ideal customers) and the information you get back on their thoughts, preferences or behaviors allows you to make business decisions.

6. A questionnaire can cover any topic

One of the biggest advantages of using questionnaires when conducting research is (because you can adapt them using different types and styles of open ended questions and closed ended questions) they can be used to gather data on almost any topic.

There are many types of questionnaires you can design to gather both quantitative data and qualitative data - so they’re a useful tool for all kinds of data analysis.

Disadvantages of using a questionnaire

1. respondents could lie.

This is by far the biggest risk with a questionnaire, especially when dealing with sensitive topics.

Rather than give their actual opinion, a respondent might feel pressured to give the answer they deem more socially acceptable, which doesn’t give you accurate results.

2. Respondents might not answer every question

There are all kinds of reasons respondents might not answer every question, from questionnaire length, they might not understand what’s being asked, or they simply might not want to answer it.

If you get questionnaires back without complete responses it could negatively affect your research data and provide an inaccurate picture.

3. They might interpret what’s being asked incorrectly

This is a particular problem when running a survey across geographical boundaries and often comes down to the design of the survey questionnaire.

If your questions aren’t written in a very clear way, the respondent might misunderstand what’s being asked and provide an answer that doesn’t reflect what they actually think.

Again this can negatively affect your research data.

4. You could introduce bias

The whole point of producing a questionnaire is to gather accurate data from which decisions can be made or conclusions drawn.

But the data collected can be heavily impacted if the researchers accidentally introduce bias into the questions.

This can be easily done if the researcher is trying to prove a certain hypothesis with their questionnaire, and unwittingly write questions that push people towards giving a certain answer.

In these cases respondents’ answers won’t accurately reflect what is really happening and stop you gathering more accurate data.

5. Respondents could get survey fatigue

One issue you can run into when sending out a questionnaire, particularly if you send them out regularly to the same survey sample, is that your respondents could start to suffer from survey fatigue.

In these circumstances, rather than thinking about the response options in the questionnaire and providing accurate answers, respondents could start to just tick boxes to get through the questionnaire quickly.

Again, this won’t give you an accurate data set.

Questionnaire design: How to do it

It’s essential to carefully craft a questionnaire to reduce survey error and optimize your data . The best way to think about the questionnaire is with the end result in mind.

How do you do that?

Start with questions, like:

• What is my research purpose ?
• What data do I need?
• How am I going to analyze that data?
• What questions are needed to best suit these variables?

Once you have a clear idea of the purpose of your survey, you’ll be in a better position to create an effective questionnaire.

Here are a few steps to help you get into the right mindset.

1. Keep the respondent front and center

A survey is the process of collecting information from people, so it needs to be designed around human beings first and foremost.

In his post about survey design theory, David Vannette, PhD, from the Qualtrics Methodology Lab explains the correlation between the way a survey is designed and the quality of data that is extracted.

“To begin designing an effective survey, take a step back and try to understand what goes on in your respondents’ heads when they are taking your survey.

This step is critical to making sure that your questionnaire makes it as likely as possible that the response process follows that expected path.”

From writing the questions to designing the survey flow, the respondent’s point of view should always be front and center in your mind during a questionnaire design.

2. How to write survey questions

Your questionnaire should only be as long as it needs to be, and every question needs to deliver value.

That means your questions must each have an individual purpose and produce the best possible data for that purpose, all while supporting the overall goal of the survey.

A question must also must be phrased in a way that is easy for all your respondents to understand, and does not produce false results.

To do this, remember the following principles:

Get into the respondent's head

The process for a respondent answering a survey question looks like this:

• The respondent reads the question and determines what information they need to answer it.
• They search their memory for that information.
• They make judgments about that information.
• They translate that judgment into one of the answer options you’ve provided. This is the process of taking the data they have and matching that information with the question that’s asked.

When wording questions, make sure the question means the same thing to all respondents. Words should have one meaning, few syllables, and the sentences should have few words.

Only use the words needed to ask your question and not a word more .

Note that it’s important that the respondent understands the intent behind your question.

If they don’t, they may answer a different question and the data can be skewed.

Some contextual help text, either in the introduction to the questionnaire or before the question itself, can help make sure the respondent understands your goals and the scope of your research.

Use mutually exclusive responses

Be sure to make your response categories mutually exclusive.

Consider the question:

What is your age?

Respondents that are 31 years old have two options, as do respondents that are 40 and 55. As a result, it is impossible to predict which category they will choose.

This can distort results and frustrate respondents. It can be easily avoided by making responses mutually exclusive.

The following question is much better:

This question is clear and will give us better results.

Ask specific questions

Nonspecific questions can confuse respondents and influence results.

Do you like orange juice?

• Like very much
• Neither like nor dislike
• Dislike very much

This question is very unclear. Is it asking about taste, texture, price, or the nutritional content? Different respondents will read this question differently.

A specific question will get more specific answers that are actionable.

How much do you like the current price of orange juice?

This question is more specific and will get better results.

If you need to collect responses about more than one aspect of a subject, you can include multiple questions on it. (Do you like the taste of orange juice? Do you like the nutritional content of orange juice? etc.)

Use a variety of question types

If all of your questionnaire, survey or poll questions are structured the same way (e.g. yes/no or multiple choice) the respondents are likely to become bored and tune out. That could mean they pay less attention to how they’re answering or even give up altogether.

Instead, mix up the question types to keep the experience interesting and varied. It’s a good idea to include questions that yield both qualitative and quantitative data.

For example, an open-ended questionnaire item such as “describe your attitude to life” will provide qualitative data – a form of information that’s rich, unstructured and unpredictable. The respondent will tell you in their own words what they think and feel.

A quantitative / close-ended questionnaire item, such as “Which word describes your attitude to life? a) practical b) philosophical” gives you a much more structured answer, but the answers will be less rich and detailed.

Open-ended questions take more thought and effort to answer, so use them sparingly. They also require a different kind of treatment once your survey is in the analysis stage.

3. Pre-test your questionnaire

Always pre-test a questionnaire before sending it out to respondents. This will help catch any errors you might have missed. You could ask a colleague, friend, or an expert to take the survey and give feedback. If possible, ask a few cognitive questions like, “how did you get to that response?” and “what were you thinking about when you answered that question?” Figure out what was easy for the responder and where there is potential for confusion. You can then re-word where necessary to make the experience as frictionless as possible.

If your resources allow, you could also consider using a focus group to test out your survey. Having multiple respondents road-test the questionnaire will give you a better understanding of its strengths and weaknesses. Match the focus group to your target respondents as closely as possible, for example in terms of age, background, gender, and level of education.

Note: Don't forget to make your survey as accessible as possible for increased response rates.

Questionnaire examples and templates

There are free questionnaire templates and example questions available for all kinds of surveys and market research, many of them online. But they’re not all created equal and you should use critical judgement when selecting one. After all, the questionnaire examples may be free but the time and energy you’ll spend carrying out a survey are not.

If you’re using online questionnaire templates as the basis for your own, make sure it has been developed by professionals and is specific to the type of research you’re doing to ensure higher completion rates. As we’ve explored here, using the wrong kinds of questions can result in skewed or messy data, and could even prompt respondents to abandon the questionnaire without finishing or give thoughtless answers.

You’ll find a full library of downloadable survey templates in the Qualtrics Marketplace , covering many different types of research from employee engagement to post-event feedback . All are fully customizable and have been developed by Qualtrics experts.

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With insights from Qualtrics, organizations can identify and resolve the greatest friction points in their business, retain and engage top talent, and bring the right products and services to market. Nearly 20,000 organizations around the world use Qualtrics’ advanced AI to listen, understand, and take action. Qualtrics uses its vast universe of experience data to form the largest database of human sentiment in the world. Qualtrics is co-headquartered in Provo, Utah and Seattle.

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Home » Questionnaire – Definition, Types, and Examples

Questionnaire – Definition, Types, and Examples

Table of Contents

Questionnaire

Definition:

A Questionnaire is a research tool or survey instrument that consists of a set of questions or prompts designed to gather information from individuals or groups of people.

It is a standardized way of collecting data from a large number of people by asking them a series of questions related to a specific topic or research objective. The questions may be open-ended or closed-ended, and the responses can be quantitative or qualitative. Questionnaires are widely used in research, marketing, social sciences, healthcare, and many other fields to collect data and insights from a target population.

History of Questionnaire

The history of questionnaires can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, who used questionnaires as a means of assessing public opinion. However, the modern history of questionnaires began in the late 19th century with the rise of social surveys.

The first social survey was conducted in the United States in 1874 by Francis A. Walker, who used a questionnaire to collect data on labor conditions. In the early 20th century, questionnaires became a popular tool for conducting social research, particularly in the fields of sociology and psychology.

One of the most influential figures in the development of the questionnaire was the psychologist Raymond Cattell, who in the 1940s and 1950s developed the personality questionnaire, a standardized instrument for measuring personality traits. Cattell’s work helped establish the questionnaire as a key tool in personality research.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the use of questionnaires expanded into other fields, including market research, public opinion polling, and health surveys. With the rise of computer technology, questionnaires became easier and more cost-effective to administer, leading to their widespread use in research and business settings.

Today, questionnaires are used in a wide range of settings, including academic research, business, healthcare, and government. They continue to evolve as a research tool, with advances in computer technology and data analysis techniques making it easier to collect and analyze data from large numbers of participants.

Types of Questionnaire

Types of Questionnaires are as follows:

Structured Questionnaire

This type of questionnaire has a fixed format with predetermined questions that the respondent must answer. The questions are usually closed-ended, which means that the respondent must select a response from a list of options.

Unstructured Questionnaire

An unstructured questionnaire does not have a fixed format or predetermined questions. Instead, the interviewer or researcher can ask open-ended questions to the respondent and let them provide their own answers.

Open-ended Questionnaire

An open-ended questionnaire allows the respondent to answer the question in their own words, without any pre-determined response options. The questions usually start with phrases like “how,” “why,” or “what,” and encourage the respondent to provide more detailed and personalized answers.

Close-ended Questionnaire

In a closed-ended questionnaire, the respondent is given a set of predetermined response options to choose from. This type of questionnaire is easier to analyze and summarize, but may not provide as much insight into the respondent’s opinions or attitudes.

Mixed Questionnaire

A mixed questionnaire is a combination of open-ended and closed-ended questions. This type of questionnaire allows for more flexibility in terms of the questions that can be asked, and can provide both quantitative and qualitative data.

Pictorial Questionnaire:

In a pictorial questionnaire, instead of using words to ask questions, the questions are presented in the form of pictures, diagrams or images. This can be particularly useful for respondents who have low literacy skills, or for situations where language barriers exist. Pictorial questionnaires can also be useful in cross-cultural research where respondents may come from different language backgrounds.

Types of Questions in Questionnaire

The types of Questions in Questionnaire are as follows:

Multiple Choice Questions

These questions have several options for participants to choose from. They are useful for getting quantitative data and can be used to collect demographic information.

• a. Red b . Blue c. Green d . Yellow

Rating Scale Questions

These questions ask participants to rate something on a scale (e.g. from 1 to 10). They are useful for measuring attitudes and opinions.

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this product to a friend?

Open-Ended Questions

These questions allow participants to answer in their own words and provide more in-depth and detailed responses. They are useful for getting qualitative data.

• What do you think are the biggest challenges facing your community?

Likert Scale Questions

These questions ask participants to rate how much they agree or disagree with a statement. They are useful for measuring attitudes and opinions.

How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement:

“I enjoy exercising regularly.”

• a . Strongly Agree
• c . Neither Agree nor Disagree
• d . Disagree
• e . Strongly Disagree

Demographic Questions

These questions ask about the participant’s personal information such as age, gender, ethnicity, education level, etc. They are useful for segmenting the data and analyzing results by demographic groups.

• What is your age?

Yes/No Questions

These questions only have two options: Yes or No. They are useful for getting simple, straightforward answers to a specific question.

Have you ever traveled outside of your home country?

Ranking Questions

These questions ask participants to rank several items in order of preference or importance. They are useful for measuring priorities or preferences.

Please rank the following factors in order of importance when choosing a restaurant:

• a. Quality of Food
• c. Ambiance
• d. Location

Matrix Questions

These questions present a matrix or grid of options that participants can choose from. They are useful for getting data on multiple variables at once.

Dichotomous Questions

These questions present two options that are opposite or contradictory. They are useful for measuring binary or polarized attitudes.

Do you support the death penalty?

How to Make a Questionnaire

Step-by-Step Guide for Making a Questionnaire:

• Define your research objectives: Before you start creating questions, you need to define the purpose of your questionnaire and what you hope to achieve from the data you collect.
• Choose the appropriate question types: Based on your research objectives, choose the appropriate question types to collect the data you need. Refer to the types of questions mentioned earlier for guidance.
• Develop questions: Develop clear and concise questions that are easy for participants to understand. Avoid leading or biased questions that might influence the responses.
• Organize questions: Organize questions in a logical and coherent order, starting with demographic questions followed by general questions, and ending with specific or sensitive questions.
• Pilot the questionnaire : Test your questionnaire on a small group of participants to identify any flaws or issues with the questions or the format.
• Refine the questionnaire : Based on feedback from the pilot, refine and revise the questionnaire as necessary to ensure that it is valid and reliable.
• Distribute the questionnaire: Distribute the questionnaire to your target audience using a method that is appropriate for your research objectives, such as online surveys, email, or paper surveys.
• Collect and analyze data: Collect the completed questionnaires and analyze the data using appropriate statistical methods. Draw conclusions from the data and use them to inform decision-making or further research.
• Report findings: Present your findings in a clear and concise report, including a summary of the research objectives, methodology, key findings, and recommendations.

Questionnaire Administration Modes

There are several modes of questionnaire administration. The choice of mode depends on the research objectives, sample size, and available resources. Some common modes of administration include:

• Self-administered paper questionnaires: Participants complete the questionnaire on paper, either in person or by mail. This mode is relatively low cost and easy to administer, but it may result in lower response rates and greater potential for errors in data entry.
• Online questionnaires: Participants complete the questionnaire on a website or through email. This mode is convenient for both researchers and participants, as it allows for fast and easy data collection. However, it may be subject to issues such as low response rates, lack of internet access, and potential for fraudulent responses.
• Telephone surveys: Trained interviewers administer the questionnaire over the phone. This mode allows for a large sample size and can result in higher response rates, but it is also more expensive and time-consuming than other modes.
• Face-to-face interviews : Trained interviewers administer the questionnaire in person. This mode allows for a high degree of control over the survey environment and can result in higher response rates, but it is also more expensive and time-consuming than other modes.
• Mixed-mode surveys: Researchers use a combination of two or more modes to administer the questionnaire, such as using online questionnaires for initial screening and following up with telephone interviews for more detailed information. This mode can help overcome some of the limitations of individual modes, but it requires careful planning and coordination.

Example of Questionnaire

Title of the Survey: Customer Satisfaction Survey

Introduction:

We appreciate your business and would like to ensure that we are meeting your needs. Please take a few minutes to complete this survey so that we can better understand your experience with our products and services. Your feedback is important to us and will help us improve our offerings.

Instructions:

Please read each question carefully and select the response that best reflects your experience. If you have any additional comments or suggestions, please feel free to include them in the space provided at the end of the survey.

1. How satisfied are you with our product quality?

• Very satisfied
• Somewhat satisfied
• Somewhat dissatisfied
• Very dissatisfied

2. How satisfied are you with our customer service?

3. How satisfied are you with the price of our products?

4. How likely are you to recommend our products to others?

• Very likely
• Somewhat likely
• Somewhat unlikely
• Very unlikely

5. How easy was it to find the information you were looking for on our website?

• Somewhat easy
• Somewhat difficult
• Very difficult

6. How satisfied are you with the overall experience of using our products and services?

7. Is there anything that you would like to see us improve upon or change in the future?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Conclusion:

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Your feedback is valuable to us and will help us improve our products and services. If you have any further comments or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Applications of Questionnaire

Some common applications of questionnaires include:

• Research : Questionnaires are commonly used in research to gather information from participants about their attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and experiences. This information can then be analyzed and used to draw conclusions and make inferences.
• Healthcare : In healthcare, questionnaires can be used to gather information about patients’ medical history, symptoms, and lifestyle habits. This information can help healthcare professionals diagnose and treat medical conditions more effectively.
• Marketing : Questionnaires are commonly used in marketing to gather information about consumers’ preferences, buying habits, and opinions on products and services. This information can help businesses develop and market products more effectively.
• Human Resources: Questionnaires are used in human resources to gather information from job applicants, employees, and managers about job satisfaction, performance, and workplace culture. This information can help organizations improve their hiring practices, employee retention, and organizational culture.
• Education : Questionnaires are used in education to gather information from students, teachers, and parents about their perceptions of the educational experience. This information can help educators identify areas for improvement and develop more effective teaching strategies.

Purpose of Questionnaire

Some common purposes of questionnaires include:

• To collect information on attitudes, opinions, and beliefs: Questionnaires can be used to gather information on people’s attitudes, opinions, and beliefs on a particular topic. For example, a questionnaire can be used to gather information on people’s opinions about a particular political issue.
• To collect demographic information: Questionnaires can be used to collect demographic information such as age, gender, income, education level, and occupation. This information can be used to analyze trends and patterns in the data.
• To measure behaviors or experiences: Questionnaires can be used to gather information on behaviors or experiences such as health-related behaviors or experiences, job satisfaction, or customer satisfaction.
• To evaluate programs or interventions: Questionnaires can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of programs or interventions by gathering information on participants’ experiences, opinions, and behaviors.
• To gather information for research: Questionnaires can be used to gather data for research purposes on a variety of topics.

When to use Questionnaire

Here are some situations when questionnaires might be used:

• When you want to collect data from a large number of people: Questionnaires are useful when you want to collect data from a large number of people. They can be distributed to a wide audience and can be completed at the respondent’s convenience.
• When you want to collect data on specific topics: Questionnaires are useful when you want to collect data on specific topics or research questions. They can be designed to ask specific questions and can be used to gather quantitative data that can be analyzed statistically.
• When you want to compare responses across groups: Questionnaires are useful when you want to compare responses across different groups of people. For example, you might want to compare responses from men and women, or from people of different ages or educational backgrounds.
• When you want to collect data anonymously: Questionnaires can be useful when you want to collect data anonymously. Respondents can complete the questionnaire without fear of judgment or repercussions, which can lead to more honest and accurate responses.
• When you want to save time and resources: Questionnaires can be more efficient and cost-effective than other methods of data collection such as interviews or focus groups. They can be completed quickly and easily, and can be analyzed using software to save time and resources.

Characteristics of Questionnaire

Here are some of the characteristics of questionnaires:

• Standardization : Questionnaires are standardized tools that ask the same questions in the same order to all respondents. This ensures that all respondents are answering the same questions and that the responses can be compared and analyzed.
• Objectivity : Questionnaires are designed to be objective, meaning that they do not contain leading questions or bias that could influence the respondent’s answers.
• Predefined responses: Questionnaires typically provide predefined response options for the respondents to choose from, which helps to standardize the responses and make them easier to analyze.
• Quantitative data: Questionnaires are designed to collect quantitative data, meaning that they provide numerical or categorical data that can be analyzed using statistical methods.
• Convenience : Questionnaires are convenient for both the researcher and the respondents. They can be distributed and completed at the respondent’s convenience and can be easily administered to a large number of people.
• Anonymity : Questionnaires can be anonymous, which can encourage respondents to answer more honestly and provide more accurate data.
• Reliability : Questionnaires are designed to be reliable, meaning that they produce consistent results when administered multiple times to the same group of people.
• Validity : Questionnaires are designed to be valid, meaning that they measure what they are intended to measure and are not influenced by other factors.

Advantage of Questionnaire

Some Advantage of Questionnaire are as follows:

• Standardization: Questionnaires allow researchers to ask the same questions to all participants in a standardized manner. This helps ensure consistency in the data collected and eliminates potential bias that might arise if questions were asked differently to different participants.
• Efficiency: Questionnaires can be administered to a large number of people at once, making them an efficient way to collect data from a large sample.
• Anonymity: Participants can remain anonymous when completing a questionnaire, which may make them more likely to answer honestly and openly.
• Cost-effective: Questionnaires can be relatively inexpensive to administer compared to other research methods, such as interviews or focus groups.
• Objectivity: Because questionnaires are typically designed to collect quantitative data, they can be analyzed objectively without the influence of the researcher’s subjective interpretation.
• Flexibility: Questionnaires can be adapted to a wide range of research questions and can be used in various settings, including online surveys, mail surveys, or in-person interviews.

Limitations of Questionnaire

Limitations of Questionnaire are as follows:

• Limited depth: Questionnaires are typically designed to collect quantitative data, which may not provide a complete understanding of the topic being studied. Questionnaires may miss important details and nuances that could be captured through other research methods, such as interviews or observations.
• R esponse bias: Participants may not always answer questions truthfully or accurately, either because they do not remember or because they want to present themselves in a particular way. This can lead to response bias, which can affect the validity and reliability of the data collected.
• Limited flexibility: While questionnaires can be adapted to a wide range of research questions, they may not be suitable for all types of research. For example, they may not be appropriate for studying complex phenomena or for exploring participants’ experiences and perceptions in-depth.
• Limited context: Questionnaires typically do not provide a rich contextual understanding of the topic being studied. They may not capture the broader social, cultural, or historical factors that may influence participants’ responses.
• Limited control : Researchers may not have control over how participants complete the questionnaire, which can lead to variations in response quality or consistency.

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Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Research Questionnaire

Research questionnaires format, research questionnaire samples, what is research questionnaires, types of research questionnaires, distinctions between surveys, polls, and research questionnaires, how to write a good research questionnaire, do’s and don’ts when making research questionnaires, what are the four types of questionnaire in research, what are the 5 questions to ask in a questionnaire, what are the 4 parts of questionnaire in research, what type of questionnaire is used in qualitative research, what are the three main qualities of a good questionnaire, what are the three parts of a research questionnaire, what are the five general rules in formulating questionnaires, what makes a good questionnaire for research, what are close-ended questions in research, how do you organize data in a questionnaire, how many questions should be in a research questionnaire, how do you structure a research questionnaire, can a survey be a questionnaire, why are questionnaires reliable.

• Research Title: State the title of the research project.

Introduction

• Purpose: Explain the purpose of the questionnaire.
• Confidentiality: Assure respondents of confidentiality.
• Instructions: Provide clear instructions on how to complete the questionnaire.

Demographic Information

• Occupation:
• Education Level:

Section 1: Topic-Specific Questions

• Question 1: [Likert Scale / Multiple Choice / Open-Ended]
• Question 2: [Likert Scale / Multiple Choice / Open-Ended]
• Question 3: [Likert Scale / Multiple Choice / Open-Ended]

Section 2: Attitudes and Opinions

• Question 4: [Likert Scale / Multiple Choice / Open-Ended]
• Question 5: [Likert Scale / Multiple Choice / Open-Ended]
• Thank You Note: Thank respondents for their time and participation.
• Contact Information: Provide contact details for follow-up questions.

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Wrapping Up

Types of questionnaires:.

• Structured Questionnaires : These include predefined questions with fixed response options, useful for quantitative research.
• Unstructured Questionnaires : These have open-ended questions allowing respondents to answer in their own words, ideal for qualitative research.
• Semi-Structured Questionnaires : Combine elements of both structured and unstructured questionnaires, providing a balance of fixed responses and open-ended questions.
• Computer-Assisted Questionnaires : Administered through digital means, they can include multimedia elements and adaptive questioning.

Key Questions:

• Demographic Questions : Gather basic information about respondents (e.g., age, gender, occupation).
• Behavioral Questions : Understand respondent actions and habits (e.g., purchasing behavior).
• Attitudinal Questions : Gauge opinions, attitudes, and perceptions.
• Knowledge-Based Questions : Assess the respondent’s knowledge on a specific topic.
• Preference Questions : Determine respondent preferences and choices. You should also take a look at our  Research Project Report

Main Parts:

• Introduction : Explains the purpose of the questionnaire and assures confidentiality.
• Instructions : Provides clear directions on how to complete the questionnaire.
• Question Body : Contains the main questions grouped by topic or theme.
• Conclusion : Includes closing statements and thank-you notes for participants. You should also take a look at our  Scientific Research Report

Types of Qualitative Questionnaires:

• Open-Ended Questionnaires : Allow respondents to express their thoughts freely.
• In-Depth Interviews : Structured like a questionnaire but conducted face-to-face.
• Narrative Questionnaires : Encourage respondents to tell their stories in detail.
• Focus Group Questionnaires : Used to guide group discussions around specific topics.
• Case Study Questionnaires : Collect detailed information about a single case or event. You should also take a look at our  Research Progress Report

Essential Qualities:

• Clarity : Questions should be clear and unambiguous.
• Relevance : Questions should be directly related to the research objectives.
• Brevity : Questions should be concise to maintain respondent engagement.
• Introduction : Sets the context and explains the purpose of the research.
• Main Body : Contains the core questions grouped by themes or topics.
• Demographic Section : Collects basic demographic information from respondents.

General Rules:

• Keep It Simple : Use straightforward language and avoid jargon.
• Be Specific : Ensure each question targets a specific piece of information.
• Avoid Leading Questions : Ensure questions do not bias the respondent’s answers.
• Pilot Test : Test the questionnaire with a small group before full deployment.
• Ensure Anonymity : Assure respondents that their answers will be confidential.

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How to Develop a Questionnaire for Research

Last Updated: December 4, 2022 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed. . Alexander Ruiz is an Educational Consultant and the Educational Director of Link Educational Institute, a tutoring business based in Claremont, California that provides customizable educational plans, subject and test prep tutoring, and college application consulting. With over a decade and a half of experience in the education industry, Alexander coaches students to increase their self-awareness and emotional intelligence while achieving skills and the goal of achieving skills and higher education. He holds a BA in Psychology from Florida International University and an MA in Education from Georgia Southern University. There are 13 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 590,004 times.

A questionnaire is a technique for collecting data in which a respondent provides answers to a series of questions. [1] X Research source To develop a questionnaire that will collect the data you want takes effort and time. However, by taking a step-by-step approach to questionnaire development, you can come up with an effective means to collect data that will answer your unique research question.

Designing Your Questionnaire

• Come up with a research question. It can be one question or several, but this should be the focal point of your questionnaire.
• Develop one or several hypotheses that you want to test. The questions that you include on your questionnaire should be aimed at systematically testing these hypotheses.

• Dichotomous question: this is a question that will generally be a “yes/no” question, but may also be an “agree/disagree” question. It is the quickest and simplest question to analyze, but is not a highly sensitive measure.
• Open-ended questions: these questions allow the respondent to respond in their own words. They can be useful for gaining insight into the feelings of the respondent, but can be a challenge when it comes to analysis of data. It is recommended to use open-ended questions to address the issue of “why.” [2] X Research source
• Multiple choice questions: these questions consist of three or more mutually-exclusive categories and ask for a single answer or several answers. [3] X Research source Multiple choice questions allow for easy analysis of results, but may not give the respondent the answer they want.
• Rank-order (or ordinal) scale questions: this type of question asks your respondent to rank items or choose items in a particular order from a set. For example, it might ask your respondents to order five things from least to most important. These types of questions forces discrimination among alternatives, but does not address the issue of why the respondent made these discriminations. [4] X Research source
• Rating scale questions: these questions allow the respondent to assess a particular issue based on a given dimension. You can provide a scale that gives an equal number of positive and negative choices, for example, ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” [5] X Research source These questions are very flexible, but also do not answer the question “why.”

• Write questions that are succinct and simple. You should not be writing complex statements or using technical jargon, as it will only confuse your respondents and lead to incorrect responses.
• Ask only one question at a time. This will help avoid confusion
• Asking questions such as these usually require you to anonymize or encrypt the demographic data you collect.
• Determine if you will include an answer such as “I don’t know” or “Not applicable to me.” While these can give your respondents a way of not answering certain questions, providing these options can also lead to missing data, which can be problematic during data analysis.
• Put the most important questions at the beginning of your questionnaire. [7] X Research source This can help you gather important data even if you sense that your respondents may be becoming distracted by the end of the questionnaire.

• Only include questions that are directly useful to your research question. [9] X Trustworthy Source Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations Specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for leading international efforts to end world hunger and improve nutrition Go to source A questionnaire is not an opportunity to collect all kinds of information about your respondents.
• Avoid asking redundant questions. This will frustrate those who are taking your questionnaire.

• Consider if you want your questionnaire to collect information from both men and women. Some studies will only survey one sex.
• Consider including a range of ages in your target demographic. For example, you can consider young adult to be 18-29 years old, adults to be 30-54 years old, and mature adults to be 55+. Providing the an age range will help you get more respondents than limiting yourself to a specific age.
• Consider what else would make a person a target for your questionnaire. Do they need to drive a car? Do they need to have health insurance? Do they need to have a child under 3? Make sure you are very clear about this before you distribute your questionnaire.

• Consider an anonymous questionnaire. You may not want to ask for names on your questionnaire. This is one step you can take to prevent privacy, however it is often possible to figure out a respondent’s identity using other demographic information (such as age, physical features, or zipcode).
• Consider de-identifying the identity of your respondents. Give each questionnaire (and thus, each respondent) a unique number or word, and only refer to them using that new identifier. Shred any personal information that can be used to determine identity.
• Remember that you do not need to collect much demographic information to be able to identify someone. People may be wary to provide this information, so you may get more respondents by asking less demographic questions (if it is possible for your questionnaire).
• Make sure you destroy all identifying information after your study is complete.

Writing your questionnaire

• My name is Jack Smith and I am one of the creators of this questionnaire. I am part of the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan, where I am focusing in developing cognition in infants.
• I’m Kelly Smith, a 3rd year undergraduate student at the University of New Mexico. This questionnaire is part of my final exam in statistics.
• My name is Steve Johnson, and I’m a marketing analyst for The Best Company. I’ve been working on questionnaire development to determine attitudes surrounding drug use in Canada for several years.

• I am collecting data regarding the attitudes surrounding gun control. This information is being collected for my Anthropology 101 class at the University of Maryland.
• This questionnaire will ask you 15 questions about your eating and exercise habits. We are attempting to make a correlation between healthy eating, frequency of exercise, and incidence of cancer in mature adults.
• This questionnaire will ask you about your recent experiences with international air travel. There will be three sections of questions that will ask you to recount your recent trips and your feelings surrounding these trips, as well as your travel plans for the future. We are looking to understand how a person’s feelings surrounding air travel impact their future plans.

• Beware that if you are collecting information for a university or for publication, you may need to check in with your institution’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) for permission before beginning. Most research universities have a dedicated IRB staff, and their information can usually be found on the school’s website.
• Remember that transparency is best. It is important to be honest about what will happen with the data you collect.
• Include an informed consent for if necessary. Note that you cannot guarantee confidentiality, but you will make all reasonable attempts to ensure that you protect their information. [12] X Research source

• Time yourself taking the survey. Then consider that it will take some people longer than you, and some people less time than you.
• Provide a time range instead of a specific time. For example, it’s better to say that a survey will take between 15 and 30 minutes than to say it will take 15 minutes and have some respondents quit halfway through.
• Use this as a reason to keep your survey concise! You will feel much better asking people to take a 20 minute survey than you will asking them to take a 3 hour one.

• Incentives can attract the wrong kind of respondent. You don’t want to incorporate responses from people who rush through your questionnaire just to get the reward at the end. This is a danger of offering an incentive. [13] X Research source
• Incentives can encourage people to respond to your survey who might not have responded without a reward. This is a situation in which incentives can help you reach your target number of respondents. [14] X Research source
• Consider the strategy used by SurveyMonkey. Instead of directly paying respondents to take their surveys, they offer 50 cents to the charity of their choice when a respondent fills out a survey. They feel that this lessens the chances that a respondent will fill out a questionnaire out of pure self-interest. [15] X Research source
• Consider entering each respondent in to a drawing for a prize if they complete the questionnaire. You can offer a 25$ gift card to a restaurant, or a new iPod, or a ticket to a movie. This makes it less tempting just to respond to your questionnaire for the incentive alone, but still offers the chance of a pleasant reward.

• Always proof read. Check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.
• Include a title. This is a good way for your respondents to understand the focus of the survey as quickly as possible.
• Thank your respondents. Thank them for taking the time and effort to complete your survey.

Distributing Your Questionnaire

• Was the questionnaire easy to understand? Were there any questions that confused you?
• Was the questionnaire easy to access? (Especially important if your questionnaire is online).
• Do you feel the questionnaire was worth your time?
• Were you comfortable answering the questions asked?
• Are there any improvements you would make to the questionnaire?

• Use an online site, such as SurveyMonkey.com. This site allows you to write your own questionnaire with their survey builder, and provides additional options such as the option to buy a target audience and use their analytics to analyze your data. [19] X Research source
• Consider using the mail. If you mail your survey, always make sure you include a self-addressed stamped envelope so that the respondent can easily mail their responses back. Make sure that your questionnaire will fit inside a standard business envelope.
• Conduct face-to-face interviews. This can be a good way to ensure that you are reaching your target demographic and can reduce missing information in your questionnaires, as it is more difficult for a respondent to avoid answering a question when you ask it directly.
• Try using the telephone. While this can be a more time-effective way to collect your data, it can be difficult to get people to respond to telephone questionnaires.

• Make your deadline reasonable. Giving respondents up to 2 weeks to answer should be more than sufficient. Anything longer and you risk your respondents forgetting about your questionnaire.
• Consider providing a reminder. A week before the deadline is a good time to provide a gentle reminder about returning the questionnaire. Include a replacement of the questionnaire in case it has been misplaced by your respondent. [20] X Research source

Community Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.questionpro.com/blog/what-is-a-questionnaire/
• ↑ https://www.hotjar.com/blog/open-ended-questions/
• ↑ https://www.questionpro.com/a/showArticle.do?articleID=survey-questions
• ↑ https://surveysparrow.com/blog/ranking-questions-examples/
• ↑ https://www.lumoa.me/blog/rating-scale/
• ↑ http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Soc_survey.shtml
• ↑ http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/hdr/design/2.4.3.html
• ↑ http://www.fao.org/docrep/W3241E/w3241e05.htm
• ↑ http://managementhelp.org/businessresearch/questionaires.htm
• ↑ https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/survey-rewards/
• ↑ http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library/how-to-develop-a-questionnaire
• ↑ https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/take-a-tour/?ut_source=header

About This Article

To develop a questionnaire for research, identify the main objective of your research to act as the focal point for the questionnaire. Then, choose the type of questions that you want to include, and come up with succinct, straightforward questions to gather the information that you need to answer your questions. Keep your questionnaire as short as possible, and identify a target demographic who you would like to answer the questions. Remember to make the questionnaires as anonymous as possible to protect the integrity of the person answering the questions! For tips on writing out your questions and distributing the questionnaire, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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• Questionnaire Design | Methods, Question Types & Examples

Questionnaire Design | Methods, Question Types & Examples

Published on 6 May 2022 by Pritha Bhandari . Revised on 10 October 2022.

A questionnaire is a list of questions or items used to gather data from respondents about their attitudes, experiences, or opinions. Questionnaires can be used to collect quantitative and/or qualitative information.

Questionnaires are commonly used in market research as well as in the social and health sciences. For example, a company may ask for feedback about a recent customer service experience, or psychology researchers may investigate health risk perceptions using questionnaires.

Table of contents

Questionnaires vs surveys, questionnaire methods, open-ended vs closed-ended questions, question wording, question order, step-by-step guide to design, frequently asked questions about questionnaire design.

A survey is a research method where you collect and analyse data from a group of people. A questionnaire is a specific tool or instrument for collecting the data.

Designing a questionnaire means creating valid and reliable questions that address your research objectives, placing them in a useful order, and selecting an appropriate method for administration.

But designing a questionnaire is only one component of survey research. Survey research also involves defining the population you’re interested in, choosing an appropriate sampling method , administering questionnaires, data cleaning and analysis, and interpretation.

Sampling is important in survey research because you’ll often aim to generalise your results to the population. Gather data from a sample that represents the range of views in the population for externally valid results. There will always be some differences between the population and the sample, but minimising these will help you avoid sampling bias .

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

Questionnaires can be self-administered or researcher-administered . Self-administered questionnaires are more common because they are easy to implement and inexpensive, but researcher-administered questionnaires allow deeper insights.

Self-administered questionnaires

Self-administered questionnaires can be delivered online or in paper-and-pen formats, in person or by post. All questions are standardised so that all respondents receive the same questions with identical wording.

Self-administered questionnaires can be:

• Cost-effective
• Easy to administer for small and large groups
• Anonymous and suitable for sensitive topics

But they may also be:

• Unsuitable for people with limited literacy or verbal skills
• Susceptible to a nonreponse bias (most people invited may not complete the questionnaire)
• Biased towards people who volunteer because impersonal survey requests often go ignored

Researcher-administered questionnaires

Researcher-administered questionnaires are interviews that take place by phone, in person, or online between researchers and respondents.

Researcher-administered questionnaires can:

• Help you ensure the respondents are representative of your target audience
• Allow clarifications of ambiguous or unclear questions and answers
• Have high response rates because it’s harder to refuse an interview when personal attention is given to respondents

But researcher-administered questionnaires can be limiting in terms of resources. They are:

• Costly and time-consuming to perform
• More difficult to analyse if you have qualitative responses
• Likely to contain experimenter bias or demand characteristics
• Likely to encourage social desirability bias in responses because of a lack of anonymity

Your questionnaire can include open-ended or closed-ended questions, or a combination of both.

Using closed-ended questions limits your responses, while open-ended questions enable a broad range of answers. You’ll need to balance these considerations with your available time and resources.

Closed-ended questions

Closed-ended, or restricted-choice, questions offer respondents a fixed set of choices to select from. Closed-ended questions are best for collecting data on categorical or quantitative variables.

Categorical variables can be nominal or ordinal. Quantitative variables can be interval or ratio. Understanding the type of variable and level of measurement means you can perform appropriate statistical analyses for generalisable results.

Examples of closed-ended questions for different variables

Nominal variables include categories that can’t be ranked, such as race or ethnicity. This includes binary or dichotomous categories.

It’s best to include categories that cover all possible answers and are mutually exclusive. There should be no overlap between response items.

In binary or dichotomous questions, you’ll give respondents only two options to choose from.

White Black or African American American Indian or Alaska Native Asian Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

Ordinal variables include categories that can be ranked. Consider how wide or narrow a range you’ll include in your response items, and their relevance to your respondents.

Likert-type questions collect ordinal data using rating scales with five or seven points.

When you have four or more Likert-type questions, you can treat the composite data as quantitative data on an interval scale . Intelligence tests, psychological scales, and personality inventories use multiple Likert-type questions to collect interval data.

With interval or ratio data, you can apply strong statistical hypothesis tests to address your research aims.

Pros and cons of closed-ended questions

Well-designed closed-ended questions are easy to understand and can be answered quickly. However, you might still miss important answers that are relevant to respondents. An incomplete set of response items may force some respondents to pick the closest alternative to their true answer. These types of questions may also miss out on valuable detail.

To solve these problems, you can make questions partially closed-ended, and include an open-ended option where respondents can fill in their own answer.

Open-ended questions

Open-ended, or long-form, questions allow respondents to give answers in their own words. Because there are no restrictions on their choices, respondents can answer in ways that researchers may not have otherwise considered. For example, respondents may want to answer ‘multiracial’ for the question on race rather than selecting from a restricted list.

• How do you feel about open science?
• How would you describe your personality?
• In your opinion, what is the biggest obstacle to productivity in remote work?

Open-ended questions have a few downsides.

They require more time and effort from respondents, which may deter them from completing the questionnaire.

For researchers, understanding and summarising responses to these questions can take a lot of time and resources. You’ll need to develop a systematic coding scheme to categorise answers, and you may also need to involve other researchers in data analysis for high reliability .

Question wording can influence your respondents’ answers, especially if the language is unclear, ambiguous, or biased. Good questions need to be understood by all respondents in the same way ( reliable ) and measure exactly what you’re interested in ( valid ).

Use clear language

You should design questions with your target audience in mind. Consider their familiarity with your questionnaire topics and language and tailor your questions to them.

For readability and clarity, avoid jargon or overly complex language. Don’t use double negatives because they can be harder to understand.

Use balanced framing

Respondents often answer in different ways depending on the question framing. Positive frames are interpreted as more neutral than negative frames and may encourage more socially desirable answers.

Use a mix of both positive and negative frames to avoid bias , and ensure that your question wording is balanced wherever possible.

Unbalanced questions focus on only one side of an argument. Respondents may be less likely to oppose the question if it is framed in a particular direction. It’s best practice to provide a counterargument within the question as well.

Avoid leading questions

Leading questions guide respondents towards answering in specific ways, even if that’s not how they truly feel, by explicitly or implicitly providing them with extra information.

It’s best to keep your questions short and specific to your topic of interest.

• The average daily work commute in the US takes 54.2 minutes and costs $29 per day. Since 2020, working from home has saved many employees time and money. Do you favour flexible work-from-home policies even after it’s safe to return to offices?
• Experts agree that a well-balanced diet provides sufficient vitamins and minerals, and multivitamins and supplements are not necessary or effective. Do you agree or disagree that multivitamins are helpful for balanced nutrition?

Keep your questions focused

Ask about only one idea at a time and avoid double-barrelled questions. Double-barrelled questions ask about more than one item at a time, which can confuse respondents.

This question could be difficult to answer for respondents who feel strongly about the right to clean drinking water but not high-speed internet. They might only answer about the topic they feel passionate about or provide a neutral answer instead – but neither of these options capture their true answers.

Instead, you should ask two separate questions to gauge respondents’ opinions.

Strongly Agree Agree Undecided Disagree Strongly Disagree

Do you agree or disagree that the government should be responsible for providing high-speed internet to everyone?

You can organise the questions logically, with a clear progression from simple to complex. Alternatively, you can randomise the question order between respondents.

Logical flow

Using a logical flow to your question order means starting with simple questions, such as behavioural or opinion questions, and ending with more complex, sensitive, or controversial questions.

The question order that you use can significantly affect the responses by priming them in specific directions. Question order effects, or context effects, occur when earlier questions influence the responses to later questions, reducing the validity of your questionnaire.

While demographic questions are usually unaffected by order effects, questions about opinions and attitudes are more susceptible to them.

• How knowledgeable are you about Joe Biden’s executive orders in his first 100 days?
• Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way Joe Biden is managing the economy?
• Do you approve or disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president?

It’s important to minimise order effects because they can be a source of systematic error or bias in your study.

Randomisation

Randomisation involves presenting individual respondents with the same questionnaire but with different question orders.

When you use randomisation, order effects will be minimised in your dataset. But a randomised order may also make it harder for respondents to process your questionnaire. Some questions may need more cognitive effort, while others are easier to answer, so a random order could require more time or mental capacity for respondents to switch between questions.

Follow this step-by-step guide to design your questionnaire.

Step 1: Define your goals and objectives

The first step of designing a questionnaire is determining your aims.

• What topics or experiences are you studying?
• What specifically do you want to find out?
• Is a self-report questionnaire an appropriate tool for investigating this topic?

Once you’ve specified your research aims, you can operationalise your variables of interest into questionnaire items. Operationalising concepts means turning them from abstract ideas into concrete measurements. Every question needs to address a defined need and have a clear purpose.

Step 2: Use questions that are suitable for your sample

Create appropriate questions by taking the perspective of your respondents. Consider their language proficiency and available time and energy when designing your questionnaire.

• Are the respondents familiar with the language and terms used in your questions?
• Would any of the questions insult, confuse, or embarrass them?
• Do the response items for any closed-ended questions capture all possible answers?
• Are the response items mutually exclusive?
• Do the respondents have time to respond to open-ended questions?

Consider all possible options for responses to closed-ended questions. From a respondent’s perspective, a lack of response options reflecting their point of view or true answer may make them feel alienated or excluded. In turn, they’ll become disengaged or inattentive to the rest of the questionnaire.

Step 3: Decide on your questionnaire length and question order

Once you have your questions, make sure that the length and order of your questions are appropriate for your sample.

If respondents are not being incentivised or compensated, keep your questionnaire short and easy to answer. Otherwise, your sample may be biased with only highly motivated respondents completing the questionnaire.

Decide on your question order based on your aims and resources. Use a logical flow if your respondents have limited time or if you cannot randomise questions. Randomising questions helps you avoid bias, but it can take more complex statistical analysis to interpret your data.

Step 4: Pretest your questionnaire

When you have a complete list of questions, you’ll need to pretest it to make sure what you’re asking is always clear and unambiguous. Pretesting helps you catch any errors or points of confusion before performing your study.

Ask friends, classmates, or members of your target audience to complete your questionnaire using the same method you’ll use for your research. Find out if any questions were particularly difficult to answer or if the directions were unclear or inconsistent, and make changes as necessary.

If you have the resources, running a pilot study will help you test the validity and reliability of your questionnaire. A pilot study is a practice run of the full study, and it includes sampling, data collection , and analysis.

You can find out whether your procedures are unfeasible or susceptible to bias and make changes in time, but you can’t test a hypothesis with this type of study because it’s usually statistically underpowered .

A questionnaire is a data collection tool or instrument, while a survey is an overarching research method that involves collecting and analysing data from people using questionnaires.

Closed-ended, or restricted-choice, questions offer respondents a fixed set of choices to select from. These questions are easier to answer quickly.

Open-ended or long-form questions allow respondents to answer in their own words. Because there are no restrictions on their choices, respondents can answer in ways that researchers may not have otherwise considered.

A Likert scale is a rating scale that quantitatively assesses opinions, attitudes, or behaviours. It is made up of four or more questions that measure a single attitude or trait when response scores are combined.

To use a Likert scale in a survey , you present participants with Likert-type questions or statements, and a continuum of items, usually with five or seven possible responses, to capture their degree of agreement.

You can organise the questions logically, with a clear progression from simple to complex, or randomly between respondents. A logical flow helps respondents process the questionnaire easier and quicker, but it may lead to bias. Randomisation can minimise the bias from order effects.

Questionnaires can be self-administered or researcher-administered.

Researcher-administered questionnaires are interviews that take place by phone, in person, or online between researchers and respondents. You can gain deeper insights by clarifying questions for respondents or asking follow-up questions.

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Research Questionnaire

Questionnaire generator.

When a researcher creates a research paper using the scientific method they will need to use a gathering method that is adjacent to the research topic. This means that the researcher will use a quantitative research method for a quantitive topic and a qualitative method for a qualitative  one.  The research questionnaire is one of the quantitative data-gathering methods a researcher can use in their research paper.

1. Market Research Questionnaire Template Example

• Google Docs
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2. Market Research Questionnaire Example

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3. Research Questionnaire Example

4. Sample Market Research Questionnaire

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5. Research Survey Questionnaire

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6. Research Survey Questionnaire Construction

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7. Research Questionnaire Survey of Consumers

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8. Guide to the Design of Research Questionnaires

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9. Planning Survey Research Questionnaires

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10. Climate Change Survey Questionnaires

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11. Survey Questionnaire Design

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12. Developing Questionnaires for Educational Research

Size: 81 KB

13. Graudate Research Student Questionnaires

14. Sample Research Survey Questionnaires

Size: 46 KB

15. Market Research Questionnaire Example

16. Research Survey Questionnaire Example

17. Product X Research Study Questionnaire Example

What Is a Research Questionnaire?

A research questionnaire is a physical or digital questionnaire that researchers use to obtain quantitative data. The research questionnaire is a more in-depth version of a survey   as its questions often delve deeper than survey questions .

How to Write a Research Questionnaire

A well-made research questionnaire can effectively and efficiently gather data from the population. Creating a good research questionnaire does not require that many writing skills , soft skills , or hard skills , it just requires the person to properly understand the data set they are looking for.

Step 1: Select a Topic or Theme for the Research Questionnaire

Begin by choosing a topic or theme   for the research questionnaire as this will provide much-needed context for the research questionnaire. Not only that but the topic will also dictate the tone of the questions in the questionnaire.

Step 2: Obtain or Use a Research Questionnaire Outline

You may opt to use a research questionnaire outline or outline format for your research questionnaire. This outline will provide you with a structure you can use to easily make your research questionnaire.

Step 3: Create your Research Questionnaire

Start by creating questions that will help provide you with the necessary data to prove or disprove your research question. You may conduct brainstorming sessions to formulate the questions for your research questionnaire.

Step 4: Edit and Have Someone Proofread the Questionnaire

After you have created and completed the research questionnaire, you must edit the contents of the questionnaire. Not only that but it is wise to have someone proofread the contents of your questionnaire before deploying the questionnaire. 

How does a research questionnaire help businesses?

A successful business or company utilizes research questionnaires to not only obtain data from their customers but also to gather data about the performance and quality of the employees in the business. The research questionnaire provides the business or company with actionable data, which they can use to improve the product, service, or commodity to obtain more customers.

Do I need to provide a consent form when I ask someone to answer the research questionnaire?

Yes, consent is very important as without this the data you have gathered from your questionnaires or surveys are useless. Therefore it is important to provide a consent form with your research questionnaire when you are asking a participant to answer the document.

What type of answers are allowed in the research questionnaire?

Research questionnaires can host a multitude of types of questions each with its specific way of answering.  A questionnaire can use multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions, and closed questions. Just be sure to properly pace the questions as having too many different types of answering styles can demotivate or distract the target audience, which might lead to errors.

A research questionnaire is a data-gathering document people can use to obtain information and data from a specific group of people. Well-made and crafted research questionnaires will provide much-needed information one can use to answer a specific research question.

Text prompt

• Instructive
• Professional

Create a fun quiz to find out which historical figure you're most like in your study habits

Design a survey to discover students' favorite school subjects and why they love them.

28 Questionnaire Examples, Questions, & Templates to Survey Your Clients

Published: May 15, 2023

The adage "the customer is always right" has received some pushback in recent years, but when it comes to conducting surveys , the phrase is worth a deeper look. In the past, representatives were tasked with solving client problems as they happened. Now, they have to be proactive by solving problems before they come up.

Salesforce found that 63% of customers expect companies to anticipate their needs before they ask for help. But how can a customer service team recognize these customer needs in advance and effectively solve them on a day-to-day basis?

A customer questionnaire is a tried-and-true method for collecting survey data to inform your customer service strategy . By hearing directly from the customer, you'll capture first-hand data about how well your service team meets their needs. In this article, you'll get free questionnaire templates and best practices on how to administer them for the most honest responses.

Table of Contents:

Questionnaire Definition

Survey vs. questionnaire, questionnaire templates.

• Questionnaire Examples

Questionnaire Design

Survey question examples.

• Examples of Good Survey Questions

How to Make a Questionnaire

A questionnaire is a research tool used to conduct surveys. It includes specific questions with the goal to understand a topic from the respondents' point of view. Questionnaires typically have closed-ended, open-ended, short-form, and long-form questions.

The questions should always stay as unbiased as possible. For instance, it's unwise to ask for feedback on a specific product or service that’s still in the ideation phase. To complete the questionnaire, the customer would have to imagine how they might experience the product or service rather than sharing their opinion about their actual experience with it.

Ask broad questions about the kinds of qualities and features your customers enjoy in your products or services and incorporate that feedback into new offerings your team is developing.

What makes a good questionnaire?

Define the goal, make it short and simple, use a mix of question types, proofread carefully, keep it consistent.

A good questionnaire should find what you need versus what you want. It should be valuable and give you a chance to understand the respondent’s point of view.

Make the purpose of your questionnaire clear. While it's tempting to ask a range of questions simultaneously, you'll get more valuable results if you stay specific to a set topic.

According to HubSpot research , 47% of those surveyed say their top reason for abandoning a survey is the time it takes to complete.

So, questionnaires should be concise and easy to finish. If you're looking for a respondent’s experience with your business, focus on the most important questions.

5 Free Customer Satisfaction Survey Templates

Easily measure customer satisfaction and begin to improve your customer experience.

• Net Promoter Score
• Customer Effort Score

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

5 Customer Survey Templates

Featured resource.

Your questionnaire should include a combination of question types, like open-ended, long-form, or short-ended questions.

Open-ended questions give users a chance to share their own answers. But closed-ended questions are more efficient and easy to quantify, with specific answer choices.

If you're not sure which question types are best, read here for more survey question examples .

While it's important to check spelling and grammar, there are two other things you'll want to check for a great questionnaire.

First, edit for clarity. Jargon, technical terms, and brand-specific language can be confusing for respondents. Next, check for leading questions. These questions can produce biased results that will be less useful to your team.

Consistency makes it easier for respondents to quickly complete your questionnaire. This is because it makes the questions less confusing. It can also reduce bias.

Being consistent is also helpful for analyzing questionnaire data because it makes it easier to compare results. With this in mind, keep response scales, question types, and formatting consistent.

In-Depth Interviews vs. Questionnaire

Questionnaires can be a more feasible and efficient research method than in-depth interviews. They are a lot cheaper to conduct. That’s because in-depth interviews can require you to compensate the interviewees for their time and give accommodations and travel reimbursement.

Questionnaires also save time for both parties. Customers can quickly complete them on their own time, and employees of your company don't have to spend time conducting the interviews. They can capture a larger audience than in-depth interviews, making them much more cost-effective.

It would be impossible for a large company to interview tens of thousands of customers in person. The same company could potentially get feedback from its entire customer base using an online questionnaire.

When considering your current products and services (as well as ideas for new products and services), it's essential to get the feedback of existing and potential customers. They are the ones who have a say in purchasing decisions.

A questionnaire is a tool that’s used to conduct a survey. A survey is the process of gathering, sampling, analyzing, and interpreting data from a group of people.

The confusion between these terms most likely stems from the fact that questionnaires and data analysis were treated as very separate processes before the Internet became popular. Questionnaires used to be completed on paper, and data analysis occurred later as a separate process. Nowadays, these processes are typically combined since online survey tools allow questionnaire responses to be analyzed and aggregated all in one step.

But questionnaires can still be used for reasons other than data analysis. Job applications and medical history forms are examples of questionnaires that have no intention of being statistically analyzed. The key difference between questionnaires and surveys is that they can exist together or separately.

Below are some of the best free questionnaire templates you can download to gather data that informs your next product or service offering.

What makes a good survey question?

Have a goal in mind, draft clear and distinct answers and questions, ask one question at a time, check for bias and sensitivity, include follow-up questions.

To make a good survey question, you have to choose the right type of questions to use. Include concise, clear, and appropriate questions with answer choices that won’t confuse the respondent and will clearly offer data on their experience.

Good survey questions can give a business good data to examine. Here are some more tips to follow as you draft your survey questions.

To make a good survey, consider what you are trying to learn from it. Understanding why you need to do a survey will help you create clear and concise questions that you need to ask to meet your goal. The more your questions focus on one or two objectives, the better your data will be.

You have a goal in mind for your survey. Now you have to write the questions and answers depending on the form you’re using.

For instance, if you’re using ranks or multiple-choice in your survey, be clear. Here are examples of good and poor multiple-choice answers:

Poor Survey Question and Answer Example

California:

• Contains the tallest mountain in the United States.
• Has an eagle on its state flag.
• Is the second-largest state in terms of area.
• Was the location of the Gold Rush of 1849.

Good Survey Question and Answer Example

What is the main reason so many people moved to California in 1849?

• California's land was fertile, plentiful, and inexpensive.
• The discovery of gold in central California.
• The East was preparing for a civil war.
• They wanted to establish religious settlements.

In the poor example, the question may confuse the respondent because it's not clear what is being asked or how the answers relate to the question. The survey didn’t fully explain the question, and the options are also confusing.

In the good example above, the question and answer choices are clear and easy to understand.

Always make sure answers and questions are clear and distinct to create a good experience for the respondent. This will offer your team the best outcomes from your survey.

It's surprisingly easy to combine multiple questions into one. They even have a name — they’re called "double-barreled" questions. But a good survey asks one question at a time.

For example, a survey question could read, "What is your favorite sneaker and clothing apparel brand?" This is bad because you’re asking two questions at once.

By asking two questions simultaneously, you may confuse your respondents and get unclear answers. Instead, each question should focus on getting specific pieces of information.

For example, ask, "What is your favorite sneaker brand?" then, "What is your favorite clothing apparel brand?" By separating the questions, you allow your respondents to give separate and precise answers.

Biased questions can lead a respondent toward a specific response. They can also be vague or unclear. Sensitive questions such as age, religion, or marital status can be helpful for demographics. These questions can also be uncomfortable for people to answer.

There are a few ways to create a positive experience with your survey questions.

First, think about question placement. Sensitive questions that appear in context with other survey questions can help people understand why you are asking. This can make them feel more comfortable responding.

Next, check your survey for leading questions, assumptions, and double-barreled questions. You want to make sure that your survey is neutral and free of bias.

Asking more than one survey question about an area of interest can make a survey easier to understand and complete. It also helps you collect more in-depth insights from your respondents.

1. Free HubSpot Questionnaire Template

HubSpot offers a variety of free customer surveys and questionnaire templates to analyze and measure customer experience. Choose from five templates: net promoter score, customer satisfaction, customer effort, open-ended questions, and long-form customer surveys.

2. Client Questionnaire Template

It's a good idea to gauge your clients' experiences with your business to uncover opportunities to improve your offerings. That will, in turn, better suit their lifestyles. You don't have to wait for an entire year to pass before polling your customer base about their experience either. A simple client questionnaire, like the one below, can be administered as a micro survey several times throughout the year. These types of quick survey questions work well to retarget your existing customers through social media polls and paid interactive ads.

1. How much time do you spend using [product or service]?

• Less than a minute
• About 1 - 2 minutes
• Between 2 and 5 minutes
• More than 5 minutes

2. In the last month, what has been your biggest pain point?

• Finding enough time for important tasks
• Delegating work
• Having enough to do

3. What's your biggest priority right now?

• Finding a faster way to work
• Problem-solving
• Staff development

3. Website Questionnaire Template

Whether you just launched a brand new website or you're gathering data points to inform a redesign, you'll find customer feedback to be essential in both processes. A website questionnaire template will come in handy to collect this information using an unbiased method.

1. How many times have you visited [website] in the past month?

• More than once

2. What is the primary reason for your visit to [website]?

• To make a purchase
• To find more information before making a purchase in-store
• To contact customer service

3. Are you able to find what you're looking for on the website homepage?

4. Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire Template

If you've never surveyed your customers and are looking for a template to get started, this one includes some basic customer satisfaction questions. These will apply to just about any customer your business serves.

1. How likely are you to recommend us to family, friends, or colleagues?

• Extremely unlikely
• Somewhat unlikely
• Somewhat likely
• Extremely likely

2. How satisfied were you with your experience?

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

3. Rank the following items in terms of their priority to your purchasing process.

• Helpful staff
• Quality of product
• Price of product
• Ease of purchase
• Proximity of store
• Online accessibility
• Current need
• Appearance of product

4. Who did you purchase these products for?

• Family member
• On behalf of a business

5. Please rate our staff on the following terms:

• Friendly __ __ __ __ __ Hostile
• Helpful __ __ __ __ __ Useless
• Knowledgeable __ __ __ __ __ Inexperienced
• Professional __ __ __ __ __ Inappropriate

6. Would you purchase from our company again?

7. How can we improve your experience for the future?

________________________________.

5. Customer Effort Score Questionnaire Template

The following template gives an example of a brief customer effort score (CES) questionnaire. This free template works well for new customers to measure their initial reaction to your business.

1. What was the ease of your experience with our company?

• Extremely difficult
• Somewhat difficult
• Somewhat easy
• Extremely easy

2. The company did everything it could to make my process as easy as possible.

• Strongly disagree
• Somewhat disagree
• Somewhat agree
• Strongly agree

3. On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being "extremely quickly" and 10 being "extremely slowly"), how fast were you able to solve your problem?

4. How much effort did you have to put forth while working with our company?

• Much more than expected
• Somewhat more than expected
• As much as expected
• Somewhat less than expected
• Much less than expected

6. Demographic Questionnaire Template

Here's a template for surveying customers to learn more about their demographic background. You could substantiate the analysis of this questionnaire by corroborating the data with other information from your web analytics, internal customer data, and industry data.

1. How would you describe your employment status?

• Employed full-time
• Employed part-time
• Freelance/contract employee
• Self-employed

2. How many employees work at your company?

3. How would you classify your role?

• Individual Contributor

4. How would you classify your industry?

• Technology/software
• Hospitality/dining
• Entertainment

Below, we have curated a list of questionnaire examples that do a great job of gathering valuable qualitative and quantitative data.

4 Questionnaire Examples

1. customer satisfaction questions.

Learn more about HubSpot's Customer Survey software.

Multiple-Choice

Multiple-choice questions offer respondents several answers to choose from. This is a popular choice of questionnaire format since it's simple for people to fill out and for companies to analyze.

Multiple-choice questions can be in single-answer form (respondents can only choose one response) or multiple-answer form (respondents can choose as many responses as necessary).

Multiple-choice survey question examples : "Which of the following social media platforms do you use most often?"

Image Source

Rating Scale

Rating scale questions offer a scale of numbers and ask respondents to rate topics based on the sentiments assigned to that scale. This is effective when assessing customer satisfaction.

Rating scale survey question examples : "Rate your level of satisfaction with the customer service you received today on a scale of 1-10."

Yes or no survey questions are a type of dichotomous question. These are questions that only offer two possible responses. They’re useful because they’re quick to answer and can help with customer segmentation.

Yes or no survey questions example : "Have you ever used HubSpot before?"

Likert Scale

Likert scale questions assess whether a respondent agrees with the statement, as well as the extent to which they agree or disagree.

These questions typically offer five or seven responses, with sentiments ranging from items such as "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree." Check out this post to learn more about the Likert scale .

Likert scale survey question examples : “How satisfied are you with the service from [brand]?”

Open-ended questions ask a broader question or offer a chance to elaborate on a response to a close-ended question. They're accompanied by a text box that leaves room for respondents to write freely. This is particularly important when asking customers to expand on an experience or recommendation.

Open-ended survey question examples : "What are your personal goals for using HubSpot? Please describe."

Matrix Table

A matrix table is usually a group of multiple-choice questions grouped in a table. Choices for these survey questions are usually organized in a scale. This makes it easier to understand the relationships between different survey responses.

Matrix table survey question examples : "Rate your level of agreement with the following statements about HubSpot on a scale of 1-5."

Rank Order Scaling

These questions ask respondents to rank a set of terms by order of preference or importance. This is useful for understanding customer priorities.

Rank order scaling examples : "Rank the following factors in order of importance when choosing a new job."

Semantic Differential Scale

This scale features pairs of opposite adjectives that respondents use for rating, usually for a feature or experience. This type of question makes it easier to understand customer attitudes and beliefs.

Semantic differential scale question examples : "Rate your overall impression of this brand as friendly vs. unfriendly, innovative vs. traditional, and boring vs. exciting."

Side-By-Side Matrix

This matrix table format includes two sets of questions horizontally for easy comparison. This format can help with customer gap analysis.

Side-by-side matrix question examples : "Rate your level of satisfaction with HubSpot's customer support compared to its ease of use."

Stapel Scale

The Stapel rating scale offers a single adjective or idea for rating. It uses a numerical scale with a zero point in the middle. This survey question type helps with in-depth analysis.

Stapel scale survey question examples : "Rate your overall experience with this product as +5 (excellent) to -5 (terrible)."

Constant Sum Survey Questions

In this question format, people distribute points to different choices based on the perceived importance of each point. This kind of question is often used in market research and can help your team better understand customer choices .

Constant sum survey question examples : "What is your budget for the following marketing expenses: Paid campaigns, Events, Freelancers, Agencies, Research."

Image Choice

This survey question type shows several images. Then, it asks the respondent to choose the image that best matches their response to the question. These questions are useful for understanding your customers’ design preferences.

Image choice survey questions example : "Which of these three images best represents your brand voice?"

Choice Model

This survey question offers a hypothetical scenario, then the respondent must choose from the presented options. It's a useful type of question when you are refining a product or strategy.

Choice model survey questions example : "Which of these three deals would be most appealing to you?"

Click Map Questions

Click map questions offer an image click on specific areas of the image in response to a question. This question uses data visualization to learn about customer preferences for design and user experience.

Click map question examples : "Click on the section of the website where you would expect to find pricing information."

Data Upload

This survey question example asks the respondent to upload a file or document in response to a question. This type of survey question can help your team collect data and context that might be tough to collect otherwise.

Data upload question examples : "Please upload a screenshot of the error you encountered during your purchase."

Benchmarkable Questions

This question type asks a respondent to compare their answers to a group or benchmark. These questions can be useful if you're trying to compare buyer personas or other customer groups.

Benchmarkable survey questions example : "Compare your company's marketing budget to other companies in your industry."

Good Survey Questions

• What is your favorite product?
• Why did you purchase this product?
• How satisfied are you with [product]?
• Would you recommend [product] to a friend?
• Would you recommend [company name] to a friend?
• If you could change one thing about [product], what would it be?
• Which other options were you considering before [product or company name]?
• Did [product] help you accomplish your goal?
• How would you feel if we did not offer this product, feature, or service?
• What would you miss the most if you couldn't use your favorite product from us?
• What is one word that best describes your experience using our product?
• What's the primary reason for canceling your account?
• How satisfied are you with our customer support?
• Did we answer all of your questions and concerns?
• How can we be more helpful?
• What additional features would you like to see in this product?
• Are we meeting your expectations?
• How satisfied are you with your experience?

1. "What is your favorite product?"

This question is a great starter for your survey. Most companies want to know what their most popular products are, and this question cuts right to the point.

It's important to note that this question gives you the customer's perspective, not empirical evidence. You should compare the results to your inventory to see if your customers' answers match your actual sales. You may be surprised to find your customers' "favorite" product isn't the highest-selling one.

2. "Why did you purchase this product?"

Once you know their favorite product, you need to understand why they like it so much. The qualitative data will help your marketing and sales teams attract and engage customers. They'll know which features to advertise most and can seek out new leads similar to your existing customers.

3. "How satisfied are you with [product]?"

When you have a product that isn't selling, you can ask this question to see why customers are unhappy with it. If the reviews are poor, you'll know that the product needs reworking, and you can send it back to product management for improvement. Or, if these results are positive, they may have something to do with your marketing or sales techniques. You can then gather more info during the questionnaire and restrategize your campaigns based on your findings.

4. "Would you recommend [product] to a friend?"

This is a classic survey question used with most NPS® surveys. It asks the customer if they would recommend your product to one of their peers. This is extremely important because most people trust customer referrals more than traditional advertising. So, if your customers are willing to recommend your products, you'll have an easier time acquiring new leads.

5. "Would you recommend [company name] to a friend?"

Similar to the question above, this one asks the customer to consider your business as a whole and not just your product. This gives you insight into your brand's reputation and shows how customers feel about your company's actions. Even if you have an excellent product, your brand's reputation may be the cause of customer churn . Your marketing team should pay close attention to this question to see how they can improve the customer experience .

6. "If you could change one thing about [product], what would it be?"

This is a good question to ask your most loyal customers or ones that have recently churned. For loyal customers, you want to keep adding value to their experience. Asking how your product can improve helps your development team find flaws and increases your chances of retaining a valuable customer segment.

For customers that have recently churned, this question gives insight into how you can retain future users that are unhappy with your product or service. By giving these customers a space to voice their criticisms, you can either reach out and offer solutions or relay feedback for consideration.

7. "Which other options were you considering before [product or company name]?"

If you're operating in a competitive industry, customers will have more than one choice when considering your brand. And if you sell variations of your product or produce new models periodically, customers may prefer one version over another.

For this question, you should offer answers to choose from in a multiple-selection format. This will limit the types of responses you'll receive and help you get the exact information you need.

8. "Did [product] help you accomplish your goal?"

The purpose of any product or service is to help customers reach a goal. So, you should be direct and ask them if your company steered them toward success. After all, customer success is an excellent retention tool. If customers are succeeding with your product, they're more likely to stay loyal to your brand.

9. "How would you feel if we did not offer this product, feature, or service?"

Thinking about discontinuing a product? This question can help you decide whether or not a specific product, service, or feature will be missed if you were to remove it.

Even if you know that a product or service isn't worth offering, it's important to ask this question anyway because there may be a certain aspect of the product that your customers like. They'll be delighted if you can integrate that feature into a new product or service.

10. "If you couldn't use your favorite product from us, what would you miss the most about it?"

This question pairs well with the one above because it frames the customer's favorite product from a different point of view. Instead of describing why they love a particular product, the customer can explain what they'd be missing if they didn't have it at all. This type of question uncovers "fear of loss," which can be a very different motivating factor than "hope for gain."

11. "What word best describes your experience using our product?"

Your marketing team will love this question. A single word or a short phrase can easily sum up your customers’ emotions when they experience your company, product, or brand. Those emotions can be translated into relatable marketing campaigns that use your customers’ exact language.

If the responses reveal negative emotions, it's likely that your entire customer service team can relate to that pain point. Rather than calling it "a bug in the system," you can describe the problem as a "frustrating roadblock" to keep their experience at the forefront of the solution.

12. "What's the primary reason for canceling your account?"

Finding out why customers are unhappy with your product or service is key to decreasing your churn rate . If you don't understand why people leave your brand, it's hard to make effective changes to prevent future turnover. Or worse, you might alter your product or service in a way that increases your churn rate, causing you to lose customers who were once loyal supporters.

13. "How satisfied are you with our customer support?"

It's worth asking customers how happy they are with your support or service team. After all, an excellent product doesn't always guarantee that customers will stay loyal to your brand. Research shows that one in six customers will leave a brand they love after just one poor service experience.

14. "Did we answer all of your questions and concerns?"

This is a good question to ask after a service experience. It shows how thorough your support team is and whether they're prioritizing speed too much over quality. If customers still have questions and concerns after a service interaction, your support team is focusing too much on closing tickets and not enough on meeting customer needs .

15. "How can we be more helpful?"

Sometimes it's easier to be direct and simply ask customers what else you can do to help them. This shows a genuine interest in your buyers' goals which helps your brand foster meaningful relationships with its customer base. The more you can show that you sincerely care about your customers' problems, the more they'll open up to you and be honest about how you can help them.

16. What additional features would you like to see in this product?

With this question, your team can get inspiration for the company's next product launch. Think of the responses as a wish list from your customers. You can discover what features are most valuable to them and whether they already exist within a competitor's product.

Incorporating every feature suggestion is nearly impossible, but it's a convenient way to build a backlog of ideas that can inspire future product releases.

17. "Are we meeting your expectations?"

This is a really important question to ask because customers won't always tell you when they're unhappy with your service. Not every customer will ask to speak with a manager when they're unhappy with your business. In fact, most will quietly move on to a competitor rather than broadcast their unhappiness to your company. To prevent this type of customer churn, you need to be proactive and ask customers if your brand is meeting their expectations.

18. "How satisfied are you with your experience?"

This question asks the customer to summarize their experience with your business. It gives you a snapshot of how the customer is feeling in that moment and their perception of your brand. Asking this question at the right stage in the customer's journey can tell you a lot about what your company is doing well and where you can stand to improve.

Next, let's dig into some tips for creating your own questionnaire.

Start with templates as a foundation. Know your question types. Keep it brief when possible. Choose a simple visual design. Use a clear research process. Create questions with straightforward, unbiased language. Make sure every question is important. Ask one question at a time. Order your questions logically. Consider your target audience. Test your questionnaire.

1. Use questionnaire templates.

Rather than build a questionnaire from scratch, consider using questionnaire templates to get started. HubSpot's collection of customer-facing questionnaire templates can help you quickly build and send a questionnaire to your clients and analyze the results right on Google Drive.

Vrnda LeValley , customer training manager at HubSpot, recommends starting with an alignment question like, "Does this class meet your expectations?" because it gives more context to any positive or negative scores that follow. She continues, "If it didn't meet expectations, then there will potentially be negative responses across the board (as well as the reverse)."

3. Keep it brief, when possible.

Most questionnaires don't need to be longer than a page. For routine customer satisfaction surveys, it's unnecessary to ask 50 slightly varied questions about a customer's experience when those questions could be combined into 10 solid questions.

The shorter your questionnaire is, the more likely a customer will complete it. Plus a shorter questionnaire means less data for your team to collect and analyze. Based on the feedback, it will be a lot easier for you to get the information you need to make the necessary changes in your organization and products.

4. Choose a simple visual design.

There's no need to make your questionnaire a stunning work of art. As long as it's clear and concise, it will be attractive to customers. When asking questions that are important to furthering your company, it's best to keep things simple. Select a font that’s common and easy to read, like Helvetica or Arial. Use a text size that customers of all abilities can navigate.

A questionnaire is most effective when all the questions are visible on a single screen. The layout is important. If a questionnaire is even remotely difficult to navigate, your response rate could suffer. Make sure that buttons and checkboxes are easy to click and that questions are visible on both computer and mobile screens.

5. Use a clear research process.

Before planning questions for your questionnaire, you'll need to have a definite direction for it. A questionnaire is only effective if the results answer an overarching research question. After all, the research process is an important part of the survey, and a questionnaire is a tool that's used within the process.

In your research process, you should first come up with a research question. What are you trying to find out? What's the point of this questionnaire? Keep this in mind throughout the process.

After coming up with a research question, it's a good idea to have a hypothesis. What do you predict the results will be for your questionnaire? This can be structured in a simple "If … then …" format. A structured experiment — yes, your questionnaire is a type of experiment — will confirm that you're only collecting and analyzing data necessary to answer your research question. Then, you can move forward with your survey .

6. Create questions with straightforward, unbiased language.

When crafting your questions, it's important to structure them to get the point across. You don't want any confusion for your customers because this may influence their answers. Instead, use clear language. Don't use unnecessary jargon, and use simple terms in favor of longer-winded ones.

You may risk the reliability of your data if you try to combine two questions. Rather than asking, "How was your experience shopping with us, and would you recommend us to others?" separate it into two separate questions. Customers will be clear on your question and choose a response most appropriate for each one.

You should always keep the language in your questions unbiased. You never want to sway customers one way or another because this will cause your data to be skewed. Instead of asking, "Some might say that we create the best software products in the world. Would you agree or disagree?" it may be better to ask, "How would you rate our software products on a scale of 1 to 10?" This removes any bias and confirms that all the responses are valid.

7. Ask only the most important questions.

When creating your questionnaire, keep in mind that time is one of the most valuable commodities for customers. Most aren't going to sit through a 50-question survey, especially when they're being asked about products or services they didn't use. Even if they do complete it, most of these will be half-hearted responses from fatigued customers who simply want to be finished with it.

If your questionnaire has five or 55 questions, make sure each has a specific purpose. Individually, they should be aimed at collecting certain pieces of information that reveal new insights into different aspects of your business. If your questions are irrelevant or seem out of place, your customers will be easily derailed by the survey. And, once the customer has lost interest, it'll be difficult to regain their focus.

8. Ask one question at a time.

Since every question has a purpose, ask them one at a time. This lets the customer focus and encourages them to share a thoughtful response. This is particularly important for open-ended questions where customers need to describe an experience or opinion.

By grouping questions together, you risk overwhelming busy customers who don't have time for a long survey. They may think you're asking them too much, or they might see your questionnaire as a daunting task. You want your survey to appear as painless as possible. Keeping your questions separated will make it more user-friendly.

9. Order your questions logically.

A good questionnaire is like a good book. The beginning questions should lay the framework, the middle ones should cut to the core issues, and the final questions should tie up all loose ends. This flow keeps customers engaged throughout the entire survey.

When creating your questionnaire, start with the most basic questions about demographics. You can use this information to segment your customer base and create different buyer personas.

Next, add in your product and services questions. These are the ones that offer insights into common customer roadblocks and where you can improve your business's offerings. Questions like these guide your product development and marketing teams looking for new ways to enhance the customer experience.

Finally, you should conclude your questionnaire with open-ended questions to understand the customer journey. These questions let customers voice their opinions and point out specific experiences they've had with your brand.

10. Consider your target audience.

Whenever you collect customer feedback, you need to keep in mind the goals and needs of your target audience. After all, the participants in this questionnaire are your active customers. Your questions should be geared toward the interests and experiences they've already had with your company.

You can even create multiple surveys that target different buyer personas. For example, if you have a subscription-based pricing model, you can personalize your questionnaire for each type of subscription your company offers.

11. Test your questionnaire.

Once your questionnaire is complete, it's important to test it. If you don't, you may end up asking the wrong questions and collecting irrelevant or inaccurate information. Start by giving your employees the questionnaire to test, then send it to small groups of customers and analyze the results. If you're gathering the data you're looking for, then you should release the questionnaire to all of your customers.

How Questionnaires Can Benefit Your Customer Service Strategy

Whether you have one customer or 1000 customers, their opinions matter when it comes to the success of your business. Their satisfaction with your offerings can reveal how well or how poorly your customer service strategy and business are meeting their needs. A questionnaire is one of the most powerful, cost-effective tools to uncover what your customers think about your business. When analyzed properly, it can inform your product and service launches.

Use the free questionnaire templates, examples, and best practices in this guide to conduct your next customer feedback survey.

Now that you know the slight difference between a survey and a questionnaire, it’s time to put it into practice with your products or services. Remember, a good survey and questionnaire always start with a purpose. But, a great survey and questionnaire give data that you can use to help companies increase the way customers respond to their products or services because of the questions.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld, and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Designing and validating a research questionnaire - Part 1

Priya ranganathan.

Department of Anaesthesiology, Tata Memorial Centre, Homi Bhabha National Institute, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Carlo Caduff

1 Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

Questionnaires are often used as part of research studies to collect data from participants. However, the information obtained through a questionnaire is dependent on how it has been designed, used, and validated. In this article, we look at the types of research questionnaires, their applications and limitations, and how a new questionnaire is developed.

INTRODUCTION

In research studies, questionnaires are commonly used as data collection tools, either as the only source of information or in combination with other techniques in mixed-method studies. However, the quality and accuracy of data collected using a questionnaire depend on how it is designed, used, and validated. In this two-part series, we discuss how to design (part 1) and how to use and validate (part 2) a research questionnaire. It is important to emphasize that questionnaires seek to gather information from other people and therefore entail a social relationship between those who are doing the research and those who are being researched. This social relationship comes with an obligation to learn from others , an obligation that goes beyond the purely instrumental rationality of gathering data. In that sense, we underscore that any research method is not simply a tool but a situation, a relationship, a negotiation, and an encounter. This points to both ethical questions (what is the relationship between the researcher and the researched?) and epistemological ones (what are the conditions under which we can know something?).

At the start of any kind of research project, it is crucial to select the right methodological approach. What is the research question, what is the research object, and what can a questionnaire realistically achieve? Not every research question and not every research object are suitable to the questionnaire as a method. Questionnaires can only provide certain kinds of empirical evidence and it is thus important to be aware of the limitations that are inherent in any kind of methodology.

WHAT IS A RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE?

A research questionnaire can be defined as a data collection tool consisting of a series of questions or items that are used to collect information from respondents and thus learn about their knowledge, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior and informed by a positivist philosophy of the natural sciences that consider methods mainly as a set of rules for the production of knowledge; questionnaires are frequently used instrumentally as a standardized and standardizing tool to ask a set of questions to participants. Outside of such a positivist philosophy, questionnaires can be seen as an encounter between the researcher and the researched, where knowledge is not simply gathered but negotiated through a distinct form of communication that is the questionnaire.

STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF QUESTIONNAIRES

A questionnaire may not always be the most appropriate way of engaging with research participants and generating knowledge that is needed for a research study. Questionnaires have advantages that have made them very popular, especially in quantitative studies driven by a positivist philosophy: they are a low-cost method for the rapid collection of large amounts of data, even from a wide sample. They are practical, can be standardized, and allow comparison between groups and locations. However, it is important to remember that a questionnaire only captures the information that the method itself (as the structured relationship between the researcher and the researched) allows for and that the respondents are willing to provide. For example, a questionnaire on diet captures what the respondents say they eat and not what they are eating. The problem of social desirability emerges precisely because the research process itself involves a social relationship. This means that respondents may often provide socially acceptable and idealized answers, particularly in relation to sensitive questions, for example, alcohol consumption, drug use, and sexual practices. Questionnaires are most useful for studies investigating knowledge, beliefs, values, self-understandings, and self-perceptions that reflect broader social, cultural, and political norms that may well diverge from actual practices.

TYPES OF RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRES

Research questionnaires may be classified in several ways:

Depending on mode of administration

Research questionnaires may be self-administered (by the research participant) or researcher administered. Self-administered (also known as self-reported or self-completed) questionnaires are designed to be completed by respondents without assistance from a researcher. Self-reported questionnaires may be administered to participants directly during hospital or clinic visits, mailed through the post or E-mail, or accessed through websites. This technique allows respondents to answer at their own pace and simplifies research costs and logistics. The anonymity offered by self-reporting may facilitate more accurate answers. However, the disadvantages are that there may be misinterpretations of questions and low response rates. Significantly, relevant context information is missing to make sense of the answers provided. Researcher-reported (or interviewer-reported) questionnaires may be administered face-to-face or through remote techniques such as telephone or videoconference and are associated with higher response rates. They allow the researcher to have a better understanding of how the data are collected and how answers are negotiated, but are more resource intensive and require more training from the researchers.

The choice between self-administered and researcher-administered questionnaires depends on various factors such as the characteristics of the target audience (e.g., literacy and comprehension level and ability to use technology), costs involved, and the need for confidentiality/privacy.

Depending on the format of the questions

Research questionnaires can have structured or semi-structured formats. Semi-structured questionnaires allow respondents to answer more freely and on their terms, with no restrictions on their responses. They allow for unusual or surprising responses and are useful to explore and discover a range of answers to determine common themes. Typically, the analysis of responses to open-ended questions is more complex and requires coding and analysis. In contrast, structured questionnaires provide a predefined set of responses for the participant to choose from. The use of standard items makes the questionnaire easier to complete and allows quick aggregation, quantification, and analysis of the data. However, structured questionnaires can be restrictive if the scope of responses is limited and may miss potential answers. They also may suggest answers that respondents may not have considered before. Respondents may be forced to fit their answers into the predetermined format and may not be able to express personal views and say what they really want to say or think. In general, this type of questionnaire can turn the research process into a mechanical, anonymous survey with little incentive for participants to feel engaged, understood, and taken seriously.

STRUCTURED QUESTIONS: FORMATS

Some examples of close-ended questions include:

e.g., Please indicate your marital status:

• Prefer not to say.

e.g., Describe your areas of work (circle or tick all that apply):

• Clinical service
• Administration
• Strongly agree
• Strongly disagree.
• Numerical scales: Please rate your current pain on a scale of 1–10 where 1 is no pain and 10 is the worst imaginable pain
• Symbolic scales: For example, the Wong-Baker FACES scale to rate pain in older children
• Ranking: Rank the following cities as per the quality of public health care, where 1 is the best and 5 is the worst.

A matrix questionnaire consists of a series of rows with items to be answered with a series of columns providing the same answer options. This is an efficient way of getting the respondent to provide answers to multiple questions. The EORTC QLQ-C30 is an example of a matrix questionnaire.[ 1 ]

For a more detailed review of the types of research questions, readers are referred to a paper by Boynton and Greenhalgh.[ 2 ]

USING PRE-EXISTING QUESTIONNAIRES VERSUS DEVELOPING A NEW QUESTIONNAIRE

Before developing a questionnaire for a research study, a researcher can check whether there are any preexisting-validated questionnaires that might be adapted and used for the study. The use of validated questionnaires saves time and resources needed to design a new questionnaire and allows comparability between studies.

However, certain aspects need to be kept in mind: is the population/context/purpose for which the original questionnaire was designed similar to the new study? Is cross-cultural adaptation required? Are there any permission needed to use the questionnaire? In many situations, the development of a new questionnaire may be more appropriate given that any research project entails both methodological and epistemological questions: what is the object of knowledge and what are the conditions under which it can be known? It is important to understand that the standardizing nature of questionnaires contributes to the standardization of objects of knowledge. Thus, the seeming similarity in the object of study across diverse locations may be an artifact of the method. Whatever method one uses, it will always operate as the ground on which the object of study is known.

DESIGNING A NEW RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE

Once the researcher has decided to design a new questionnaire, several steps should be considered:

Gathering content

It creates a conceptual framework to identify all relevant areas for which the questionnaire will be used to collect information. This may require a scoping review of the published literature, appraising other questionnaires on similar topics, or the use of focus groups to identify common themes.

Create a list of questions

Questions need to be carefully formulated with attention to language and wording to avoid ambiguity and misinterpretation. Table 1 lists a few examples of poorlyworded questions that could have been phrased in a more appropriate manner. Other important aspects to be noted are:

Examples of poorly phrased questions in a research questionnaire

• Provide a brief introduction to the research study along with instructions on how to complete the questionnaire
• Allow respondents to indicate levels of intensity in their replies, so that they are not forced into “yes” or “no” answers where intensity of feeling may be more appropriate
• Collect specific and detailed data wherever possible – this can be coded into categories. For example, age can be captured in years and later classified as <18 years, 18–45 years, 46 years, and above. The reverse is not possible
• Avoid technical terms, slang, and abbreviations. Tailor the reading level to the expected education level of respondents
• The format of the questionnaire should be attractive with different sections for various subtopics. The font should be large and easy to read, especially if the questionnaire is targeted at the elderly
• Question sequence: questions should be arranged from general to specific, from easy to difficult, from facts to opinions, and sensitive topics should be introduced later in the questionnaire.[ 3 ] Usually, demographic details are captured initially followed by questions on other aspects
• Use contingency questions: these are questions which need to be answered only by a subgroup of the respondents who provide a particular answer to a previous question. This ensures that participants only respond to relevant sections of the questionnaire, for example, Do you smoke? If yes, then how long have you been smoking? If not, then please go to the next section.

TESTING A QUESTIONNAIRE

A questionnaire needs to be valid and reliable, and therefore, any new questionnaire needs to be pilot tested in a small sample of respondents who are representative of the larger population. In addition to validity and reliability, pilot testing provides information on the time taken to complete the questionnaire and whether any questions are confusing or misleading and need to be rephrased. Validity indicates that the questionnaire measures what it claims to measure – this means taking into consideration the limitations that come with any questionnaire-based study. Reliability means that the questionnaire yields consistent responses when administered repeatedly even by different researchers, and any variations in the results are due to actual differences between participants and not because of problems with the interpretation of the questions or their responses. In the next article in this series, we will discuss methods to determine the reliability and validity of a questionnaire.

Financial support and sponsorship

Conflicts of interest.

There are no conflicts of interest.

Assessing Research-Doctorate Programs: A Methodology Study (2003)

Chapter: appendix d: sample questionnaires.

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

Appendix D Sample Questionnaires {These questionnaires are subject to further review and revision.) 1. Institutional Questionnaire 2. Program Questionnaire 3. Faculty Questionnaire 4. Student Questionnaires a. Questionnaire for Acimittecl-to-Cancliclacy Doctoral Students b. Questionnaire for Program Gracluates 105

106 Institutional Questionnaire To the institutional coordinator: This questionnaire is intended to collect data about university-provided resources that are available to all doctoral programs. Typically, the ideal respondent will be in the university's office of institutional research. Most of the questions apply to all programs. One, on laboratory space, applies only to the sciences (including some social sciences). In listing programs, please refer to the attached taxonomy and answer for those programs that are present at your institution. I. For the libraries at your institution: (Please enter the average over the past three years) a. What is the average size of your professional library staff in total FTEs? b. What is the average annual library budget? c. What is the average annual budget for acquisition of books? d. A, ~ What is the average annual budget for acquisition of: print journals electronic journals ? What is the average annual budget for microprint and electronic databases? 2. Is health care insurance available to graduate students uncler an institutional plan? Yes No a. If available, health care insurance is made available to: ~ Students only ~ Students end faculty b. If available, what is the level of institutional support? (Check all that apply) Institution covers premium costs for: Teaching assistants ~ Research assistants ~ All other full-time graduate students ~ Al] graduate students Institution covers partial premium costs for: Teaching assistants ~ Research assistants ~ All other full-time graduate students ~ All graduate students No institutional contribution for: ~ Teaching assistants ~ Research assistants ~ Other graduate students 3. Does the university provide childcare facilities that are available to graduate students? O Yes ~1 No a. If yes, is the cost subsidized by the institution? ~ Yes :] No b. If not, does the institution provide a listing of childcare providers to graduate students? O Yes ~ No 4. Is university-subsidized student housing available to doctoral students? :] Yes ~ No APPENDIX D

APPENDIX D If so, what is the percentage of the doctoral students who live in university-provided housing? 5. Are graduate students are unionized on your campus? ~ Yes ~ No If yes, ~ Some students ~ All students If yes, are teaching assistants unionized? ~ Yes ~ No If yes, ~ Some teaching assistants ~ All teaching assistants If yes, are research assistants unionized? ~ Yes ~ No If yes, ~ Some research assistants ~ All research assistants? 6. Which of the following apply to the doctoral program at the institutional level? a. The institution confers awards to honor graduate students for teaching and/or research. ~ Yes ~ No b. Awards are given to faculty for mentoring or other activities that promote scholarship of doctoral students. Yes ~ No c. The institution provides some form of travel support for doctoral students to attend professional meetings. ~ Yes ~ No d. There is an organized program at the institutional level to help doctoral students improve their teaching skills. ~ Yes ~ No e. The institution provides an office that assists doctoral students in learning about employment opportunities. ~ Yes ~ No 7. For the information displayed in the following table, please provide in a file sent by small to rdpilof~as~ed~ For the each doctoral program in science (including the social sciences) and engineering at your institution, what is the net assignable square feet (NASF) of research space dedicated to the program (exclude space that is used only for undergraduates)? Please use the same definitions for NASF and research space that are used in the NSF Survey of Scientific and Engineering Research Facilities. See "Taxonomy] for a list of the program iEelds in the study, and provide the information in the Emai! i ile for only those doctoral programs that are offered at your institution. 107

APPENDIX D Program #3 108 Program Research space NASF Shared space with other programs (Y/N) Program #1 Pro cram #2

APPENDIX D Background Information Program Questionnaire This information will enable the National Research Council to contact you if there are any questions about the data. It will also permit us to contact faculty for the purpose of administering a questionnaire to elicit reputational ratings and background! data ant! to contact students to obtain information about their perceptions of the practices and offerings ~ ~ ~ 1 of the doctoral program. Please note that in addition to the web questionnaire, we would like lists of faculty and previous employers to be sent to us via e-mail. Please indicate the doctoral program to which the following information applies 1. Please provide the name and e-mai! address of the program respondent who will serve as the primary contact with the graduate oro cram. Name: Title: E-mail address: Mailing Address: State Zip Cocle- If this is an interdisciplinary program, please list the departments affiliated with the program. For each individual identified in questions 2 and 3, please provide in a file sent by emai! to rdpilot~)nas.~du the information displayed in the table for the question. Program Faculty: For each faculty member or senior research fellow or associate who participates in your doctoral program by directing theses, serving on doctoral committees, or teaching graduate courses, please provide the following information. Name Rank Highest Gender Race/ US Citizen or Tenure E-mail l | Degree | (M or F) | Ethn city | Permanent | Status | Addres (Y/N) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 = Faculty Employment History: For each faculty member listed in Question 2 who joined your program within the past five years, please provide the institution, company, or organization where he or she was employed immediately before joining your institution. pros

110 Name Prior employer Position at that employer 4. For the doctoral students in your program, please provide the number of students that fall into each of the following categories. a. Total number of students: b. Status: Full-time Part-time Unknown c. Gentler: Male Female Unknown d. Citizenship: U.S. Permanent Resilient Temporary Visa Unknown cI. Race/Ethnicity (if U.S. citizen or Permanent Residents) American Indian or Alaskan Native Asian or Pacific Islander Black White Hispanic Mexican American Puerto Rican Other Multiracial Unknown e. Percentage of doctoral students with master's degree Program Information 5. Does your program have a mission statement? If so, what is the mission statement? (50 words or less) ~ Yes :] No If there are particular areas of research emphasis in your doctoral program, please choose from the subfields in ETaxonomy]: APPENDIX D

APPENDIX D 6. How many Ph.D.s have been awarded in the program in each of the past five years? (Note: Years span from July ~ to June 30) 2001-02 2000-01 1999-00 1998-99 1997-98- 7. For each of the academic years listed in the following table, enter the number of students who entered the program in the year and the number who completed their degrees in 4, 6, or 8, years or are still in the program. (Note: Years span from July 1 to June 30) Entering Number Student of Academic Entering Year Cohort Doctoral Students 1992 1993 1993-1994 1994-1995 1995-1996 1996-1997 1997-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000 2000-2001 2001-2002 Number of Students admitted to candidacy by the end of the 4th year of enrollment Of those admitted to candidacy, number who complete within 4 years Of those admitted to candidacy, number who complete within 6 years Of those admitted to candidacy, number who complete within 8 years Of those admitted to candidacy, how many are still enrolled after 8 years? . I_ 7a. Averaged over the past three years, what percent of entering students withdrew from the program before completing two years of study? % 7b. Averaged over the past three years, what has been the median time to degree for those who completed the program? (Note: the median time is the number of years it takes half of the number of students from the same entering year who are admitted to candidacy to complete their degree.) 8. Is a master's degree required of students prior to admission to your program? ~ Yes ~ No 9. What proportion of your full-time first-year doctoral students receive full support throughout their first year (tuition and an adequate living allowance provided as stipend or salary in program related work (TA or RA)?

112 10. How many years of full financial support could students entering your doctoral program expect to receive from your institution or an external source? 1. Over the past five years approximately what fraction of the first-year students in your program received financial support either from your institution or from extramural grants or fellowships? Tuition only Tuition and stipend- Stipend only- 12. What proportion of currently enrolled doctoral students in your program (included in multiple categories if appropriate) are currently supported by: Externally funded fellowships: Externally funded traineeships: Externally funded research assistantships: University funded teaching assistantships: University funded research assistantships: University funded tuition waivers, fellowships, or stipends: 13. Averaged over the past three years, what are the average and minimum GRE scores for students accepted into the program? Average Verbal GRE: Minimum Verbal GRE: Average Quantitative GRE: Minimum Quantitative GRE: Do you require GRE subject scores for all students entering the program? ~ Yes ~ No 14. In each of the last three academic years, how many students did you accept into your doctoral program, and how many enrolled? 2000-2001 2001 -2002 2002-2003 Accepted Enrolled 15. What percentage of the doctoral students in your program have individually assigned workspaces for their exclusive use? TAs RAs All students 16. On average, how many courses per term is each graduate teaching assistant in the program expected to teach or assist a faculty member in teaching? With sole responsibility As an Assistant to a faculty member 17. Which of the following apply to your doctoral program? APPENDIX D

APPENDIX D a. The program confers awards to honor graduate students for teaching and/or research. ~ Yes ~1 No b. Awards are given to faculty for mentoring or other activities that promote scholarship of doctoral students. ~ Yes :] No The program provides some form of travel support for doctoral students to attend professional meetings. ~ Yes ~ No d. There is an organized program to help doctoral students improve their teaching skills. ~ Yes n No e. The program provides organized assistance to help doctoral students explore employment opportunities. Yes ~1 No 8. List up to 5 institutions with which your program normally competes for graduate students: Institution # 1 Institution #2- Institution #3 Institution #4 Institution #5 1 9. Does your program collect data about employment outcomes for your graduates? ~ Yes ~ No If yes, do you provide potential applicants with this information? ~ Yes ~ No 20. Please list those interdisciplinary centers in which doctoral students from your program participate (conduct research or teach). ~3

114 Faculty Questionnaire This questionnaire is part of the National Research Council's Pilot Test of the Assessment of Research Doctoral Programs. Your university has volunteered to participate in this pilot test to assist the National Research Council's study of the methodology used to assess doctoral programs. Further information about the methodology study may be found at www7.nationalacademies.org/resdoc/index.html You have been selected to receive this questionnaire because you are a member of the faculty who participates in the education of doctoral students at your university. This means that you either teach courses to doctoral students or supervise their dissertations. If this is not the case, please indicate that in question 1. The assessment of research doctoral programs is conducted approximately every ten years and consists of a reputational survey of doctoral programs and the collection of data about doctoral faculty and students in f~fty-seven areas of study. This questionnaire provides information that will assist the study in a number of ways: licit will help us construct a pool from which to select raters for the reputational survey; 2)it will provide us enough information about you that we can collect data on grants, citations, and publications from other sources; and Hit will permit a statistical description of the faculty in the graduate program or programs with which you are affiliated. Your answers will be treated as completely confidential by the National Research Council and will only be released as part of a statistical analysis. I. Program Identification a. Do you supervise dissertations, serve on doctoral committees, or teach graduate courses in a doctoral program? ~ Yes ~ No If your answer was "No", you do not need to complete the rest of the questionnaire. b. From the pulldown list, please choose the program of your primary affiliation/appointment tPull Down List of Res-Doc Programs] If you have difficulty locating your program on the list, please refer to the "Taxonomy] list with fields and subfields Please list all programs in which you supervise dissertations, serve on dissertation committees, or teach graduate courses and the average percentage of your time during the past year that you spent in all activities for each program with which you are associated. (Do not list programs where you are an outside reader.) Program Supervise dissertations Teach courses Serve on Percent of time spent in all (YIN) (YIN) dissertation activities for this program committees (YIN) ~ (total= IJ0%) ~ d. For the articles and books that you have published in the past five years, please list what fields you have published in Table 1. If you have a single publication that spans multiple fields, please indicate them and their fields in Table 2. APPENDIX D

APPENDIX D Table 1: Books and articles in a single field published in the past 3 years Field(see Taxonomy) ~ Articles ~ Books 1 1 ~ ' 1 1 1 Table 2: Books and articles in multiple fields published in the past 3 years Field (Enter all that apply) Articles Books II. Current Employment a. Department affiliation: b. Rank: ~ Instructor ~ Assistant Professor ~ Associate Professor ~ FullProfessor ~ Other c. Tenure status: ~ Tenure-track, not tenured Tenured ~ Non-tenure-track d. Year first employed at current institution: tIf employment was not continuous, please list year of most recent appointment at this institution.] Have you received an extramural grant or contract support in the past year? Yes ~ No f. Subfields of current research interest (refer to "Taxonomy] with subfields): Subfield # 1: Subfield #2: Subfield #3: g. Do you consider part of your research to be interdisciplinary? ~ Yes ~ No If so, what is the area of that research? h. Under what names or variants of your name have you published books or articles? III. Prior Experience What was your status prior to your current position? ~ Student ~ Postdoc ~ Faculty. ~ Other: Previous employer: Address: 115

116 IV. Educational Background City Title: Employment Sector: Industry (for profit) National laboratory State or local government Federal government agency International agency 4-year college or university 2-year college K- 12 school Hospital or clinic Foundation or nonprofit Military Other (specify: State/Country Zip Code- a. Highest degree earned: ~ Bachelor's ~ Master's ~ Ph.D. ~ Professional (M.D., J.D., D.V.M., for example) b. Institution that conferred highest degree: c. Field of highest degree: Other: d. Year of highest degree: tPulldown List] To what extent does the field of your current research, teaching, or professional activities differ from the field of your highest degree? ~ Very similar ~ Somewhat similar ~ Very different V. Demographic Information a. Date of birth: b. Gender: c. Citizenship Male Female U.S. Permanent Resident Temporary Visa (mmlddlyy) d. Race/Ethnicity (if U.S. citizen or permanent resident) American Indian or Alaskan Native Asian or Pacific Islander Black White APPENDIX D

APPENDIX D Hispanic (I Mexican American, ~ Puerto Rican, ~ Other) ~ Multiracial VI. Please provide your preferred e-mai! address (where you can be reached if there are questions.) Thank you for your time. ~7

118 Questionnaire for Admitted-to-Candidacy Doctoral Students This questionnaire is part of the National Research Council's Pilot Test of the Assessment of Research Doctoral Programs. Your university has volunteered to participate in this pilot test to assist the National Research Council's study of the methodology used to assess doctoral programs. One innovation we are considering is adding student responses about the educational processes of the program. We believe that students' input is important to improving the quality of the educational experience. Further information about the methodology study may be found at www7.nationalacademies.org/resdoc/index.htm! You have been selected to receive this questionnaire because you are a student who has completed over half of your doctoral program. If this is not the case, please indicate that in question 1. The assessment of research doctoral programs is conducted approximately every ten years and consists of a reputational survey of doctoral programs and the collection of data about doctoral faculty and students in fifty-four areas of study. This questionnaire will provide information that will assist the study in a number of ways: 1) it will provide a statistical description of students in your program; 2) it will provide information about practices in your program; and 3) it will help future students in the selection of graduate programs. Your answers will be treated as completely confidential by the National Research Council and will only be released as part of a statistical analysis. Individual answers will not be shared with faculty or administrators of your doctoral program except in aggregated form. Institution: Doctoral Program: Educational Program A. Year of enrollment in this doctoral program: B. Year you expect to receive your doctorate: C. Did you (or will you) receive a master's degree before this doctorate? ~ Yes ~ No D. Did you (or will you) receive a master's degree in your doctoral field as part of your training? ~ Yes ~ No Ifyes,didyouwritea master's thesis? ~ Yes ~ No E. During the course of your study for the Ph.D. will you also receive any of the following as part of a joint, concurrent, or combined degree program: Professional doctorate (e.g., MD, DDS, OD, JD)? ~ Yes Professional master's (e.g., MBA, MPA, MPH)? ~ Yes No ~ No F. During the course of your study for the Ph.D. will you also receive a certificate in another field? ~ Yes ~ No APPENDIX D

APPENDIX D G. What were your career goals at the time you entered graduate school? Check all that apply] U.S. Employment: Industry ~ Government ~ Nonprofit ~ University ~ 2-yr. college ~ 4-yr. college Other: Non-U.S. Employment: Industry ~ Government ~ Nonprofit ~ University 2-yr. college ~ 4-yr. college Other: ~ Unknown H. What are your current career plans? tcheck all that apply] U.S. Employment: Industry ~ Government ~ Nonprofit ~ University ~ 2-yr. college ~ 4-yr. college Other: Non-U.S. Employment: Industry ~ Government ~ Nonprofit ~ University 2-yr. college ~ 4-yr. college Other: ~ Unknown I. Of the following sources of support, which have been your primary sources during your doctoral studies? (Check the three largest) I. ~ Personal/family funds 2. ~ Research Assistant (RA) 3. ~ Teaching Assistant (TA) 4. ~ Training grant 5. ~ Fellowship 6. ~ Loans 7. ~ Concurrent employment related to your degree 8. ~ Concurrent employment unrelated to your degree 2. Program Characteristics A. Professional Development I. During your doctoral program have you received (or will you receive) instruction, practice or professional development training in: a. Oral communication and presentation skills: ~ Yes ~ No b. Writing proposals for funding: ~ Yes ~ No c. Preparing articles for publication: ~ Yes ~ No d. Working in collaborative groups: ~ Yes ~ No Conducting independent research/scholarship:~ Yes ~ No f. Project management ~ Yes ~ No g. Research / professional ethics ~ Yes ~ No h. Speaking to nonacademic audiences ~ Yes n No 119 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

120 2. In your doctoral program did you have an opportunity to obtain teaching experience? Check the typets) of teaching experience you have had: a. mentoring a high school student b. mentoring an undergraduate student c. grading papers for undergraduate or graduate courses d. leading discussion sections of undergraduate or graduate courses e. leading laboratory sections of undergraduate or graduate courses f. lecturing in undergraduate or graduate courses g. tutoring undergraduates If you have had teaching experience, please answer the following, h. ~ received formal instruction in leaching. ~ Yes ~ No i. {received formal supervision end evaluation. ~ Yes ~ No j. ~ had opportunities to teach in a variety of academic environments. ~ Yes ~ No B. Program Environment 1. Does your program provide an annual or more frequent assessment of your progress? 2. Do you receive timely feedback on your research! 1 - - - - - _ Yes ~ No ~ Yes ~ No 3. Do you have access to career advice covering a variety of employment sectors? Yes ~ No ~ Yes ~ No a. If yes, are you encouraged to use it? 4. Do you have one or more faculty members at your institution that you consider mentors (i.e., individuals from whom you seek advice about your education, career development, and other matters of concern to you as a graduate student)? ~ Yes ~ No 5. How would you rate the quality of teaching by faculty in your program? ~ Excellent ~ Good ~ Fair ~ Poor 6. How would you rate the quality of your research experience? Excellent ~ Good ~ Fair ~ Poor 7. How would YOU rate the curriculum of your Ph.D. program? ~ Excellent ~ Good S. How would you rate the overall quality of your program _ ~ O ~ Fair ~ Poor ~ , , ~ ~ Excellent ~ Good ' ' ~ ~ ~ Lair ~ Poor 9. How would YOU rate the intellectual liveliness of your pro cram? ~ Excellent ~ Good 10. Considering the overall intellectual environment of your university, how much do you fee! you have benei ited from it? ~ A lot ~ Some APPENDIX D , — - - ~ o n Fair n Poor ~ A little ~ Not at all

APPENDIX D C. Infrastructure I. Does your program give you access to: a. Your own personal work space b. Computer facilities Yes ~ No ~ Yes ~ No c. Other research facilities; if so, describe: 2. Does your program provide adequate space for interaction among students? C] Yes O No 3. Are the library resources available to you adequate to support your research and education? ~ Yes C] No D. Research productivity I. How many research presentations (including poster presentations) have you made at research conferences a. on your campus? b. at national or regional meetings? 2. How many research publications have you authored or co-authored during your cloctoral studies (include pieces accepted for publication but not yet published)? a. Refereed articles b. Book chapters c. Reviews d. Books or edited volumes 3. Background information A. Date of birth: (mm/~/yy) B. Gender: ~ Male n Female C. Citizenship U.S. Permanent Resident Temporary Visa D. Race/Ethnicity (if U.S. citizen) American Indian or Alaskan Native Asian or Pacific Islander Black White Hispanic Mexican American, ~ Puerto Rican, ~ Other) ~ Multiracial E. Dependent care responsibilities: 1. Number of children living with you: Age 6 or under Over age 6 3. Parents or other dependents ~ Yes ~ No 121

122 APPENDIX D G. Marital Status: Do you have a spouse or partner who lives with you? ~ Yes ~ No F. Level of Parents' Education: Mother Father High school diploma or less Some college/Bachelor's degree Advanced degree

APPENDIX D Five-Seven Years Post-Ph.D Questionnaire This questionnaire is part of the National Research Council's Pilot Test of the Assessment of Research Doctoral Programs. Your university has volunteered to participate in this pilot test to assist the National Research Council's study of the methodology used to assess doctoral programs. One innovation that we are considering is to add student responses to questions about the educational process of the program. Further information about the methodology study may be found at www7.nationalacademies. org/resdoc/index.html You have been selected to receive this questionnaire because you are a student who has received a Ph.D. from this program five to seven years ago. If this is not the case, please indicate that in question 1. ~ 4, , I, The assessment of research doctoral programs is conducted approximately every ten years and consists of a reputational survey of doctoral programs and the collection of data about doctoral faculty and students in fifty-four areas of study. This questionnaire provides information that will assist the study in a number of ways: 1) it will help us learn whether a high enough percentage of students respond so that we can add student observations to the larger study; 2) it will provide us enough information about practices in your program that we can compare the practices of graduate programs in your field at different universities; and 3) it will permit a statistical description of the f~rst-year students in the graduate program. Your answers will be treated as completely confidential by the National Research Council and will only be released as part of a statistical analysis. Individual answers will not be shared with faculty or administrators of your former doctoral program except in aggregated form. Educational Program a. Name of the program where you received your Ph.D. degree: b. Year of enrollment in the above Ph.D. program: c. Year you received your Ph.D.: d. Did you receive a master's degree at this institution before this Ph.D.? ~ Yes ~ No e. Were you enrolled as a full-time student throughout your Ph.D. program? ~ Yes ~ No f. Did you attend graduate school prior to enrollment in the above Ph.D. program? ~ Yes ~ No If so, what degrees or certificates, if any, do you hold? ~ Certificate ~ Master's ~ Doctoral ~ Professional g. What was your career goal when you completed your Ph.D.? U.S. Employment: Industry ~ Government ~ Nonprofit ~ University 2-yr. college ~ 4-yr. college Other: 123

124 Non-U.S. Employment: Industry ~ Government ~ Nonprofit ~ University 2-yr. college ~ 4-yr. college Other: ~ Unknown h. Have your career goals changed since you received your Ph.D.? ~ Yes ~ No i. During your Ph.D. program, were you supported by funds from outside the institution? ~ Yes ~ No (Check all that apply) Type: ~ Fellowship ~ Training Grant ~ Research Grant ~ Your employer ~ Other(Specify: ! J. Did you receive institutional support? ~ Yes ~ No (Check all that apply) Type: ~ Teaching Assistantship ~ Research Assistantship ~ Fellowship ~ Tuition scholarship or waiver only ~ Loan ~ None ~ Other(Specify: ! 2. Employment and Career Status a. First employer or place of postdoctoral study after Ph.D. completion: Name: Address: City State/Country Zip Code- Title: b. Employment Sector: Industry (for profit) National laboratory State or local government Federal government agency International agency University 4-year college 2-year college K-12 school Hospital or clinic Foundation or nonprofit Military Other (specify) APPENDIX D

APPENDIX D c. If you hold or have held a postdoctoral position or positions, how many , and at what institutions, companies or government agencies were they located? List chronologically starting with the most recent. Position # 1: Position#2: Position # 3: Position#4: Dates: Dates: Dates: Dates: d. Current employer: Name: Address: City State/Country Zip Code- Title: e. Current Employment Sector: Industry (for profit) National laboratory State or local government Federal government agency International agency University 4-year college 2-year college K-12 school Hospital or clinic Foundation or nonprofit Military ~ Other (specify) 3. Ph.D. Program Characteristics a. During your Ph.D. education, in which of the following areas was training PROVIDED, which skills or experiences have you USED since graduation, and which area do you wish you had learned MORE about? (check all that apply) 1) Teaching experiemce 2) Oral communication; presentation skills 3) Writing proposals for funding 4) Manuscript preparation Provided Provided Provided Provided Experience working in collaborative groups ~ Provided 6) Critical analysis 7) Locating and applying information 125 Used ~ More Used ~ More Used ~ More Used ~ More Provided Provided Used ~ More Used ~ More Used ~ More

26 8) Experience working with people of varied educational levels ~ Provided ~ Used ~ More 9) Experience working with people from diverse backgrounds ~ Provided ~ Used ~ More 10) Experience working in teams b. Research Productivity Provided ~ Used ~ More How many books or edited books have you published or are currently accepted for publication? 2) How many articles or book chapters have you published or are currently accepted for publication? 3) How many books or articles have you reviewed for publication? 4) How many reviews, enumerated in 3), have been or will be published? 5) How many refereed papers have you or a coauthor presented at professional conferences? How many awards have you received? (Respond to all categories.) a) For teaching: b) For research: From professional societies: From your institution or employer: 7) How many patents or licenses have you received? 8) How many grants have you received from your employer or institution? 9) How many grants have you received from extramural funding agencies? 4. Background Information a. Date of birth: b. Gender: c. Citizenship APPENDIX D Male Female U.S. Permanent Resident Temporary Visa (mmlddlyy)

APPENDIX D 127 d. Race/Ethnicity (ifU.S. citizen) American Indian or Alaskan Native Asian Pacific Islander Black White Hispanic (~ Mexican American, ~ Multiracial e. Martial Status ~ Married ~ Single f. Number of Children: Age 6 and under Over age 6 g. Level of Parents' Education: Less than high school High school diploma Some college Bachelor's degree Master's degree Professional degree Doctoral degree h. Is English your first language? Mother Yes ~ No Puerto Rican, ~ Other) Father

How should we assess and present information about the quality of research-doctorate programs? In recommending that the 1995 NRC rankings in Assessing the Quality of Research-Doctorate Programs: Continuity and Change be updated as soon as possible, this study presents an improved approach to doctoral program assessment which will be useful to administrators, faculty, and others with an interest in improving the education of Ph.D.s in the United States. It reviews the methodology of the 1995 NRC rankings and recommends changes, including the collection of new data about Ph.D. students, additional data about faculty, and new techniques to present data on the qualitative assessment of doctoral program reputation. It also recommends revision of the taxonomy of fields from that used in the 1995 rankings.

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