Course outline

Course content covers:

• the purpose of surveys and questionnaires, identifying the key decisions researchers have to make


• how to design questionnaires


• design issues for self-completion questionnaires (paper and web-based)


• question wording and communication with respondents


• general principles of questionnaire design


• measuring behaviour


• designing questionnaires for children and young people.

Who is it aimed at?

This is an intermediate level course. A general familiarity with quantitative research methods is assumed, but it is not necessary to have experience of using these methods.

You will find this course useful if:

• you are new to survey research


• you need to design survey questionnaires for the first time


• you commission or manage survey research in central or local government, health or other applied policy sectors and need to understand the issues associated with questionnaire design.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course participants will be able to:

• design questions
  
  • that meet research objectives
  
  
  • taking analysis considerations into account
  
  
  • taking account of primacy and recency effects
  
  
  • which avoid ambiguous words or concepts
  
  
  • which avoid writing multiple questions as one question
  
  
  • to minimise problems of recall error and telescoping
  
  
• design a questionnaire taking into account
  • the effects of question order and questionnaire flow
  
  
  • the needs of both coder and interviewer
• design self-completion questionnaires that make it clear to respondents how to complete the form


• design questionnaires for children and young people that are cognitively appropriate.