Questionnaires is a term used for almost any tool that has questions to which individual respond.It is usually associated with self-administered tools with items to the closed or fixed alternative type.
By its nature, questionnaires offer the following advantages –
- It is economical and requires less skills to administer than the interview.
- A questionnaire can be administered to huge numbers of individual simultaneously.
- The standardized wording, the order of questions and the standardized instructions for reporting responses ensure the uniformity of questions.
- The respondents feel greater confidence in the anonymity of a questionnaire than that of a interview. With a questionnaire, respondents give opinions without fear that the answer will be connected to their names.
- The questionnaire places less pressure on subjects for immediate responses. Respondents have time to think over the questions and do calculations to provide more accurate data.
Disadvantages of questionnaire –
- The principal disadvantage is a low percentage of returns.
- Many people have trouble expressing themselves in writing, especially when responding to essay (open) questions.
Procedure for Questionnaire Construction :
The procedure for constructing a questionnaire consist of the following steps:
- Decide what data should be collected.It defines the problem to be investigated.
- Decide what type of questionnaire closed or open-ended should be used.
- Outline the topics for the questionnaire and then write the questions.
- Edit the questionnaire for technical defects that reflect personal values.
- Try out the questionnaire to find out how it works.
- Do a final editing to ensure that the questionnaire is ready for administration.This includes a close look at the content, form and sequence of the questions as well as the appearance and clarity of the procedure for using the questionnaire.
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