Introduction/overview

This course is aimed at those wanting to learn more about questionnaire design. This course is highly participatory, with sessions aimed at providing hands-on experience of designing questionnaires and survey questions for quantitative social research.

Objectives

By the end of the course participants should:

• Have a greater awareness of the different aspects involved in writing good survey questions and questionnaires
• Be able to design questions that:
  • meet research objectives,
  • take analysis considerations into account
  • avoid biases (e.g. wording, acquiescence)
  • participants are able and willing to answer
• Be able to evaluate survey questions
• Have a greater awareness of the issues to consider when design survey questions for different modes

Topics

• Research questions and survey questions
• Measurement and error
• Questionnaire design principles, including biases and how to avoid them
• Evaluating survey questions
• Answer formats & rating scales
• Writing questions for different modes

Who will benefit?

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 or are looking for a refresher
• 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

• Feel more confident about questionnaire design
• Develop research aims, objective and questions and be able to design survey Qs that meet objectives
• Better understand the relationship between questionnaire design, measurement and data quality
• Be able to evaluate survey questions, identify potential problems and come up with solutions
• Be able to design questions for different survey modes

Course tutors

Debbie Collins is an experienced survey researcher, methodologist and trainer at NatCen. She led NatCen’s Questionnaire Development and Testing Hub from 2012-2015 and has led methodological reviews for a range of organisations.

Course fee payable to SRA.

  This course contributes 6 hours to the MRS CPD programme.

n.b. This course runs over two consecutive mornings:

Part 1 - 29 April - 9.30 am to 1.30 pm

Part 2 - 30 April - 9.30 am to 1.30 pm