Questionnaires: definition, advantages and examples | question per (2023)

What is a quiz?

A questionnaire is a survey tool consisting of a series of questions or other types of prompts designed to collect information from a respondent. A survey questionnaire is typically a mix ofclosed questionseopen questions.

Open, long questions give the respondent the opportunity to explain his thoughts. Survey questionnaires were developed by the Statistical Society of London in 1838.

The data collected from a questionnaire for data collection can be bothqualitativelike thisCrowdin the nature. A questionnaire may or may not be delivered in the form of aOpinion poll, but a survey always consists of a questionnaire.

Benefits of good survey design

• A survey questionnaire allows you to collect a lot of data in a shorter amount of time.
• Bias is less likely to creep in when you have a standard set of questions to use with your audience. You can apply logic to questions based on respondents' answers, but the quiz remains the default for a group of respondents that fall into the same segment.
• Survey software for online surveys is fast and inexpensive. It provides a rich feature set for designing, distributing, and analyzing response data.
• It can be customized to reflect your brand voice. Thus, it can be used to strengthen your brand image.
• Responses can be compared to historical data and reflect changes in respondents' choices and experiences.
• Respondents can answer the questionnaire without revealing their identity. In addition, many survey software comply with important privacy and data protection regulations.

Characteristics of a good questionnaire

Yourresearch projectit depends on the type of information you need to collect from respondents. Qualitative questionnaires are used when there is a need to gather exploratory information to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Quantitative questionnaires are used to validate or test a previously generated hypothesis. However, most questionnaires follow a few key features:

• Uniformity:Questionnaires are very useful for gathering demographic information, personal opinions, facts or attitudes from respondents. One of the most important characteristics of a questionnaire is the uniform design and standardization. Every respondent sees the same questions. That helpsdata collectioneStatistical analysisthis data. For example theRetail Store Evaluation Questionnaire Templatecontains questions to evaluate the retail experience. The questions relate to the purchase price, the variety of product choices and the quality of the goods. These questions are the same for all customers.
• Exploration:It must be exploratory to collect qualitative data. There is no limit to the questions that can be included in your survey. For example, they use a questionnaire to collect data and send it to the woman in the family to understand her spending and saving habits in relation to her family income. Open-ended questions provide more information and allow respondents to explain their practices. A very structured list of questions can limit data collection.
• Order of questions:A structured flow of questions usually follows to increase the number of answers. This sequence of questions are screening questions, warm-up questions, transition questions, jumping questions, challenging questions, and sorting questions. For example oursQuestionnaire template for motivation and shopping experiencefirst deals with demographic questions and then asks about the length of stay in store areas and the reasons for purchases.

Types and Definitions

As mentioned earlier, surveys can be structured or free-flowing. Let's take a closer look at what this means for your searches.

• Structured questionnaires:Collect structured questionnairesquantitative data. The questionnaire is planned and designed to collect accurate information. It also initiates a formal query, supplements the data, verifies previously collected data, and helps validate previous hypotheses.
• Unstructured questionnaires:Collect unstructured questionnairesqualitative data. They use a basic structure and some branching questions, but nothing that limits a respondent's responses. The questions are more open-ended to collect specific data from the participants.

Types of questions in a quiz

You can use many types of questions in a quiz. Using multiple question types can help increase responses to your survey as they tend to increase participant participation. OThe best customer satisfaction survey templatesare most commonly used for better insights and decision making.

Some of the most commontypes of questionsthey are:

• Open questions:open questionsHelp collect qualitative data in a questionnaire that allows the respondent to answer freely with little or no restrictions.
• Dichotomous questions:Ödichotomous questionit's usually a "yes/no"closed question. This question is normally used in case of a necessary validation. It is the most natural form of a questionnaire.
• Questions with multiple answers:Questions with multiple answersare a type of closed-ended questions that require the respondent to choose one (single-select multiple-choice question) or many (multi-select multiple-choice questions) answers from a given list of options. The multiple-choice question consists of an incomplete stem (question), one or more correct answers, incorrect answers, close alternatives, and distractors. Of course, not all multiple choice questions have all answer types. For example, you probably won't get right or wrong answers when you search for customer feedback.
• scale questions:These questions are based on the principles of the four measurement scales -nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio. Some of the question types that take advantage of the basic properties of these scales are:Sort order questions,Questions about the Likert scale,Questions about the semantic differential scale, zStack scale questions.
• Image Questions:This question type is easy to use and encourages respondents to respond. It works similar to a multiple choice question. Respondents are asked a question and the answer options are images. This helps respondents quickly select an answer without overthinking their answers and provides more accurate data.

Types of Questionnaires

Surveys can be managed or distributed in the following ways:

• online questionnaire:In this type, respondents receive the questionnaire via email or other means online. This method is generally inexpensive and time efficient. Respondents can also answer as they wish. Without the pressure to respond immediately, answers can be more accurate. However, the downside is that respondents can easily skip these surveys. Read more aboutOnline search.
• Telephone survey:A researcher calls a respondent to collect responses directly. Responses are quick when you have a responder on the phone. However, respondents are often reluctant to give too much information over the phone. It's also an expensive type of research. Typically, you can't collect as many responses as you can with other types of surveys, so your sample may not represent the broader population.
• Internal questionnaire:This type is used by a researcher visiting the respondent's home or place of work. The advantage of this method is that the respondent is in a comfortable and natural environment and detailed data can be collected. However, the downside is that it is expensive and slow to drive.
• Email Questionnaire:These are gradually becoming obsolete, but are still used in somemarket researchstudies. In this method, a researcher sends a request for a physical data collection questionnaire to a respondent to fill out and return. The advantage of this method is that respondents can do this in their own time in order to answer truthfully and completely. The downside is that this method is expensive and time-consuming. There is also a high risk of not collecting enough responses to extract actionable insights from the data.

How to design a quiz

Questionnaire design is a multi-step process that requires attention to detail at every step.

Researchers always hope that the answers to a research questionnaire will yield actionable data. If the questionnaire is too complicated, there's a good chance the respondent will get confused and give up or give inaccurate answers.

As aCreator of the survey, you may want to test the survey ahead of time by sharing it with a focus group during development. You can experiment with a few different survey designs to see which resonates best with your audience. Pre-testing is a best practice because it gives the survey creator an early indication of whether changes to the survey are needed.Opinion poll.

Steps in questionnaire design

1. Identify the scope of your research:

Think about what you want your survey to contain before you start designing how you want it to look. The clarity of the topic is extremely important as this is the first step in creating the questionnaire. Once you are clear about the purpose of the questionnaire, you can begin the design process.

2. Keep it simple:

The words or phrases you use when writing the questionnaire should be easy to understand. If the questions are unclear, respondents can simply choose any answer and skew the collected data.

3. Ask only one question at a time:

Sometimes a researcher may be tempted to add two similar questions. This seems like a great way to consolidate answers to related questions, but it could confuse your respondents or result in inaccurate data. If any of your questions contain the word "and", look again. This question likely has two parts that can affect the quality of your data.

4. Be flexible with your options:

When designing the survey, the survey designer must be flexible in terms of “choice of options” for respondents. Sometimes respondents don't necessarily want to choose from the answer options provided by the survey creator. An “Other” option often helps respondents participate in the survey.

5. Open or closed question is a tough choice:

The survey designer may end up in a situation where he has to make clear choices between open-ended and closed-ended questions. The question type should be chosen carefully as it sets the tone and importance of asking the question in the first place.

If the questionnaire requires respondents to explain their thoughts: aq openOfManagementit is the best choice. If the researcher wants a specific answer, closed-ended questions should be your first choice. The key to asking closed questions is generating data that is easy to analyze and trend.

6. It's important to know your audience:

A researcher must know his target group. For example, if the target audience primarily speaks Spanish, sending the survey in a different language would reduce response rates and data accuracy. Something that seems clear to you might be confusing to your respondents. Use simple language and terminology that your respondents will understand, and avoid jargon and industry-specific language that might confuse them.

For effective market research, researchers need a representative sample collected using one of the manySampling-Techniken, as a sample questionnaire. It is imperative to plan and define these target respondents based on thedemographicsmandatory.

7. Choosing the right tool is crucial:

QuestionPro is a simple but advanced applicationSoftware platform for surveysresearchers can use to create a questionnaire or choose from over 300 existing questionnaire templates.

Always leave personal questions at the end. Sensitive questions can cause respondents to give up before completing them. With these questions at the end, the respondent has had time to become more comfortable with the interview and is more likely to be answering personal or demographic questions.

Differences between a questionnaire and a survey

For more information, see:Difference between survey and questionnaire

sample questionnaire

The best way to understand how quizzes work is to look at the types of quizzes available. Some examples of questionnaires are:

1. Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire:This type of survey can be used in any situation where there is an interaction between a customer and an organization. For example, you could send out a customer satisfaction survey after someone ate at your restaurant. You can use the study to determine if your team is providing excellent customer service and an overall positive experience.

   USE THIS FREE TEMPLATE

2. Satisfaction with using the product:You can use this template to better understand usage trends for your product and related products. This also allows you to gather customer preferences about the types of products they like or would like to see on the market.

   USE THIS FREE TEMPLATE

3. Evaluation of corporate communication:Unlike the other examples, a corporate communications assessment looks at both internal and external communications. It can be used to verify that the organization's policies are being enforced at all levels, both employees and customers.

   USE THIS FREE TEMPLATE

The survey questions above are generally easy to use, understand and complete. In addition, standardized answers from a research questionnaire rather than a face-to-face interview facilitate the compilation of actionable data.

The most significant limitation of a data collection questionnaire is that respondents must read and answer all of the questions. For example, you send an email invitation asking respondents to respond to questions on social media. If a target participant doesn't have the right social media profiles, they won't be able to answer your questions.

Learn more:350+ free survey examples and templates