Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute

Questionnaire design 27/03/14

Overview

Fees/duration

Teaching

Reading list

Summary of Course:
This course is about how to write effective survey questions and combine them into a meaningful questionnaire. It focuses on the design of questionnaires used in quantitative survey research, combining suggestions from the research literature on questionnaire design with a very practical approach. It covers the general principles of questionnaire design, special issues faced in writing factual, non-factual and sensitive questions, for both interview and self-completion modes, and an introduction to the various methods to test questionnaires. NB Constructing multi-item scales based on psychometric principles is not covered by this course.

Course Objectives:

To raise participants' awareness of the pitfalls, issues, and tradeoffs involved in writing a good question and questionnaire
To enable participants to critique existing survey questions and questionnaires
To provide participants with the knowledge to be able to create their own high quality survey questions and questionnaires

Course Content:
This course focuses on the design of questionnaires used in survey research, exploring the theoretical issues that arise in their development, application and interpretation as well as the practical aspects of questionnaire design that are often not taught in formal courses. It involves lectures as well as a variety of hands on workshops.

The emphasis is on the selection of appropriate measurement techniques for assessing both factual and non-factual material using survey questions. Topics include

general principles of question design (including pitfalls to avoid, and cognitive and linguistic guidelines) and getting started with a new questionnaire,
techniques for measuring the occurrence of past behaviours and events,
the effects of question wording, response formats, and question sequence on attitudinal questions and well as for the measures of other subjective states,
an appendix on how to ask about sensitive and personal information,
how to combine individual questions into a meaningful questionnaire,
special guidelines for self-completion surveys (postal and web) versus interview surveys, and
an introduction to the various methods to test questionnaires.

Note there is an ‘open surgery' session at the end of Day 1 where participants can get feedback on their own questionnaires.

Please note that this course does not cover the design of multi-item scales based on psychometric principles.

Target Audience:
The course is aimed at anyone wishing to improve their survey questionnaires. This course is useful for both people new to questionnaire design and those who have experience and would like to extend their knowledge. It will be a benefit not only for people who anticipate designing a questionnaire in the future, but also for those in the role of critiquing commissioned or existing research.

Course Fee:
Thanks to continued ESRC funding we are able to offer this course at reduced rates as follows:

£30 per day for UK registered students
£60 per day for staff at UK academic institutions, RCUK funded researchers, public sector staff and staff at registered charity organisations
£220 per day for all other participants.

The course fee includes course materials, lunches and morning and afternoon refreshments. Travel and accommodation are to be arranged and paid for by the participant.

Course places are limited and early registration is strongly recommended.

Deadline and Refunds:
Course places are limited and early registration is strongly recommended. Please be aware that we will only hold a place without payment for a limited time.

Please refer to the terms and conditions of the University of Southampton online store when booking. An administration charge of £30 may apply for cancellations. No refunds can be provided for cancellations less than 28 days prior to the start of the course.

Location:
The course will be held at the

London Knowledge Lab
23-29 Emerald Street
London WC1N 3QS

The room is on the ground floor and participants will need to ring the bell to get in to the building. The address, maps and public transport info for the London Knowledge Lab .

Duration:
This is a two day course. On the first day the course begins with registration and coffee from 9.30am and formal teaching begins at 10.00am and ends at 5.00pm. On the second day, the course runs from 9.30am and ends at 4.30pm.

Course Materials:
Participants will receive a hardcopy of the course material.

The Instructor:
Dr. Pamela Campanelli is an independent Survey Methods Consultant, Chartered Statistician and Chartered Scientist with a background in psychology, survey methodology and statistics. Previously, she was a Research Director at the Survey Methods Centre of the National Centre for Social Research. Prior to joining the National Centre, she was involved with surveys and survey methods projects at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, the Center for Survey Methods Research at the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and at the University of Michigan. Her main interests and publications are in the study of survey error and data quality issues, with a special emphasis on questionnaire design, question testing strategies, interviewing techniques, sampling, mixed modes of data collection and survey analysis. In addition to her consultancy work, she regularly teaches short courses for a variety of UK organisations, universities, central government departments, and survey research companies as well as the Universities of Michigan, Hong Kong, and Wollongong and the bureau of statistics in Switzerland, Ireland and South Africa and the Brazilian Network Information Centre. (see also http://www.thesurveycoach.com/ ).

Preparatory Reading:
There are no prerequisites for the course, but participants new to questionnaire design will find the following book useful to read.

Fowler, F. J., Jr. (1995), Improving Survey Questions, London: Sage.

An extended reading list is included with the course material.