Part 1: Strategies
for Asking Questions: Understanding the wider social context and cultural
aspects of questions is important for understanding how those questions are
interpreted. For example, developing questions about finance, sexual behavior,
criminality, and very personal issues may lead to incorrect data. Different
cultures will have varying viewpoints on which questions are appropriate and
which ones are not. Understanding how questions are perceived from a cultural
background or demographic can help in wording those questions properly and
making them less stigmatizing.
Part II: Tactics for
Asking Questions: The way in which questions are worded and asked can have
a huge impact on the actual results of the surveys. When possible such
questions should be neutral and asked in different ways to ensure that they are
not leading the answers. Leading answers means that more people will pick a
particular response due to the way a question is asked. It is also important to
have multiple forms of the question to help lower that chances that the
questions were misunderstood and asked inappropriately.
Part III: Drafting
and Crafting the Questionnaire: The final section of the book deals with
concepts such as font size, color of paper, how it is to be administrated, websites,
and other things thought about before the administration page. Even though
these things may not seem that important they can change the nature and
response rate of the questionnaire. If participants can’t understand the high
language or see the font it is certainly going to impact the studies success.
A large percentage of research is conducted using surveys.
We see these surveys in the news, within companies, political associations, and
at colleges. How these surveys are developed often determine their overall
validity. We should not expect every survey to necessarily be valid and
truthful unless it is designed and administered in the right way. This means
that what we perceive as accurate may not be accurate at all. If you plan on conducting your own research it
is beneficial to pick up this book when building your survey and a different
statistical book when trying to determine how to validate that survey. This book provides a strong list of references
as well as non-for-profit and academic survey contacts.
Bradburn, B., Sudman, S. & Wansink, B. (2004). Asking Questions: the definitive guide to questionnaire
design, for market research, political polls, and social and health questionnaires.
San Francisco, CA; John Wiley & Sons.
ISBN0-7879-7088-3
Pages: Approximately 416
