The success of a dissertation is not in just designing a questionnaire instead it lies in designing it in order to get the required answer from that. The problem gives a cause to research; research gives a cause to questionnaires and questionnaires gives a cause to the answers found. However, there is no thumb rule based on which you can draft a perfect questionnaire, nor is there any formulae for the same. The only thing, you need to do is to be “subjectively broad”, and “objectively narrow”. Ok, let’s make it simple “subjectively broad” means detail contextual and conceptual study about the research problem and “objectively narrow” means frame a questionnaire focusing on the objective of the research, so that your result may be a refine and narrow one. Thus, below mentioned are a few notes that will help you in designing a fixated questionnaire –
1. Know what you are looking for – Be well aware of your research objective and what exactly the problem is? And what do you want to know from your respondents?
2. Who are supposed to be your respondents? – Know the population, who are thought to be the sample for your study. Remember, never to choose the samples haphazardly, rather choose the target audience on whom the study is based upon.
3. How to reach your target audience? – Your mode of reaching your target audience also affects the research methodologies to be used and thus the result. Thus, be very clear about your approach.
4. What is there to be in the questionnaire? – Decide whether you need to do an exploratory research or a quantitative one as it will only decide the content of your questionnaire. Furthermore, a questionnaire should be designed in a manner that questions should be straight forward and simple to be answered. Respondents should not think about the answers, rather they have to be spontaneous and practical. Every question should be aligned with the objective of the research.
5. Order and format of the questionnaire – Order have to be synchronized and notably that it should neither be too long nor be too short.
Happy researching!!!!
