Back to: Research Methodology or Methodology of educational research

Defining Questionnaire

A questionnaire is a sort of research tool used to gather data from respondents and involves a series of inquiries or other suggestions. Usually, a research questionnaire will have both closed-ended and open-ended inquiries.

Long-form, open-ended inquiries provide the reply room to expand on their ideas. All qualitative and quantitative information may be gathered with a data collecting instrument. A questionnaire may or may not be in a survey, but a survey always includes a questionnaire.

Characteristics of Questionnaire method of Data Collection

When it’s necessary to gather preliminary data to support or refute a theory, qualitative questionnaires are utilized. A previously developed theory is tested or validated using quantitative surveys. However, the majority of surveys share the following crucial traits:

Uniformity: Questionnaires are a great way to get demographic data, individual viewpoints, knowledge, or sentiments from participants. Consistency and homogeneous layout are two of a research form’s most important characteristics. The identical questions are visible to every participant. This facilitates the gathering of data and the analysis of that data. The major retailer assessment questionnaire form, for instance, has assessment methods for the in-store shopping experience. Questions concern the cost of the transaction, the variety of product possibilities, and the calibre of the goods. All consumers will receive the same inquiries.
Exploratory: When gathering qualitative data, it should be exploratory. The topics you include in your questionnaire are not limited in any way. To better understand the female family member’s income and spending patterns about the household income, for instance, you may utilize a data gathering questionnaire and mail it to her. You gain a better understanding and hear from responders when you ask open-ended questions about their procedures. The data gathering might be restricted by a highly organized question list.

Question Order: To get more replies, it usually asks the questions in a certain order. This series of inquiries consist of screening inquiries, pre-interview inquiries, transition inquiries, miss inquiries, difficult inquiries, and categorization inquiries. For instance, our reasoning and purchasing satisfaction questionnaire template starts with demographic inquiries before requesting information on how much time was spent in various retail aisles and the justification for transactions.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Questionnaire method of Data Collection:

Advantages:

You can collect a lot of information quickly using a survey questionnaire.

If you select a uniform series of questions for your potential customers, there is less likelihood of bias slipping in. The questionnaire will stay conventional for a sample of participants who fall into the same sector, but you can modify the questions logically based on the respondents’ responses.
Online survey software makes doing research quickly and affordably. You may build, disseminate, and evaluate the statistical information using a wide range of functions it provides.
It may be altered to incorporate your company’s personality. It may thus be utilized to strengthen your brand’s reputation.

The replies may be similar to past data to see how the respondents’ preferences and opinions have changed.
The question allows respondents to respond anonymously. Additionally, a lot of survey software conforms to strict privacy and confidentiality protection laws.

Limitations:

The data collection takes a very long time. The respondent takes longer to answer open-ended inquiries. This is problematic since it might result in a reduced sample size.
Analyzing the data takes time. Since the researcher must read the responses and attempt to code them, which is time-consuming and laborious and discretionary, qualitative data analysis takes much longer.
Open-ended inquiries are inappropriate for less knowledgeable replies since they call for strong writing abilities and a stronger capacity for vocal expression of one’s emotions.

They are vague. There is less room for responders to provide replies that truly represent their thoughts on an issue since the responses are predetermined.