ABSTRACT
Questionnaires consist of a series of specifi c, usually short questions that are either asked verbally by an interviewer, or answered by the respondent on their own (self-administered). The principle behind questionnaire design is that each question should elicit information on a specifi c, quantifi able variable that you have defi ned in advance (see Box 7.2). Each question is asked in the same way of each respondent. The interviewer, if there is one, may clarify points when the respondent has not understood properly, but other than this there are no prompts and no follow-up questions. This is the defi nitive difference between a questionnaire and a qualitative interview: a questionnaire is not a conversation, but a question-andanswer session. In fact it is not only the questions that are standardized but also most of the answers: the majority of questions are closed, which means that the respondent has to choose from a set list of possible answers rather than answering in their own words. The questions are also asked of different respondents in a fi xed order and as far as possible, under the same conditions. The advantages of this level of specifi city and standardization are that (1) you can gather highly targeted data; (2) you can compare the responses of different people directly; and (3) you can easily carry out statistical analyses to look at patterns of variation in the results.
