ABSTRACT
Within these stages there are several sub-components, and this chapter addresses these.
Operationalizing the questionnaire The process of operationalizing a questionnaire is to take a general purpose or set of purposes and turn these into concrete, researchable fields about which actual data can be gathered. First, a questionnaire’s general purposes must be clarified and then translated into a specific, concrete aim or set of aims. Thus, ‘to explore
BOX 20.1 A GUIDE FOR QUESTIONNAIRE CONSTRUCTION A Decisions about question content 1 Is the question necessary? Just how will it be useful? 2 Are several questions needed on the subject matter of this question? 3 Do respondents have the information necessary to answer the question? 4 Does the question need to be more concrete, specific and closely related to the respondent’s personal
experience? 5 Is the question content sufficiently general and free from spurious concreteness and specificity? 6 Do the replies express general attitudes and only seem to be as specific as they sound? 7 Is the question content biased or loaded in one direction, without accompanying questions to balance the
emphasis? 8 Will the respondents give the information that is asked for? B Decisions about question wording 1 Can the question be misunderstood? Does it contain difficult or unclear phraseology? 2 Does the question adequately express the alternative with respect to the point? 3 Is the question misleading because of unstated assumptions or unseen implications? 4 Is the wording biased? Is it emotionally loaded or slanted towards a particular kind of answer? 5 Is the question wording likely to be objectionable to the respondent in any way? 6 Would a more personalized wording of the question produce better results? 7 Can the question be better asked in a more direct or a more indirect form? C Decisions about form of response to the question 1 Can the question best be asked in a form calling for check answer (or short answer of a word or two, or a
number), free answer or check answer with follow-up answer? 2 If a check answer is used, which is the best type for this question – dichotomous, multiple choice (‘cafeteria’
question), or scale? 3 If a checklist is used, does it cover adequately all the significant alternatives without overlapping and in a
defensible order? Is it of reasonable length? Is the wording of items impartial and balanced? 4 Is the form of response easy, definite, uniform and adequate for the purpose? D Decisions about the place of the question in the sequence 1 Is the answer to the question likely to be influenced by the content of preceding questions? 2 Is the question led up to in a natural way? Is it in correct psychological order? 3 Does the question come too early or too late from the point of view of arousing interest and receiving suffi-
cient attention, avoiding resistance, and so on?
