ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the stages for questionnaire construction and administration. It illustrates the types of questions, question formats and typical questionnaires. It provides criteria for writing the questions. There are three fundamental stages in constructing the questionnaire: identifying the first thought questions, formulating the final questionnaire, and wording of questions. Questionnaires are classified into two types: the ‘open’ form or unrestricted type, and the ‘closed’ form or restricted type. Open questions seek to encourage the respondent to provide free responses. Closed questions often require a short response in the form of Yes or No, Agree or Disagree, and so on. Factual questions are mostly designed to elicit information related to: facts related to the background of an individual or organisation and facts related to events or projects. There are several formats in which opinion type of questions can be asked in a survey: checklist, grid, rating scale, likert scale, numerical rating scale, ranking, and semantic differential scales.
