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Design of online surveys

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Introduction

All rules regarding the formulation of questionnaire questions – no matter who has created them and where they are to be found – have one crucial disadvantage: they only have limited use. Of course, they are more or less suitable as “general guides” which can point you in a general direction, but their importance usually diminishes when it comes to formulating specific questions for specific questionnaires. It is then necessary to rethink each formulation and, while the rules regarding the formulation of questions can offer some support or be helpful, they do not excuse you from reassessing their validity and effectiveness for each question.

So when you are developing your questionnaire questions you should pay attention to the following “ten rules for formulating questions”. You should also note that they are not fixed, irrevocable rules which can be followed blindly. The majority of the rules leave room for interpretation, indeed – as you will see – they often contradict each other so they should not always be fully observed. You should view the “10 rules” critically when you are asking yourself whether your specific questions are “good”.

It is obvious why questions need to be “good“, meaning methodical and technically flawless, as poor questions lead to poor results and no weighting or analysis process in the world can make good results out of poor data.

	Buchtipp
	Fragebogen Ein Arbeitsbuch Aus der Reihe 'Studienskripten zur Soziologie' im VS Verlag 4. erw. Aufl. 2014. 203 S. Autor: Rolf Porst ISBN: 978-3658021177 Preis: 14,99 Euro

10 survey tips

Formulation of questions
• Introduction
• Survey tip 1
• Survey tip 2
• Survey tip 3
• Survey tip 4
• Survey tip 5
• Survey tip 6
• Survey tip 7
• Survey tip 8
• Survey tip 9
• Survey tip 10
• Book tip