Questionnaire

A questionnaire (plural: questionnaire also regionally. Questionnaires, English questionnaire ) is an instrument of data collection, especially in psychology and the social sciences. Questionnaire are used here very broadly to capture social and political attitudes, opinions, interests, and psychological characteristics. A questionnaire is less expensive than a psychological interview, so easily a large number of people for statistically reliable conclusions can be examined. From simple lists ( serve the documentation and where usually only analyzed the answers of content ) with the standardized questions and to distinguish the test methodically constructed questionnaire that serve the measurement of characteristics or properties.

• 4.1 Yes / no questions ( dichotomous questions )
• 4.2 Eingruppierungs questions
• 4.3 rating scales ( with scaled responses )
• 4.4 Total questions
• 4.5 Ranking
• 4.6 Even or odd number of stages
• 4.7 Single and multiple choice
• 4.8 Supplementary Options

Types of questionnaire

Questionnaire is a very general term and includes:

• An ad hoc list of questions that have been put together solely on the basis of content aspects.
• A semi-standardized questionnaire in which the questions are formulated and arranged uniformly, respondents can respond but free;
• A standardized questionnaire in which the questions are formulated and uniformly arranged and select the respondents between the answers given;
• A standardized questionnaire, available for the already extensive empirical results in particular from population-representative surveys, so that actual results can be compared statistically;
• Questionnaire that were beyond such psychological tests designed for specific methodological and statistical criteria; they are also referred to as scale.

Colloquially also forms such as applications or tax returns are often referred to as a questionnaire, as they are used for standardized data collection. In psychology between questionnaire methods, such as interests and personality questionnaires, and the aptitude tests, such as school tests and intelligence tests discriminated. Only in the latter case there are objectively correct or incorrect answers. An IQ test to assess the intelligence is not a questionnaire.

Development and standardization of questionnaire

The development of a questionnaire must always be made with regard to the purpose of the survey, the survey form and the desired analysis options. An important feature of the questionnaire is the standardization of questions and answers. All respondents received a questionnaire submitted to identical content, so that a large number of persons can be detected. Disadvantages are that can not be discussed individually to each respondent and the respondent is influenced and restricted by the requirement of response options. At the beginning of the development of questionnaires selecting appropriate items is the region of interest. These include primarily already proven questions, adding new questions, the theoretically derived by the investigators, developed on the basis of extensive interviews, reformulated, discussed possible with other professionals and be presented empirically tested in terms of their intelligibility. For this " item pool " (English Item Collection ) may eventually arises in several stages of revision, a suitable instrument.

Questionnaire forms

Questionnaire, both paper-based as used in digital form. They can be independently filled in or used by an interviewer during the direct examination.

Bound paper ( as a form )

The printed questionnaire (including paper -and-pencil or paper-pencil methods) are the conventional form. They are easy to use anywhere, because they can be filled in by the respondents themselves. Therefore, replacing a questionnaire often an interview. But there are different sources of error: uncertainty as to when the questionnaire was filled out, lack of opportunity for clarifying inquiry about the meaning of a question, mistake when filling, no direct way to check the reasonableness of answers, transmission errors in the analysis. Compared to " electronic questionnaire " is a paper-based questionnaire expensive ( printing costs, postage costs, time-consuming evaluation). On the other hand, many respondents are more likely to accept a printed questionnaire as a digital, computer- supported form.

Digital form

Computer -assisted questionnaires are increasingly being deployed over the Internet as an online survey, in which they can be evaluated either manually or with the appropriate software. The simplest type of a questionnaire on the Internet is the polling on current topics in which typically asked one question and two or more possible answers are given, which are selected by simple click.

For the psychological assessment of computer- assisted testing systems have been developed, the questionnaires and other tests present on the screen, evaluate by appropriate software and deliver presentation of results. For data acquisition in everyday life questionnaires and tests can be performed on a Personal Digital Assistant PDA or via mobile phone (cell phone ), in which case an interactive data acquisition and real-time evaluation to provide feedback to the examinee are possible (see Ambulatory Assessment).

The digital format allows a flexible programming of the layout of the questions and the answer options, Ramifications of the questions that a time-accurate logging of entries, response delays and input duration and different data checks on missing responses, systematic error, very unlikely (not plausible ) answers. The data transfer is easier and safer, since the data are usually collected directly into a software analysis be read. Although the methodology is not cost effective in the development, but in use, but may not be suitable for computer novices. The schematic application of psychological questionnaire as a " test " on the Internet can be problematic and also profession ethically questionable.

Questionnaire interview

In person or by telephone questionnaire interview, the interviewer takes the exact questions from a standardized questionnaire and recorded the answers on the basis of possible answers. In social surveys in the market and opinion research interviewers often use printed cards with questions and answers in order to standardize the process even further. A disadvantage is that, relative to the paper-based and computer-assisted survey, high costs for the interviewer. However, increased by the personal interview, the return rate.

Questions and response formats

A questionnaire consists usually of a manual and the individual items (. Engl of play pieces ), so from questions or statements ( statements ) and the associated response options ( categories). For the formats of the items and response categories are several possibilities. Most questionnaire contained no open, but closed questions, ie they specify certain answer choices, so that respondents can only select. The cited textbooks on test construction and questionnaire methodology included many rules and instructions as the questions and answers are to formulate understandable. Common errors include the use of particularly misleading terms, foreign words, double negations.

The following item formats are common:

Open questions can be answered freely. Examples are:

With closed questions, the answers are given and select. The following types are distinguished:

Yes / no questions ( dichotomous questions )

Yes / no - questions can be only two possible answers. Sometimes additional " do not know" as a third response option is offered.

Examples:

Eingruppierungs questions

In classification issues specific value ranges are defined, in which the respondent is to classify.

Examples:

Rating scales ( with scaled responses )

Scaled responses here means that the individual stages grade the frequencies, applying degrees, intensities and so gradually and have at least ordinal scale level. The coding of the steps can be done verbally ( verbal rating scale ), numeric ( Numeric Rating Scale ) or by symbols (symbolic rating scale ).

Examples with a scale of 1 to 10:

Examples with a scale of 1 to 5:

Example of school grades ( Germany 1-6, Switzerland 6-1 ):

Sum of questions

Example:

Hierarchy

Example:

Even or odd number of stages

Have scales with an odd number (eg 1,2,3,4,5 or 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 ) is a middle class that can be interpreted by different respondents and may not allow unambiguous evaluation. A response at the central position on the question " Are you child friendly " may for example mean ". Sometimes yes, sometimes no ". " Do not know ", ".: for I will not say anything ", ". The question I find unimportant ," " This question makes me angry. ", etc. Consequently, makes an evaluation over an averaging little sense and would distort the overall result.

Single and multiple-choice

Items can also be distinguished as to whether the respondent has only one answer choice, or may choose several alternatives.

Supplement option

Each can still be added to supplement option that allows the respondents, the response alternatives to expand their own and not available under the existing alternatives answers.

Example of a multiple choice with supplement option:

Evaluation

The possibilities for the evaluation depend on the nature of the chosen response format. Numerically, tangible answers, measured approximately on a Likert scale settings can be statistically evaluated, while open answer formats usually require a qualitative analysis. Even if the questionnaire is developed, which later required analyzes should be considered with their special requirements (see psychometrics, scale and scale level ).

Quality criteria

There are several criteria for assessing the quality of a questionnaire. The most important criteria are the empirical validity ( validity), the formal reliability (reliability ), and - in questionnaire with normalization - the representativeness of the general population. Other aspects are the acceptance by the respondents ( " addressee justice ": of course, reasonableness, transparency), the efficiency ( execution time, manageability, readability, costs) and other general quality criteria psychodiagnostic methods.

Applications and examples

The majority of the questionnaire used today in the social research and in psychological assessment and differential psychology and personality psychology are tested methodically developed and empirically verified methods. To distinguish content include: questionnaires for social and political attitudes, interests, religious orientation, and other values, personality traits, self- reports of emotions and Stimmungenen, physical and psychological ailments and other detectable characteristics by a judgment methods. Other applications include market research (for example, customer satisfaction surveys ), opinion research, employee surveys or evaluation of courses.

Problems

Default answers are often criticized as schematically or misleading. Thus, information on the relative abundance of facts ( often, sometimes, rarely, never ) or their intensity (very strong, strong, weak, very weak) understood very differently, as empirical studies have shown. For an odd number of stages of the center position can be erroneously interpreted as "normal" value. Therefore, a middle class is often deliberately omitted. On the other hand, it is expected that some people criticize the questionnaire because of it.

The answers in the questionnaire represent - if it is not alone comes to socio-economic data and other facts - mainly self- reports and self-assessments. The extent to which the actual behavior with these statements agrees, can be estimated due to additional information just by psychologically qualified evaluator. This is a problem of attitude and behavior, the social psychology has dealt in detail. Methods conscious scientists will seek to obtain additional information, if possible, to secure the information derived from the questionnaire (see multimodal diagnostics).

Methodologically, we can distinguish several sources of error, but the - can also occur with other methods of investigation - as the error in the data transfer and data processing: ambiguous questions that lead to unsafe responses; Omission of individual answers because the questions are perceived as unclear or intrusive; certain response tendencies ( response bias ), deliberate falsification and accidental distortion. Such methodological problems have been studied mainly in the scales measuring social attitudes and the personality questionnaire and critically discussed.