What is questionnaire? Mention its characteristics.
Questionnaire is a method
used for collecting data; a set of written questions which calls for responses
on the part of the client; may be self-administered or group-administered.
Questionnaires are an inexpensive way to gather data from a potentially large
number of respondents. Often they are the only feasible way to reach a number
of reviewers large enough to allow statistically analysis of the results. A
well-designed questionnaire that is used effectively can gather information on
both the overall performance of the test system as well as information on
specific components of the system. If the questionnaire includes demographic
questions on the participants, they can be used to correlate performance and
satisfaction with the test system among different groups of users. It is
important to remember that a questionnaire should be viewed as a multi-stage
process beginning with definition of the aspects to be examined and ending with
interpretation of the results. Every step needs to be designed carefully
because the final results are only as good as the weakest link in the
questionnaire process. Although questionnaires may be cheap to administer
compared to other data collection methods, they are every bit as expensive in
terms of design time and interpretation. The steps required to design and
administer a questionnaire include:
1. Defining the Objectives of the
survey
2. Determining the Sampling Group
3. Writing the Questionnaire
4. Administering the
Questionnaire
5. Interpretation of the Results
What can
questionnaires measure? Questionnaires are quite flexible in what they can
measure, however they are not equally suited to measuring all types of data. We
can classify data in two ways, Subjective vs. Objective and Quantitative vs.
Qualitative. When a questionnaire is administered, the researchers control over
the environment will be somewhat limited. This is why questionnaires are inexpensive
to administer. This loss of control means the validity of the results are more
reliant on the honesty of the respondent. Consequently, it is more difficult to
claim complete objectivity with questionnaire data then with results of a
tightly controlled lab test. For example, if a group of participants are asked
on a questionnaire how long it took them to learn a particular function on a
piece of software, it is likely that they will be biased towards themselves and
answer, on average, with a lower than actual time. A more objective usability
test of the same function with a similar group of participants may return a
significantly higher learning time. More elaborate questionnaire design or
administration may provide slightly better objective data, but the cost of such
a questionnaire can be much higher and offset their economic advantage. In
general, questionnaires are better suited to gathering reliable subjective
measures, such as user satisfaction, of the system or interface in question.
Questions may be designed to gather either qualitative or quantitative data. By
their very nature, quantitative questions are more exact then qualitative. For
example, the word "easy" and "difficult" can mean radically
different things to different people. Any question must be carefully crafted,
but in particular questions that assess a qualitative measure must be phrased
to avoid ambiguity. Qualitative questions may also require more thought on the
part of the participant and may cause them to become bored with the
questionnaire sooner. In general, we can say that questionnaires can measure
both qualitative and quantitative data well, but that qualitative questions
require more care in design, administration, and interpretation.
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