Evaluating Survey Questions and
Instruments
Created @January 29, 2023 12:12 PM
Class RW: Survey
Type Reading
Stage? Drafting
Reviewed
Column
Materials
Reading 1 Chapter 7
Reading 2
Designing a good survey instrument involves:
1. selecting the questions needed to meet the research objectives,
2. testing them to make sure they can be asked and answered as planned,
3. then putting them into a form to maximize the ease with
which respondents and interviewers can do their jobs.
Survey Instruments
interview schedule which constitutes a script for survey interviewers, or a
questionnaire that respondents will read and fill out themselves.
Survey instrument design has two components:
1. deciding what to measure and designing and
2. testing questions that will be good measures.
Evaluating Survey Questions and Instruments 1
, The first step usually is to define the survey objectives, though those objectives
may be revised based on subsequent question testing. Then the process of
choosing and testing questions takes place.
The steps involved in a survey instrument development process may include
the following:
1. focus group discussions
2. drafting a tentative set of questions
3. critical review to detect common flaws
4. individual cognitive interviews(not replicating proposed data collection procedures)
5. putting questions into a survey instrument
6. pretesting using an approximation of proposed data collection procedures
Defining Objectives:
Pre-requisite to designing survey plan
Researchers should refrain from asking “related” questions that are irrelevant to our
research.
The variables should be listen categorically to make sense:
→ Dependent Variable: for which measures of central tendency (e.g., means or
distributions) are to be estimated;
→ Independent Variable: in order to understand distributions and patterns of
association
→ Moderator/ Mediator: which variables may be needed as control or intervening
variables to explain patterns observed and to check out competing hypotheses.
Thus, three documents are crucial before designing the survey instrument:
1. A Statement of Purpose: Why the research is being conducted/ Main Focus.
2. List of Variables
3. Analysis Plan: Which Statistical Tests need to be coducted
Evaluating Survey Questions and Instruments 2
Instruments
Created @January 29, 2023 12:12 PM
Class RW: Survey
Type Reading
Stage? Drafting
Reviewed
Column
Materials
Reading 1 Chapter 7
Reading 2
Designing a good survey instrument involves:
1. selecting the questions needed to meet the research objectives,
2. testing them to make sure they can be asked and answered as planned,
3. then putting them into a form to maximize the ease with
which respondents and interviewers can do their jobs.
Survey Instruments
interview schedule which constitutes a script for survey interviewers, or a
questionnaire that respondents will read and fill out themselves.
Survey instrument design has two components:
1. deciding what to measure and designing and
2. testing questions that will be good measures.
Evaluating Survey Questions and Instruments 1
, The first step usually is to define the survey objectives, though those objectives
may be revised based on subsequent question testing. Then the process of
choosing and testing questions takes place.
The steps involved in a survey instrument development process may include
the following:
1. focus group discussions
2. drafting a tentative set of questions
3. critical review to detect common flaws
4. individual cognitive interviews(not replicating proposed data collection procedures)
5. putting questions into a survey instrument
6. pretesting using an approximation of proposed data collection procedures
Defining Objectives:
Pre-requisite to designing survey plan
Researchers should refrain from asking “related” questions that are irrelevant to our
research.
The variables should be listen categorically to make sense:
→ Dependent Variable: for which measures of central tendency (e.g., means or
distributions) are to be estimated;
→ Independent Variable: in order to understand distributions and patterns of
association
→ Moderator/ Mediator: which variables may be needed as control or intervening
variables to explain patterns observed and to check out competing hypotheses.
Thus, three documents are crucial before designing the survey instrument:
1. A Statement of Purpose: Why the research is being conducted/ Main Focus.
2. List of Variables
3. Analysis Plan: Which Statistical Tests need to be coducted
Evaluating Survey Questions and Instruments 2
