Mathematics

Questionnaires and Surveys

When we walk in the high street at the weekend, we come across sweet-talking men and women with boundless enthusiasm and patience get in the way to ask a few questions. They carry out surveys - a questionnaire designed for a purpose.

They have mastered the basic guidelines of carrying out a successful survey - most of the time, we do not feel like disappointing them, by just ignoring them.

Likewise, if we stick to some basic rules, we are in the process of emulating them and developing successful questionnaires.

The guidelines are as follows:

• Make the respondent feel at ease
• Make the responding more interesting - judge the mood of the respondent, before throwing the questions at an individual
• Never ask embarrassingly personal questions - relevance of a tooth-whitener to a person with yellow teeth in public can hardly be a good idea
• If questions of personal nature are a must, keep them until the end of the survey - asking a shabbily-clad youth whether he is on benefits as the first question is a disaster
• Don't make the respondent confused - asking a teenager about his age group is not a smart question
• Don't make the respondent irritated - forcing an individual in a hurry to answer a question is not well-thought
• Avoid bias - don't you think grilled chips are better than fried chips is obviously biased
• Ask general questions, if any, first and then the more specific ones
• Questions must be as simple as possible with short span
• Choice of answers must be small - a large choice will tire the respondent

A Simple Survey