Questionnaire Design
Closed format questions
5 to 10 answers per question.
Odd number of answers let people sit on the fence as there is always a middle answer between one option and another.
Even number of answers makes people make a choice and get of the fence. This can make the answers more conclusive but it can also make people decide on an answer that they don’t really agree with.
Clarity
Clear, concise, expressed in few words, unambiguous.
Try to stay away from yes/no questions, use more agree, partially agree, partially don't agree, don't agree.
Phrasing
Do you agree with the governors plan to oppose increased development of wetlands - NEGATIVE
Do you agree with the governors plan to support curtailed development of wetlands - POSITIVE
Try to provide a mix of positive and negative questions throughout the questionnaire.
Hypothetical Questions
DONT ASK PEOPLE, "If you were governor what would you do to stop crime" People probably haven’t even thought about this or their answers won't be clear or concise.
Prestige bias
Recipients answer more favourably than they actually believe. There is nothing to stop this, just make sure that you are aware of this and how it could effect your topic.
The use of questionnaires in safety culture research [7]
Not very successful in the past for exposing safety culture as people often describe the issues management require, rather than the culture of the business as a whole.
Questionnaires exposed only attitudes shared through out the entire organisation.
Safety Climate (attitudes) and Safety Culture are very similar perhaps just different approaches to the same goal of safety within a business.
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