Questionnaire Design Types and Issues: Ethics, Formats, Writing Better Questions, and Data Handling

October 28, 2025 by Afza Lal Din

The Questionnaire Design Types and Issues: Ethics, Formats, Writing Better Questions, and Data Handling. Questionnaire design involves choosing between structured (closed) and unstructured (open) formats, formulating clear and unbiased questions, and planning for data processing and ethical considerations such as data protection and respondent consent.

Ethics, Formats, Writing Better Questions, and Data Handling: Questionnaire Design Types and Issues

It is important to avoid duplicate questions, technical jargon, and leading questions, ensure logical flow, and keep the questionnaire as short as possible to encourage respondent participation. Effective data processing begins with a clear plan before questionnaire development and includes pre-testing the design before final use.

Introduction—Why Questionnaires Still Matter

The field of questionnaire design is vast, and this chapter is intended to provide a straightforward introduction to its key elements, indicating the main issues to be addressed, some important problematical considerations and how they can be resolved. The chapter follows a sequence in designing a questionnaire that, it is hoped, will be useful for researchers.

Piloting & Practicalities

The sequence is: ethical issues; approaching the planning of a questionnaire; operationalizing the questionnaire; structured, semi-structured and unstructured questionnaires; avoiding pitfalls in question writing; dichotomous questions; multiple choice questions; rank ordering; rating scales; open-ended questions; asking sensitive questions; sequencing the questions; questionnaires containing few verbal items; the layout of the questionnaire; covering letters/sheets and follow-up letters; piloting the questionnaire; practical considerations in questionnaire design; postal questionnaires; processing questionnaire data.

Processing & Analyzing Questionnaire Data

It is suggested that the researcher may find it useful to work through these issues in sequence, though, clearly, a degree of recursion is desirable. The questionnaire is a widely used and useful instrument for collecting survey information, pro viding structured, often numerical data, being able to be administered without the presence of the re searcher, and often being comparatively straight forward to analyze (Wilson and McLean, 1994).

These attractions have to be counterbalanced by the time taken to develop, pilot and refine the questionnaire, by the possible unsophistication and limited scope of the data that are collected, and from the likely limited flexibility of response, though, as Wilson and McLean (ibid.: 3) observe, this can frequently be an attraction. The re searcher will have to judge the appropriateness of using a questionnaire for data collection, and, if so, what kind of questionnaire it will be.

Ethical Issues in Questionnaire Research

The questionnaire will always be an intrusion into the life of the respondent, be it in terms of time taken to complete the questionnaire, the level of threat or sensitivity of the questions, or the possible invasion of privacy. Questionnaire respondents are not passive data providers for researchers; they are subjects not objects of research. There are several sequiturs that flow from this. Respondents cannot be coerced into completing a questionnaire. They might be strongly encouraged, but the decision whether to become involved and when to withdraw from the research is entirely theirs. Their involvement in the research is likely to be a function of:

Their informed consent (see Chapter 2 on the ethics of educational research);
Their rights to withdraw at any stage or not to complete particular items in the questionnaire;
The potential of the research to improve their situation (the issue of beneficence);
The guarantees that the research will not harm them (the issue of non-maleficence);
The guarantees of confidentiality, anonymity and non-traceability in the research;
The degree of threat or sensitivity of the questions (which may lead to respondents’ over reporting or under-reporting (Sudman and Bradburn, 1982:32 and Chapter 3);
Factors in the questionnaire itself (e.g. Its coverage of issues, its ability to catch what respondents want to say rather than to promote the researcher’s agenda), i.e. The avoidance of bias and the assurance of validity and reliability in the questionnaire—the issues of methodological rigour and fairness. Methodological rigour is an ethical, not simply a technical, matter (Morrison, 1996c), and respondents have a right to expect reliability and validity;
The reactions of the respondent, for example respondents will react if they consider an item to be offensive, intrusive, misleading, biased, misguided, irritating, inconsiderate, impertinent or abstruse.

These factors impact on every stage of the use of a questionnaire, to suggest that attention has to be given to the questionnaire itself, the approaches that are made to the respondents, the explanations that are given to the respondents, the data analysis and the data reporting.

Planning the Questionnaire

At this preliminary stage of design, it can sometimes be helpful to use a flow chart technique to plan the sequencing of questions. In this way, researchers are able to anticipate the type and range of responses that their questions are likely to elicit. In Box 14.1 we illustrate a flow chart employed in a commercial survey based upon an interview schedule, though the application of the method to a self-completion questionnaire is self-evident.

Operationalizing the Questionnaire

The process of operationalizing a questionnaire is to take a general purpose or set of purposes and turn these into concrete, researchable fields about which actual data can be gathered. Firstly, a questionnaire’s general purposes must be clarified and then translated into a specific, concrete aim or set of aims. Thus, ‘to explore teachers’ views about in-service work’ is somewhat nebulous, whereas ‘to obtain a detailed description of primary and secondary teachers’ priorities in the provision of in-service education courses’ is reasonably specific.

Having decided upon and specified the primary objective of the questionnaire, the second phase of the planning involves the identification and itemizing of subsidiary topics that relate to its central purpose. In our example, subsidiary issues might well include: the types of courses required; the content of courses; the location of courses; the timing of courses; the design of courses; and the financing of courses. The third phase follows the identification and itemization of subsidiary topics and involves formulating specific information requirements relating to each of these issues.

For example, with respect to the type of courses required, de tailed information would be needed about the duration of courses (one meeting, several meetings, a week, a month, a term or a year), the status of courses (non-award bearing, award bearing, with certificate, diploma, degree granted by college or university), the orientation of courses (theoretically oriented involving lectures, readings, etc., or practically oriented involving workshops and the production of curriculum materials). What we have in the example, then, is a move from a generalized area of interest or purpose to a very specific set of features about which direct data can be gathered.

Wilson and McLean (ibid.: 8–9) suggest an alternative approach which is to identify the research problem, then to clarify the relevant concepts or constructs, then to identify what kinds of measures (if appropriate) or empirical indicators there are of these, i.e. the kinds of data required to give the researcher relevant evidence about the concepts or constructs, e.g. their presence, their intensity, their main features and dimensions, their key elements etc.

What unites these two approaches is their recognition of the need to ensure that the questionnaire:

(a) is clear on its purposes

(b) is clear on what needs to be included or covered in the questionnaire in order to meet the purposes

(d) asks the most appropriate kinds of question (discussed below)

(e) elicits the most appropriate kinds of data to answer the research purposes and sub-questions

(f) asks for empirical data.

Choosing the Right Structure

Though there is a large range of types of questionnaire, there is a simple rule of thumb: the larger the size of the sample, the more structured, closed and numerical the questionnaire may have to be, and the smaller the size of the sample, the less structured, more open and word based the questionnaire may be. Highly structured, closed questions are useful in that they can generate frequencies of response amenable to statistical treatment and analysis. They also enable comparisons to be made across groups in the sample (Oppenheim, 1992:115). Indeed it would be almost impossible, as well as unnecessary; to try to process vast quantities of word based data in a short time frame.

If a site-specific case study is required, then qualitative, less structured, word-based and open-ended questionnaires may be more appropriate as they can capture the specificity of a particular situation. Where measurement is sought then a quantitative approach is required; where rich and personal data are sought, then a word-based qualitative approach might be more suitable. The researcher can select several types of questionnaire, from highly structured to unstructured.

If a closed and structured questionnaire is used, enabling patterns to be observed and comparisons to be made, then the questionnaire will need to be piloted and refined so that the final version contains as full a range of possible responses as can be reasonably fore-seen. Such a questionnaire is heavy on time early in the research; however, once the questionnaire has been ‘set up’ then the mode of analysis might be comparatively rapid. For example, it may take two or three months to devise a survey questionnaire, pilot it, refine it and set it out in a format that will enable the data to be processed and statistics to be calculated.

However, the ‘trade-off’ from this is that the data analysis can be undertaken fairly rap idly—we already know the response categories, the nature of the data and the statistics to be used; it is simply a matter of processing the data— often using computer analysis. Indeed there are several computer packages available for paperless, on-line questionnaire completion, e.g. Results for Research™, Sphinx Survey. It is perhaps misleading to describe a questionnaire as being ‘unstructured’, as the whole devising of a questionnaire requires respondents to adhere to some form of given structure.

That said, between a completely open questionnaire that is akin to an open invitation to ‘write what one wants’ and a totally closed, completely structured questionnaire, there is the powerful tool of the semi-structured questionnaire. Here a series of questions, statements or items are presented and the respondent is asked to answer, respond to or comment on them in a way that she or he thinks best. There is a clear structure, sequence, focus, but the format is open-ended, enabling the respondent to respond in her/his own terms. The semi-structured questionnaire sets the agenda but does not presuppose the nature of the response.

Types of Questionnaire Items

There are several kinds of question and response modes in questionnaires, including, for example: dichotomous questions; multiple choice questions; rating scales; and open-ended questions. These are considered below (see also Wilson, 1996). Closed questions prescribe the range of responses from which the respondent may choose. In general closed questions (dichotomous, multiple choice and rating scales) are quick to complete and straightforward to code (e.g. for computer analysis), and do not discriminate unduly on the basis of how articulate the respondents are (Wilson and McLean, 1994:21).

On the other hand they do not enable respondents to add any remarks, qualifications and explanations to the categories, and there is a risk that the categories might not be exhaustive and that there might be bias in them (Oppenheim, 1992:115). Open questions, on the other hand, enable respondents to write a free response in their own terms, to explain and qualify their responses and avoid the limitations of pre-set categories of response. On the other hand the responses are difficult to code and to classify. The issue for re searchers is one of ‘fitness for purpose’.

Writing Questions that Work

Though there are several kinds of questions that can be used (discussed below), there are several caveats about the framing of questions in a questionnaire:

1 Avoid leading questions, that is, questions which are worded (or their response categories presented) in such a way as to suggest to respondents that there is only one acceptable answer, and that other responses might or might not gain approval or disapproval respectively. For example: Do you prefer abstract, academic-type courses, or down-to-earth, practical courses that have some pay-off in your day-to-day teaching? The guidance here is to check the ‘loadedness’ or possible pejorative overtones of terms or verbs.

2 Avoid highbrow questions even with sophisticated respondents. For example: What particular aspects of the current positivistic/interpretive debate would you like to see reflected in a course of developmental psychology aimed at a teacher audience? Where the sample being surveyed is representative of the whole adult population, misunder standings of what researchers take to be clear, unambiguous language are commonplace.

3 Avoid complex questions. For example: Would you prefer a short, non-award bearing course (3,4 or 5 sessions) with part-day release (e.g. Wednesday afternoons) and one evening per week attendance with financial reimbursement for travel, or a longer, non-award bearing course (6, 7 or 8 sessions) with full-day release, or the whole course designed on part day release without evening attendance?

4 Avoid irritating questions or instructions. For example: Have you ever attended an in-service course of any kind during your entire teaching career? If you are over forty, and have never attended an in-service course, put one tick in the box marked NEVER and another in the box marked OLD.

5 Avoid questions that use negatives and double negatives (Oppenheim, 1992:128). For example: How strongly do you feel that no teacher should enroll on the in-service, award-bearing course that has not completed at least two years full-time teaching?

6 Avoid too many open-ended questions on self-completion questionnaires. Because self-completion questionnaires cannot probe respondents to find out just what they mean by particular responses, open-ended questions are a less satisfactory way of eliciting information. (This caution does not hold in the interview situation, however.)

Designing Specific Item Types (Quick Guides)

Open-ended questions, moreover, are too demanding of most respondents’ time. Nothing can be more off putting than the following format which might appear in a questionnaire: Use pages 5, 6 and 7 respectively to respond to each of the questions about your attitudes to in-service courses in general and your beliefs about their value in the professional life of the serving teacher. The problem of ambiguity in words is intractable; at best it can be minimized rather than eliminated altogether.

The most innocent of questions is replete with ambiguity (Youngman, 1984:158–9; Morrison, 1993:71–2). Take the following examples: Does your child regularly do homework? What does ‘regularly’ mean—once a day; once a year; once a term; once a week? How many students are there in the school?

What does this mean: on roll, on roll but absent; marked as present but out of school on a field trip; at this precise moment or this week (there being a difference in attendance between a Monday and a Friday), or between the first term of an academic year and the last term of the academic year for secondary school students as some of them will have left school to go into employment and others will be at home revising for examinations or have completed them? How many computers do you have in school?

What does this mean: present but broken; including those out of school being repaired; the property of the school or staffs’ and students’ own computers; on average or exactly in school today?

Have you had a French lesson this week? What constitutes a ‘week’: the start of the school week (i.e. from Monday to a Friday), since last Sunday (or Saturday depending on one’s religion), or, if the question were put on a Wednesday, since last Wednesday; how representative of all weeks is this week—there being public examinations in the school for some of the week? How far do you agree with the view that without a Parent-Teacher Association you cannot talk about the progress of your children? The double negative (‘without’ and ‘cannot’) makes this question a difficult one to answer.

If I wanted to say that I believe that Parent— Teacher Associations are necessary for adequate consultation between parents and teachers, do I answer with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’? How old are you? 15–20 20–30 30–40 40–50 50–60 The categories are not discrete; will an old-looking 40-year-old flatter himself and put himself in the 30–40 category, or will an immature 20 year-old seek the maturity of being put into the 20–30 category? The rule in questionnaire de sign is to avoid any overlap of categories. Vocational education is only available to the lower ability students but it should be open to every student.

This is, in fact, a double question. What does the respondent do who agrees with the first part of the sentence—‘vocational education is only available to the lower ability students’—but disagrees with the latter part of the sentence, or vice versa? The rule in questionnaire design is to ask only one question at a time. Though it is impossible to legislate for the respondents’ interpretation of wording, the re searcher, of course, has to adopt a commonsense approach to this, recognizing the inherent ambiguity but nevertheless still feeling that it is possible to live with this ambiguity.

An ideal questionnaire possesses the same properties as a good law: It is clear, unambiguous and uniformly workable. Its design must minimize potential errors from respondents…and coders. And since people’s participation in surveys is voluntary, a questionnaire has to help in engaging their interest, encouraging their co-operation, and eliciting answers as close as possible to the truth. (Davidson, 1970).

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