Questionnaire for Dissertation

Life of a student at graduate and post-graduate level usually revolves around libraries, notes and thesis preparations.

Dissertations are an integral part of their academic life. Having said that, dissertations isn’t a day’s job!

If you have opted for a primary research in your dissertation, you must be well aware of the fact that you need to include a questionnaire in the dissertation to back your theory/topic. Suppose you have opted for primary research, do you have full information about the questionnaire which you need to prepare? If you are instead looking for an expert to do it for you, we at Quality Dissertation can take care of it for you, you can simply contact us!

So, Let us find out but before that let us start with a question.

What’s the purpose of a questionnaire?

Questionnaires are undoubtedly the single-most useful method by which one can obtain the most relevant data in the form of answers to certain questions. For example, if you are planning to survey the market about the choice of online shopping among a sample of a certain demography, questionnaires become a basic tool for your dissertation. It helps you collect up-to-date data that wouldn’t have been known otherwise.

However, one must be completely thorough with the topic of their choice in order to formulate right questions to target their selected demographic sets.

What do we mean by being thorough with the topic of your dissertation?

You must have a clear idea of your goals from the questionnaire. The kind of information you seek to extract from your respondents must clearly back your theory or topic of the dissertation.

This information will form a part of your research goals and objectives.

It is advisable to be mindful of the plausible and more or less plausible answers that is expected to support your hypothesis. For example, if you intend to question people about their financial behavior, you must be aware of the current available options of the market for both savings and investments. This would ensure you formulate appropriate questions and thus successfully reach to a conclusion for your dissertation.

Now, let us have a look at the major characteristics of a university defined questionnaire…

Anonymous or Named Respondents

It is very important to decide whether the survey sheets would carry the name of each individual respondents or not. Some respondents wouldn’t mind their personal details recorded, however few would not be comfortable answering such questions and may decide not to take the questionnaire at all.

Type of questions

The questions should be brief yet clear and unambiguous. Reading the questions must not trigger any confusion in the minds of the respondents.

Open-ended questions should be avoided and one must also refrain from adding vague or leading questions.

Postal Survey (?)

If you intend to send questionnaires via post, you should keep two most important things in mind:

• Make sure the questionnaire is short; you might want to give offers to interest the respondent.
• Respondents will reply, right? Provide a stamped-addressed envelope for them to reply with the post.

Ideal questions

Your ideal questions should have a motive:

• It should have a basic concept which is intended to be drawn from.
• It shouldn’t give two or more ideas.
• It should mean the same thing to all respondents.

Answers invited

Not all questions can have same kind of answers. Some questions might need options while some would need to be rated. While giving the options for answering, you can provide:

• Lists – select one of several options
• Category – tick one box or several boxes
• Ranking – number sequentially (preference)
• Scale – how much or how little (relatively)
• Quantity – how much or how little (absolutely)

How to write a good questionnaire?

It is, by all means, the most important part of the entire process of taking surveys, interviews and analyzing – preparing the questions!

So, what are the key factors to keep in mind while preparing the questionnaire?

Decide on the mode of your survey-

Whether to take the survey via phone, mail, in-person or online – the questionnaire need to be suited for each of the kinds. Various key points need to be kept in mind while formulating questions for each of the kinds.

For example, the tone of the questions need to be properly weighed in case of phone or in-person interview. Similarly, the arrangement of the questions on the paper would affect the answers and choices in case of mail or online survey.

Giving appropriate instructions at all places could solve this issue.

Perfect the size of the questionnaire-

How would you like to keep filling a questionnaire which seems to have no end? Boring, right? The respondent might lose interest half-way through the survey if it is too long.

Keeping it precise and to the point works wonders!

Keep the questions in order-

Always keep the introductory and general questions in the beginning. Respondents easily answer such questions. Towards the end, you may keep the more sensitive questions which the respondent might not be comfortable enough to answer at the start.

However, if the survey tends to be longer, keep the most important questions around the middle of the survey – that way respondents would have filled it even if they leave the survey incomplete.

Now, if you have a bigger set of similar questions, you might want to randomly place it at various ends of the questionnaire.

Layout of the questionnaire-

While surveys on the phone do not consider this at all, other modes stresses on the layout of the questionnaire.

Enough white spaces, proper numbering, clear headings and right font size must always be kept in mind for better results.

Test your Questionnaire-

Before circulating the questionnaire to its intended respondents, do a beta testing. Test it on a small target – this would ensure that you come to know of any typographical errors or ambiguous questions.

The beta results might give you insights on the answers you receive which you can compare with what you expected. Thus, you may have an option to edit certain questions to get the exact results you intended to.

Tips to keep in mind:

• You may avoid confusing questions like “Do you enjoy watching cricket and tennis?” – ask for one bit of information at a time!
• Do not use double negatives. Instead of using phrases like “Bullying in online spaces should not be frowned upon”, use “Bullying in online spaces should be frowned upon” to be agreed on.
• Avoid embarrassing questions.
• The questions should flow in the direction of abstract from factual.
• Avoid jargons.

Hiring a Dissertation / Questionnaire Help Service : 

It is, however, not a necessity to spend all your vacation time struggling with questionnaires. You can simply contact us at Quality Dissertation Help UK and we can make sure you we solve all your questionnaire or dissertation related worries.