How to Create a Questionnaire

Questionnaires are created by organizations to gather information.

Organizations create questionnaires to gather information that helps increase efficiency and profitability. They are created by first determining a focus and then creating the questions around that focus. Questionnaires are given to customers, employees or potential market segments. These people fill them out, return them and the answers are tallied. Organizations make decisions about the future of the company based on the information from the questionnaire results.

Instructions

1. Choose a focus for the questionnaire. Determine the main goals of the questionnaire, the specific kind of information you want to collect, and focus on creating questions around these areas.

2. Determine who you will distribute the survey to. The people you select for the survey should have interests or concerns related to the focus of the survey. For example, if the focus is to find out customer needs or satisfaction information, it would be given to current customers.

3. Begin the questionnaire with important details. Include the purpose of the questionnaire at the top of the survey form, along with the expected amount of time it will take to complete all questions.

4. Develop the questions. Choose questions that pertain directly to the focus. Place the questions in a logical, sequential order. Questions can be multiple choice or can have rating scales. A rating scale asks the customer to rate products or services by choosing an answer between, for example, 1 and 5 where "1" stands for strongly disagree and "5" stands for strongly agree. Make the questions clear, easy to understand and easy to answer. Using one of these question formats makes the process of tallying the answers easier.

5. Leave a comment line. Below all of the questions, leave a line allowing respondents to comment in any way they would like. It allows them to give a comment or concern about something not listed on the questionnaire.

6. Thank the respondents. At the end of the questionnaire, thank the participants for completing the questionnaire and offer instructions and deadline information for returning the form.

7. Distribute the forms. Determine how the forms will be distributed, and handle this accordingly. After all forms are handed out, only a portion of them generally return. After the deadline date, tally the results.

References

• PSU: Questionnaires
• Survey System: Constructing a Questionnaire