Questionnaire Design

Questionnaire design is difficult and important to get right as early as possible in a study.

A good questionnaire should be:

Valid
Reliable
Discriminating

Discrimination is the ability of the questionnaire to separate out important differences between the individuals you are studying.

Do not under estimate the time and resource required to develop a valid, reliable and discriminating questionnaire. If there is already a questionnaire that has been developed for your study purpose and validated in a population appropriate to your study then try to use it.

Familiarise yourself with the basic concepts of questionnaire design and analysis at the start of your investigation; texts such as McDowell and Newell (1996) and Streiner and Normal (1995) are available.