Asking Questions - The Definitive Guide To Questionnaire Design ...

ORGANIZING AND DESIGNING QUESTIONNAIRES 311
avoided is in asking about multiple household members or events.
Interviewers instructed to skip if a designated response is given
about any household member or event may skip immediately and
thus forget to ask about any remaining household members or
events, or forget to skip entirely.
Using the Questionnaire to Plan New Studies
The length of an interview is based on the ending time minus the
beginning time. The times should be recorded on a paper interview
with the beginning time at the top of the first page of the questionnaire
and the ending time at the bottom of the last page. Sometimes,
intermediate times are also recorded to obtain the length of
individual sections. (This information is obtained automatically in
computer-assisted interviewing.) This provides useful information
for estimating the cost and timing of future studies using the same
or a similar questionnaire. It is difficult or impossible to estimate the
time required to conduct an interview simply on the basis of the
number of pages or questions.
There should also be some place for interviewers to record any
problems they had with the questionnaire since such comments can
be helpful in planning new studies and in interpreting the results of
the present one. The space for comments may be on a separate
interviewer report form or on the questionnaire. These comments
are a supplement to and not a substitute for interviewer debriefings
that are held after a study to obtain interviewer experiences.
Summary
Each mode of survey has its advantages and disadvantages relative
to the others. A basic summary of some of these advantages and disadvantages
are noted in Table 10.1. Too often, the mode of a survey
is dictated by what a person or institution is most comfortable with.
People who are used to Web-based surveys will have a bias toward
conducting additional surveys in this manner. People who are