The role of informal microfinance institutions in saving

In constructing the questionnaire in terms of wording and layout, consideration was given to
its usefulness as a guide for decision or opinion making. The funneling approach was adopted
in designing the overall structure of the questionnaire. This approach involved asking general
questions first before gradually restructuring the focus through more specific questions, thereby
leaving the most direct question until the last (Stokes, 1998). This technique is used to reduce
elements of bias which could come from asking specific questions up front.
Efforts were made to eschew biased wording in the framing of the questionnaire. Cooper
and schindler (2001) observed that strong adjectives can be particularly distorting in the
formation of questions. Also attempts were made not to personalize questions. Open-
ended and closed questions were asked bearing in mind the different back ground of the
respondents such as:
• Respondent motivation: Closed questions have been found to require less motivation
and answering them is less threatening to respondents (Cooper and Schindler, 2001).
Closed questions are preferable in large survey as they reduce the variability of
response, make fewer demands on interviewer skills and much easier to analyze
(Cooper &Schindler, 2001).
• Communication Skill: Open-ended questions require a stronger grasp of vocabulary and
a greater ability to frame responses than do closed questions. Often respondents find it
difficult to answer open-ended questions. In order to extract the best from respondents,
the following response strategies were adopted in designing the questionnaire.
• Question Sequence: Arrangement of questions play a significant role in achieving the
desired response. Consequently, stimulating questions were asked first before more
sensitive ones. The design of the questionnaire was therefore structured in a manner to
extract the best from the respondents based on the following strategies:
• Free response (or open-ended questions)
• Dichotomous response (e.g. Yes or No.)
• Multiple choice response providing more than two alternatives
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