This snapshot taken on 05/09/2007, shows web content selected for preservation by The National Archives. External links, forms and search boxes may not work in archived websites.
Last Updated: 19/1/2007
Whilst it is important to ask open questions to get broad, 'free-thinking' comments from your respondents, information obtained from closed question based surveys can be very useful. This kind of qualitative research will allow you to ascertain definitive opinions in response to set questions. These can then be translated into hard statistics which will help you to assess which options are viable and/or popular and will allow you to compare your results with those of any relevant surveys which may have been previously undertaken.
However, you should remember that consultation through questionnaire based surveys will only be as good as the quality of questions asked. Your results will be skewed if your questions are not clear and objective, or if you fail to ask questions about issues which are important or contentious for your respondents. Think carefully about the layout design of your survey. A questionnaire that is well set out, in large print size and with clear instructions and background information is likely to achieve a far greater number of responses than one which is poorly presented and badly thought through.
For this reason, you should you test your draft questionnaire on a small group of stakeholders and get honest feedback from them on the quality of your proposed questionnaire before sending it out to your full list of stakeholders. You should also make sure that respondents have other opportunities to express any other comments they may have which may not be covered by your questionnaire.
[Top]