BUS3059 Week 2 Discussion

Surveys and Survey Questions

A questionnaire is one of the most common methods of collecting data while doing business research. To create

questionnaire items for a business research survey, you, as the researcher, need to keep in mind various options

and guidelines so that the survey is accurate and provides the desired results.

First, you must decide whether each question in the survey should be structured or unstructured. It is not unusual for a survey to include questions of both types.

Next, you must decide whether each question in the survey is going to "disguise" some element of the research.

The purpose of disguising some element of the research is not to mislead the subject of the research. Rather, the

researcher sometimes suspects that, if the subjects knew some particular fact about the research (such as who the

sponsor of the research is or what speci�c outcome the sponsor might wish to discover), then the subject's

answers might be biased by that knowledge.

Finally, measurement questions must be constructed carefully. Such questions fall into three categories:

Administrative Questions are used to determine such things as what the interview location is, who the

participant is, and who the interviewer is.

Classi�cation Questions comprise various demographic questions so that the participants' responses can be

grouped. An example is the educational level of the participants.

Target Questions focus on the investigative questions of a research study. If the study is about cars, the

target questions might focus on what types of cars the participants like to purchase.

There are other factors that must be taken into consideration when designing survey questions. Please review the

"Survey Questions" supplemental reading for additional information about using structured vs. unstructured

questions, disguised vs. undisguised questions, and effective methods for creating questionnaire items.

Additional Materials

View a Pdf Transcript of Survey Questions 

(media/week2/SUO_BUS3059%20W2%20L2%20Survey%20Questions.pdf? _&d2lSessionVal=jQ6qyiQpZQmbuyjpLDyEce2pF&ou=84108)

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