RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

PILOTING THE QUESTIONNAIRE 341
November. You may either place it in the collection
box at the General Office at my institution or send
it by post (stamped addressed envelope enclosed), or
by fax or email attachment.
The questionnaire will take around fifteen minutes
to complete. It employs rating scales and asks for
your comments and a few personal details. You do
not need to write your name, andyouwillnotbe
able to be identified or traced. ANONYMITY AND
NON-TRACEABILITY ARE ASSURED. When
completed, I intend to publish my results in an
education journal.
If you wish to discuss any aspects of the study then
please do not hesitate to contact me.
Iverymuchhopethatyouwillfeelabletoparticipate.
May I thank you, in advance, for your valuable
cooperation.
Yours sincerely,
Signed
Contact details (address, fax, telephone, email)
For a further example of a questionnaire see
the accompanying web site (http://www.routledge
.com/textbooks/9780415368780 – Chapter 15, file
15.1.doc).
Piloting the questionnaire
It bears repeating that the wording of questionnaires
is of paramount importance and that
pretesting is crucial to their success (see http://
www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415368780 –
Chapter 15, file 15.12. ppt). A pilot has several
functions, principally to increase the reliability,
validity and practicability of the questionnaire
(Oppenheim 1992; Morrison 1993: Wilson
and McLean 1994: 47):
to check the clarity of the questionnaire items,
instructions and layout
to gain feedback on the validity of the
questionnaire items, the operationalization of
the constructs and the purposes of the research
to eliminate ambiguities or difficulties in
wording
to check readability levels for the target
audience
to gain feedback on the type of question and
its format (e.g. rating scale, multiple choice,
open, closed etc.)
to gain feedback on response categories for
closed questions and multiple choice items, and
for the appropriateness of specific questions or
stems of questions
to identify omissions, redundant and irrelevant
items
to gain feedback on leading questions
to gain feedback on the attractiveness and
appearance of the questionnaire
to gain feedback on the layout, sectionalizing,
numbering and itemization of the questionnaire
to check the time taken to complete the
questionnaire
to check whether the questionnaire is too long
or too short, too easy or too difficult
to generate categories from open-ended
responses to use as categories for closed
response-modes (e.g. rating scale items)
to identify how motivating/non-motivating
/sensitive/threatening/intrusive/offensive items
might be
to identify redundant questions (e.g. those
questions which consistently gain a total ‘yes’
or ‘no’ response: Youngman 1984: 172), i.e.
those questions with little discriminability
to identify which items are too easy, too
difficult, too complex or too remote from the
respondents’ experience
to identify commonly misunderstood or noncompleted
items (e.g. by studying common
patterns of unexpected response and nonresponse
(Verma and Mallick 1999: 120))
to try out the coding/classification system for
data analysis.
In short, as Oppenheim (1992: 48) remarks,
everything about the questionnaire should be
piloted; nothing should be excluded, not even
the type face or the quality of the paper.
Chapter 15