Discuss the types of Questions in a Questionnaire/Interview Guide

(i) Demographic Questions

These are questions which seek background information about the respondent, for example, sex, age, level of education, marital status, occupation, religious affiliation and place of residence.
Example: How old are you?
What is your occupation?

(ii) Opinion and attitude questions
These types of questions solicit information about respondent’s attitudes, beliefs, feelings and misconceptions relating to an area of inquiry.
Example: Which of the following subjects do you like most?

(iii) Information questions
These questions seek to find out the respondent’s knowledge of an area of concern to the evaluator.
Examples: a. When was the secondary school at which you teach established?
b. How many children dropped out of school last year at your school?

(iv) Self-Perception Questions
These are questions that try to determine the respondent’s evaluation of his/her behaviour in relations to others and also his evaluation of others.
Examples: a. how often do you use teaching aids?
b. Are teachers in your district conversant with authentic assessment methods?

or
1 Structured or closed-ended questions
They are questions, which are accompanied by a list of possible alternatives from which respondents select the answer that best describes their situation.
Advantages of Structured or closed-ended questions
- They are easier to analyse since they are in an immediate usable form
- They are easier to administer
- They are economical to use in terms of time and money

Disadvantages of Structured or closed-ended questions
- They are more difficult to construct
- Responses are limited and the respondent is compelled to answer questions according to the researcher’s choices

2 Unstructured or open – ended questions
They refer to questions, which give the respondent complete freedom of response. The amount of space provided is always an indicator of whether a brief or lengthy answer is desired.

Advantages of Unstructured or open – ended questions
- They permit a greater depth of response
- They are simple to formulate
- The respondent’s responses may give an insight into his feelings, background, hidden motives, interest and decisions.

Disadvantages of Unstructured or open – ended questions
- There is a tendency of the respondents providing information, which does not answer the stipulated research questions or objectives.
- The responses given may be difficult to categorize and hence difficult to analyze quantitatively
- Responding to open ended questions is time consuming, which may put some respondent off.

3 Contingency questions
In particular cases, certain questions are applicable to certain groups of respondents. In such cases, follow-up questions are needed to get further information from the relevant sub-group only. These subsequent questions, which are asked after the initial questions, are called ‘contingency questions’ or ‘ filter questions’. The purpose of these kinds of questions is to probe for more information. They also simplify the respondent’s task, in that they will not be required to answer questions that are not relevant to them.

4 Matrix questions
These are questions, which share the same set of response categories. They are used whenever scales like likert scale are being used.

Advantages of matrix questions
- When questions or items are presented in matrix form, they are easier to complete and hence the respondent is unlikely not to be put off.
- Space is used efficiently
- It is easy to compare responses given to different items.

Disadvantages of matrix questions
- Some respondents, especially the ones that may not be too keen to give right responses, might form a pattern of agreeing or disagreeing with statements.
- Some researchers use them when in fact the kind of information being sought could better be obtained in another format.

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maurice.mutuku answered the question on October 3, 2019 at 09:59