I had a professor who said that you always had to test your questionnaire. Watch the face on the respondents to see if they understand what you are asking.
I have written before about the book “Art of Asking Questions.”
Ipsos Canada is part of one of the world’s leading survey-based marketing research firms. You would have thought that they would know how to test their surveys before releasing them to the field.
So tell me, how should I have responded to the very first question in a survey that said:
Please indicate below whether there are male adults present in your household in each of the following age ranges. (Please select all that apply.) ☐ Under 18 ☐ 18-24 ☐ There are no male adults in my household
Hmmm. Hardly mutually exclusive and exhaustive. What do you answer here if you are a male adult aged 25 or older? How about, none of the above? The survey wouldn’t let me continue without selecting at least one response.
I asked the help line what they were expecting from me and they said that I should have clicked on the box that said there are no male adults. Right – that makes sense.
It was a lot easier for the survey help desk to answer my inquiry that way. The alternative would have been for them to tell the study director that they had to start this survey over.
The client will never know the difference.