Lectures 5 and 6

Question 1

Proprietary Info

Answer 1

Brand Name & Manufacturer

Question 2

nominal scales

Answer 2

Mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive categories

Question 3

ordinal scales

Answer 3

Implies statement of greater than and less than (ranking)

Question 4

interval scales

Answer 4

Equality of interval (Equal distance exists between

numbers)

Question 5

ratio scales

Answer 5

Absolute zero point; flat numeric data

Question 6

characteristics of good measurement scales

Answer 6

1. Reliability: The degree to which repeated measurements yield consistent results
2. Validity: Are we measuring what we think we are
   measuring?
3. Sensitivity: Ability to discriminate between meaningful
   differences in attitudes

Question 7

scaling tips

Answer 7

Keep the scales relatively simple
• State instructions clearly
• A “don’t know” option, if necessary
• Have enough “white” space between scales &
questions
• Limit open ended questions
• Pilot test the scales with groups similar to the
planned respondent group

Question 8

questionnaire development

Answer 8

Step 1: Specify what information will be sought
Step 2: Determine type of questionnaire and method of administration
Step 3: Determine content of individual questions
Step 4: Determine form of response to each question
Step 5: Determine wording to each question
Step 6: Determine question sequence
Step 7: Determine physical characteristics of questionnaire
Step 8: Reexamine step 1-7 and revise if necessary
Step 9: Pretest questionnaire and revise if necessary

Question 9

step 1

Answer 9

Precision at earlier stage
Dummy Tables
Interesting vs. relevant information

Question 10

step 2

Answer 10

Questionnaire type:
Structure, disguise
Method of administration:
-personal, mail, telephone, e-mail, web…
Initial Questions: screeners/warm ups

Question 11

Screeners

Answer 11

• Helps to winnow the respondents to the most appropriate people
- Have you shopped at the Gap in the past month?
• Establish respondent “buy-in” for the survey

Question 12

Warm-ups

Answer 12

• Gets the respondent thinking about the topic at hand

- How often do you go shopping?

Question 13

step 3

Answer 13

Is the question necessary?
Are several questions needed instead of one?
Do respondents have the necessary information and can
they remember it?
Will respondents give the information?
-Effort
-Sensitivity

Question 14

Branching question

Answer 14

1. Do you have a personal computer (PC) at home?
   ___ Yes ___ No—please go to Q.3
2. What brand of PC do you own? _________

Question 15

step 4

Answer 15

Open-ended questions
-What do you like and dislike about brand A?

Fixed-alternative questions

• Scales
• Dichotomous
• Multichotomous

Question 16

Issues with multichotomous items

Answer 16

 Check one item vs. multiple items
 Exhaustive
 Mutually exclusive
 “Other” category
 “Don’t know” or “no opinion” option
 Order bias

Question 17

step 5

Answer 17

Use simple and unambiguous words
Avoid leading questions
Avoid generalization and estimates
Avoid double barreled questions
Avoid implicit alternatives and assumptions

Question 18

step 6

Answer 18

Use simple, interesting opening questions
Use the funnel approach, asking broad questions first
Carefully design branching questions
Ask for classification (e.g., demographics) information last
Place difficult or sensitive questions near the end

Question 19

Transitions - First Third of Questions:

Answer 19

• Questions that set the tone for the more difficult questions to come
• Ordinal scale - sorting or ranking type questions
• Example: “Rank order the following products based on your preference”

Question 20

Complicated - Second Third of Questions:

Answer 20

• Use of rating scales for attributes, attitudes, beliefs, opinion, etc
• Expands on warm-up questions with more quantifiable scales
• Example: “How likely are you to purchase the following products?
(scale 1 to 10, with 1 being least likely to buy, and 10 being most
likely to buy)?”

Question 21

Classification - Last Third of Questions:

Answer 21

• Personal & demographic type questions
• Tackling controversial issues
• Example: “What is your household income?”

Question 22

Advantages of the internet and questionnaires

Answer 22

 The questionnaire appearance
 The survey can be created quickly
 Skip patterns can be efficiently established
 The survey can be distributed quickly for expert review & input

Question 23

Disadvantages of the internet and questionnaires

Answer 23

 Over reliance on electronic survey construction can lead
to the researcher’s getting sloppy as he might think “the
software will do the work and correct any errors