Rethinking Questionnaire Design to Enhance Data Quality

Abstract

Questionnaire surveys are widely utilized in various research fields, with accepted practices like distributing clear and precise questions to respondents for completion. However, this chapter stems from a sociolinguistic pilot study where these practices failed. Accepted practices of street-based respondent-filled questionnaires were impractical, leading to the adoption of market research techniques for alternative questionnaire administration - the approach of a structured interview where the researcher records responses. This proved more effective than common respondent-filled questionnaire administration in applied linguistics research. The pilot further showed that clear question phrasing caused confusion, while ambiguous ones yielded more valuable insights. This experience offers potential for cross-disciplinary method enhancement, suggesting that incorporating methods from other fields can improve research methodologies and generate insightful participant responses.