Economic Directorate Guidelines on Questionnaire Design
Rebecca L. Morrison, OSMREP
Samantha L. Stokes, OSMREP
James Burton, SSSD
Anthony Caruso, CSD
Kerstin K. Edwards, GOVS
Diane Harley, EPCD
Carlos Hough, FTD
Richard Hough, MCD
Barbara A. Lazirko, SSSD
Sheila Proudfoot, EPCD
September 19, 2008
3
Table of Contents
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................6
2. Background ................................................................................................................ 8
2.1 The Influence of Agency Context ......................................................................... 8
2.2 Relevant Research ............................................................................................ 10
2.3 Respondent Perspectives .................................................................................. 11
3. Guidelines on Wording ............................................................................................. 11
3.1 Phrase data requests as questions or imperative statements, not sentence
fragments or keywords. ...................................................................................... 12
3.2 Break down complex questions into a series of simple questions...................... 13
4. Guidelines on the Display of Answer Spaces / Response Options .......................... 18
4.1 Use white spaces against a colored background to highlight answer spaces. ... 18
4.2 Use similar answer spaces when requesting the same type of information. ...... 19
4.3 Clearly indicate the unit of measurement for each data item. ............................ 21
4.4 Decide whether or not to provide previously reported data to respondents
after weighing the potential data quality benefits and risks and the potential
disclosure risks. .........................................................................................