UNDERSTANDING YOUR TARGETS

Designing a questionnaire for your study may seem easy; after all, once you have spent enough time gathering literature, all that's left is to identify key pieces of information and convert them in the form of questions.

So it goes to stand that the more time you spend gathering relevant literature, the more content you collect to convert and reform as questions for your questionnaire tool.

Still, how much is too much? Where do you draw the line and say "well, that should be enough"?

Truth is, there is no real guideline. This is where your field experience comes into play.

Depending on who you intend to gather information from, using your tool, your questionnaire can be as long or as short as you want it to be. But be warned that nobody likes to sit through and attempt to answer a never ending list of questions that hit hard on their brain cells.

Does your tool target individuals who are generally too busy to even have time for themselves? Go for less.

Do you plan to involve people who are highly motivated and extremely keen to learn more on the subject your tool addresses? Feel free to include those extra questions.

The truth is, THEIR time spent answering YOUR questionnaire, largely HELPS YOU in the short run.

So whatever be the case, you need to spend as much time understanding the people you expect to receive help from, as you would gathering literature on the content you are interested.

It's all a numbers game. ☺

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