Principles of survey research: part 3: constructing a survey instrument

ABSTRACT

In this article, we discuss how to construct a questionnaire. We point out the need to use any previous research results to reduce the overheads of survey construction. We identify a number of issues to consider when selecting questions, constructing questions, deciding on the type of question and finalizing the format of the questionnaire.

REFERENCES

• 1: Linda Bourque and Eve Fielder, How to conduct self-administered and mail surveys, Sage Publications Inc., 1995.
• 2: Arlene Fink, How to Ask Survey Questions. Sage Publications Inc., 1995.
• 3: Timothy C. Lethbridge, A Survey of the Relevance of Computer Science and Software Engineering Education, Proceedings of the 11th Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training, p.0056, February 22-25, 1998
• 4: Timothy C. Lethbridge, What Knowledge Is Important to a Software Professional?, Computer, v.33 n.5, p.44-50, May 2000 [doi>10.1109/2.841783]
• 5: Janne Ropponen , Kalle Lyytinen, Components of Software Development Risk: How to Address Them? A Project Manager Survey, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.26 n.2, p.98-112, February 2000 [doi>10.1109/32.841112]

INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
question construction, question selection, question types, questionnaire format, survey construction