Influence of the questionnaire design in self-administered surveys

Abstract

A review of the international literature about self-administered instruments talks about the poorer responses in the completion of the questionnaire. In order to find out the better or poorer responses to a questionnaire (made up of questions of different types and formats) it will be necessary to consider the impact of the questions on the responses. Is it feasible to think that questions which provide high-quality data in web surveys do not work in mail questionnaires? The purpose of this paper is to assess how question format and question type influences the number of non-responses in traditional self-administered (pen and paper) questionnaires and in Web questionnaires. To do so, a general population survey will be used, which combines four question types and five questions formats.