Abstract:
Discusses questionnaire design—household, service provider, community (and price), or other data collection instruments—including both paper questionnaires and electronic questionnaires installed into tablets or other electronic devices. As with data collection as a whole, questionnaires to collect data require careful design because of the many types of potential errors, and serious errors can render the data useless for the purpose of conducting an impact evaluation. Even seemingly small errors can greatly reduce the quality of an impact evaluation. A well-formatted questionnaire can greatly improve the work of the interviewers, and more generally, improve the quality and accuracy of the collected data. Questionnaire recommendations include: (1) write out the exact questions; (2) have precoded answers; (3) use skip codes or patterns (answer to one question determines the next question); and (4) use consistent formatting. Many data collection organizations have moved to computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI), which has both advantages and disadvantages, depending on the setting and target audience.
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