BGSU LRND Research Methods

Questions should not be leading. Questions should only ask for one piece of information. Questions need to be relevant to the topic of interest. Questions and response categories should be suitably designed and coded for the necessary statistical analyses. Questions should not be threatening to the participants. Questions should use language appropriate to the participants. Questions should be organized in a logical manner.

Another important consideration is the treatment of human subjects. Ensuring confidentiality or anonymity is of vital importance. Participants need to feel they have the ability to speak freely without the fear that answers will be traced back to them. This is especially important when conducting an organizational survey or when the topic of the survey is sensitive or controversial in nature. A careful script must be written that can either be read to the participants or attached to the survey. The script should explain the purpose of the survey, how they were selected to participate, that it is voluntary and their confidentiality or anonymity will be protected.