How and What Kind of Questionnaire to Create for Your Thesis?

In this article, we show you how to create a questionnaire for quantitative research purposes.

It can be useful if you want to refute or strengthen your hypothesis with it.

Golden Rule: People Are Lazy 😴

That's right, we are lazy. We like to go towards the least resistance.

You need to provide short and clear text and questions in your questionnaire.

First Rule: Briefly Summarize What the Questionnaire Is For

At the beginning, it's worth briefly summarizing what your questionnaire is about.

This helps the respondent understand what it's about, whether they can answer it meaningfully, e.g.:

The questionnaire is meant to strengthen/refute my hypothesis "There are more male users than female users on Tinder" . I ask for your help with this.

Second Rule: Ask Relevant Questions

Obvious, but I'll write it. Your questions should relate to your topic area, be easily comparable, groupable.

Why? Because you can draw conclusions from these.

Read our comparison article to see what you can do with your questionnaire data.

The next thing to watch for is that the answers are noticeably and visibly different.

Let's look at some examples:

How often do you eat chocolate? (Never, Sometimes, Occasionally, every day, almost always)
Do you eat white chocolate? (Yes/No)

Which one do you think is easier and faster to answer from the above examples?

Yes-no answers are not only shorter, but result in clearer and faster responses.

Fun fact: On a lie detector test, you can only answer yes/no and they can establish an objective fact.

More Clicking, Less Typing!

Provide response options that don't require greater effort.

Providing name or email address often already means torture for the respondent. (Yes, unfortunately people have become very lazy. 🤷)

More Clicking, Less Typing! So the user should click rather than write in your questionnaire.

Another advantage is that you don't have to "clean" the data afterward, correct typos, etc...

What input fields should you use?

Multiple choice
Slider
Radio buttons

What should you not use if possible?

Long, essay-style response sections

The questionnaire must be quick to fill out. The more pages your questionnaire has, the more certain that people won't fill it out.

Many Small Rather Than One Big

Learning materials and articles are also broken up for a reason.

Have several small questionnaires instead of giving people one big one.

Summary: The questionnaire can help prove or refute your hypothesis. Keep it short, to the point, with minimal typing input. Have several small questionnaires rather than one big one.