Research Topics

5 Tips for asking questions in your research

As a researcher or an entrepreneur, the questions you ask are very important. How you ask them is equally important. Let's look at some tips to questioning in research:

**Always use simple and everyday language. This is important as some of your respondents may not be educated and even if they are, they still may not understand you. For example: Is anyone in your family dipsomaniac?  Instead of this, you can ask: Is anyone in your family suffering from alcoholism?

** Do not ask ambiguous questions, be specific. An ambiguous question has different interpretations, making it difficult to draw conclusions. For example: Are you satisfied with your canteen? is an ambiguous question. Instead you can ask, Are you satisfied with the service (or prices, staff attitude, quality of meals) of your canteen?

**Don't ask double barrelled questions. A double barrelled question is a question within a question. For example: How often and how much time do you spend on each visit? The respondent may not know which one to answer. The question is better when it is splitted into two parts. For example: How often do you visit the hospital? How much time do you spend on each visit?

**Do not ask leading questions? For example: Smoking is bad, isn't it? Here you are looking for a confirmation of your thoughts that smoking is bad.

** Do not ask presumptuous questions. For example: How many cigarettes do you smoke in a day? You have already assumed that the person is a smoker. Instead ask: Are you a smoker? If yes, how many cigarettes do you smoke in a day?

In all these, mind the tone and wordings of your questions, it determines the quality of information you will get.

I hope this helps. Have a great week.

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