Tip sheet on question wording

Harrison, C. (2007). Tip sheet on question wording. Harvard University Program on Survey Research, 1-4. Retrieved from https://psr.iq.harvard.edu/files/psr/files/PSRQuestionnaireTipSheet_0.pdf

Summary

Like other articles on survey design, this article gives useful tips to researchers.  Specifically, it focuses on question wording.  One piece of advice the article starts off with is not to reinvent the wheel.  If others have use similar questions or measurements in the past that are relevant to what you are wanting to measure, feel free to use them.  Other good tips that stand out from this article are examples of scales they give for measurements, being clear and concise with question wording while avoiding jargon, use filtering methods to have people answer questions relevant to them.

Experience

For me, this is further reference for use when designing surveys or helping other to design their own surveys.  What I found that was very useful for me was the quick discussion on order response.  That was helpful to me with recent surveys I have designed.

KEYWORDS: primacy, recency, jargon, reference frame, rating scales, pre-existing questions, pre-test