Module 2: Practicalities of Educational Research - Cont.

Activity 2: The art of question making.

How do you get the information you need? By asking the right questions!
The task:
Design a 3 part Likert scale questionnaire that will uncover what people consider to be the most important parts of a healthy lifestyle.

My Likert scale gave five choices for response:

-Strongly Disagree

-Disagree

-Neutral

-Agree

-Strongly Agree

My three statements were:

1) A balanced diet is an essential
part of a healthy lifestyle.
2) Good Social wellbeing is essential
to a healthy lifestyle.
3) Physical health is the most
important part of a healthy
lifestlye.

Design two open ended questions on a healthy lifestyle:

Is a healthy lifestyle all about balance or are some things more essential than others?

What component of a healthy lifestyle would you view as essential? Explain.

I found it challenging to create questions that would elicit the type of information I needed. I spent a good part of the morning coming up with three questions! Playing with words, and ideas, constantly changing word order, imagine trying to design a whole survey! I’d never realized the amount of work that needs to go into the questions we pose.
Remember:
- Stay positive
- Be clear
- One idea per question

In the Likert scale I tried to give the respondent the opportunity to consider all areas of wellbeing and consider whether they found them essential. The more questions you are allowed to ask the better the information you would elicit, however you don’t want a 100 question survey, so being concise is a challenge.