Introduction
Information is essential to make decisions about the future. To make a good decision, we must obtain accurate information. Better decisions are due to better information. There are a number of ways to obtain information; the common way shall be the questionnaire survey. A questionnaire is a research tool that containing of a series of questions and other prompts to gather information from respondents. The advantages of questionnaires over some other types of surveys; questionnaires are cheaper, require less effort than the questioner as verbal or telephone surveys, and have standardized answers that make it simple to compile data. However, questionnaires are also limited by the fact that respondents must be able to read the questions and respond to them.
Hence, the purpose of this assignment is to gain experience in designing questionnaires to obtain information on how student select restaurants. The emphasis is not only on the designing the questionnaires, but also on the need to pretest questionnaires in order to make refinements before using them in the actual survey. To ensure the effectiveness of the survey questionnaire, it is necessary to pretest the questionnaire before actually using it. Pretest the questionnaires can help to determine the strengths and weaknesses of questionnaire design. Therefore, in the pretesting process 10 students from Kedah Learning Center of Open University Malaysia (OUM PPW Kedah) have been selected to answer the questionnaires by using personal interviews. After obtaining the results of the pretest, the questionnaires have been redesigned to make refinements before using them in the actual survey.
Principles of Good Questionnaire Design
Normally, questionnaires were used to gather information from a large number of respondents. It is important to have a well-designed questionnaire, so that it effectively allowed market researcher to gather information that useful to them. A questionnaire should be designed in a multi-stage process. Every step needs to be designed carefully in order to get good final results. Even though questionnaires may be cheaper as compared to other methods, they are expensive in terms of time consumption. The following some principles will help market researcher in designing a good questionnaire:
Define what information is needed - A question should always clearly define the issue being addressed. Question designer should make a listing of the information that is needed in order to achieve the questionnaire objective.
Make a listing of the questions - Questionnaire designer should make a list of all the questions that could go into the questionnaire. This is to make the questionnaire to be as comprehensive as possible.
Choosing the Question Structure - Questions can be either structured or unstructured. Unstructured questions are open- ended questions in which the respondents have the freedom to reply. Structured questions pre-specify the set of response alternatives and the response format. They improve respondent cooperation and make administering and coding the survey easier.
Use ordinary words and unambiguous words - The words used in a question should be matched the vocabulary level of respondent and have a single meaning that is known to the respondent.
Put the questionnaires into an appropriate sequence - It is important to put questions into an appropriate sequence in order to bring logic and flow to the interview. Usually the respondent wills first answer the straightforward questions then only the difficult and sensitive ones.
Finalise the layout of the questionnaire - It is good to divide a questionnaire into several parts, each part dealing with a specific set of questions; research has shown that questions at the top of the page receive more attention than those placed at the bottom.
Pretesting - The last step is to test the questionnaire. Pretesting refer to testing the questionnaires on a small number of respondents (about 10 to 20 respondents) by using interviewing method to make sure that the questionnaires works. The main purpose of the test is to make refinements before using them in the actual survey.
The initial questions asked in the questionnaire
Malaysia is a country with a multi-ethnic population that includes Malays, Chinese and Indian. Therefore, there are a lot of restaurants that have operated by restaurant operators from varying ethnic background in Malaysia. The restaurant industry in Malaysia is highly competitive, restaurant operators need to have a better understanding of their customer's wants and needs. Lately, the population of university students in Malaysia has increased dramatically which has created a big market share in restaurant industry of Malaysia. Hence, in order to be successful in this industry it is important for the restaurant operators to have a deep understanding of the university student's needs and wants. The purpose of this assignment is to enable restaurant operators in Malaysia to better understand of university student needs and attitudes towards restaurants, so that they are able to position their market well.
The questionnaire method will be used to gather information from the university students. The initial questionnaire (refer Appendix A) was designed with the objective as below to gather information that will help restaurant operators to understand university student' needs and wants. The questionnaire objectives were:
To determine the demographic profile of university students of restaurants.
To identify factors influencing university students to dine at restaurants.
To identify the most important factors influencing all university students.
The questionnaire was designed to gather information on the factors that influence the decision making of university students to dine at restaurants in Malaysia. The questionnaire used multiple choose question that comprised three parts:
Demographic data (Question No1~No3 and No5)
Demographic data will help to determine the restaurant sales potential of a market area. By comparing these data with other areas and the state, restaurant operators will be able to evaluate the strength of their market area. This would also enable them to better understand the differing needs and wants of multi-ethnic university students.
Frequency of dining and the average amount spend at restaurants (Question No 4, 6,7,16,18,20)
The data for frequency of dining at restaurants will help restaurant operators to better understanding the needs and wants of the university students. It also enables restaurant operators to be better position their market. Pricing is one of the most important factors of the marketing mix. It shows the value of the product or service to potential customers. Setting the price of a product or service is very essential due to it will influence the potential customers buying decisions. Therefore, the data of average amount spend at restaurants will help restaurant operators to set appropriate price for the food they served.
The importance of various factors when making a decision to dine out (Question No 8 ~ No 14)
Various important factors have been asked in the questionnaire such as type of restaurant, type of food, factor that influence someone to try a new restaurant, the way ones selecting restaurant and also the effect of web site to influence someone to dine in a restaurant. Through these important data, restaurant operators will able to provide right type of food and also right type of restaurant to their potential customers. Moreover, the used of web site to attract customer become important due to its low cost. Thus, questions about the effect of the web site have been asked in the questionnaire to gather information on this matter, so that the restaurant operators will have a better picture of the usage of internet to attract their potential customers. On the other hand, the way how a university student chooses a restaurant has been asked in the questionnaire. The respondents are allowed to choose answer; (a) previous positive experiences, (b) recommendation from friends, (c) location of the restaurant and (d) the price of the foods. It's believed that these data may help restaurant operators to choose the collect promotional tools in the effort to inform potential customers about their restaurants.
The new questions asked in the questionnaire (Refer Appendix B)
Pre-test questionnaire is a very important part of the questionnaire designing process. This involves testing the questionnaire in conditions as similar as possible to actual questionnaire answering process. Pretesting questionnaire can help to determine the strengths and weaknesses of a questionnaire. Moreover, by pretest questionnaire also help to have a reliable question format and also a good wording and order. A questionnaire will yield better results if it is pretest under a correct method. Therefore, after the initial questionnaire has constructed, it has pretested with 10 students from Kedah Learning Center of Open University Malaysia (OUM PPW Kedah) that have been selected to answer the questionnaires by using personal interviews. In the pretesting process it has been found that there are a number of a problems or mistakes in the initial questionnaire. Thus, in order to eliminate the problems some modification on the question has been done as below:
Keep the questionnaire as short as possible
Through personal interview with the OUM's student in the pretesting process, it has been found low response rate from them due to the long questionnaire. Normally, long questionnaires get low response rate than short questionnaires. How much confidence that can place in the results is depending on the most important indicator known as response rate. Therefore, shorten the questionnaire is the most effective method of maximizing response rate.
As a result, the initial questionnaire from 22 questions has been shortening to only 15 questions. The questions from No.15 to No.20 have been shortening to only 2 questionnaire due to it severed only the same information as answer of the question No.14 has provided the information of what meals do the respondent eaten most in a restaurant. Moreover, there are some questions needs to eliminate due to its do not severe the questionnaire objective such as question No.7, No.21 and No.22.
Can accommodate all possible answers.
The feedback from the pretest respondents show that the questions can confuse the respondent if asking a question that does not accommodate all possible responses. For example:
How often do you eat in a restaurant?
Once a week
Twice a week
Once a month
It can found that there are many problems with this question. What if the respondent doesn't have answer from the multiple choice answer? What if he has answer different from the answer given? Therefore, the way to correct the problem is to add the necessary response categories and allow multiple responses as below:
How often do you eat in a restaurant?
Once a week
Twice a week
Once a month
Other, please state……………………………….
By adding answer of D, the respondents are allowed to choose answer other than answer of A, B & C. Therefore, the respondents can state the actual frequency that they eat in a restaurant which will provide more accurate information. Thus, there are a number of questions from the initial questionnaire has been modify to the same method as above example for the purpose of gathering more accurate data.
Order of the question
The order in which the questions are presented is a crucial element because it has been notice that improper ordering of the questions can seriously bias the response. Therefore, the ordering of the initial question has been changed. Questions from No 9 to No 11 from the initial questionnaire have been push to the last part of the questionnaire due to it only allowed to gather the information that is less important.
Introductory paragraphs
A few respondents complaint that the initial questionnaire doesn't have introductory paragraphs which cause them don't know the purpose of the questionnaire if the questionnaire distributes through mail. Therefore, the questionnaire has been changed by adding introductory paragraph with the purpose to explain the object of the survey, and to encourage respondents to complete the questionnaire. For this reason, the introductory paragraph is important, and should include the following information:
The purpose of the study.
Assure the respondent that information provided will be managed in a strictly confidential manner and that all respondents will remain unidentified.
Explain the important of the respondent should complete the questionnaire.
Expression of appreciation for the respondent's help.
Conclusions
The advantages of questionnaires over some other types of surveys have made questionnaire survey become a popular survey tool that allowed gathering information from the respondents. However, it is important to have a well-designed questionnaire, so that it effectively allowed market researcher to gather information that can help them to better understanding their potential customer's needs and wants. A good questionnaire should be designed in a multi-stage process. Every step needs to be designed carefully in order to get good final results. The principles that will help market researcher in designing a good questionnaire such as; Define what information is needed, make a rough listing of the questions, choosing the Question Structure, use ordinary words and unambiguous words, put the questionnaires into an appropriate sequence, finalise the layout of the questionnaire and pretesting.
The purpose of this assignment is to gather information on how university students select restaurants by using questionnaire. The objective of the questionnaire is to provide information which facilitates a better understanding of university students and their needs, and also the better way for restaurant operators in positioning their restaurants to the university students. Thus, the initial questionnaire has designed with the objective; to determine the demographic profile of university students of restaurants and to identify factors influencing university students to dine at restaurants that comprised three parts; demographic data, frequency of dining and the average amount spend at restaurants and also the importance of various factors when making a decision to dine out.
However, in order to ensure the effectiveness of the questionnaire, it is necessary to pretest the questionnaire before actually using it. Therefore, after the initial questionnaire designed it has gone through the pretesting process where 10 students from Kedah Learning Center of Open University Malaysia (OUM PPW Kedah) have been selected to answer the questionnaires by using personal interviews. After obtaining the results of the pretest, it has been found that there are a number of a problems or mistakes in the initial questionnaire. Thus, in order to eliminate the problems some modification on the question has been done such as; try to keep the questionnaire as short as possible, made the question can accommodate all possible answers, reordering of the question and adding introductory paragraphs. Finally, a set of new questionnaire has designed and will be using it in the actual survey.
