For quantitative studies
Quantitative research is structured and predetermined in terms of what you want to find out
about and how. As a part of this operational step, you need to decide what questions to ask
of your respondents, the wording you are going to use and the order in which the questions
will be asked. This exercise is designed to help to develop skills in constructing an instrument.
One of the ways to formulate the questions that are going to constitute your research
instrument is by examining each subobjective, research question and hypothesis you
have developed for your study, specifying for each the information you require, identifying
the variables that are needed, and then formulating questions to be asked of your
respondents to get information about those variables.
The wording of your questions should be simple and unambiguous. Do not ask leading
questions or questions based upon presumptions. Avoid double-barrelled questions.
The pre-test of a research instrument is an integral part of instrument construction. As
a rule, the pre-test should not be carried out on your sample but on a similar population