The best practice for survey research is to determine what you are going to be conducting research in or about. You also need to choose what purpose your research is going to be: exploratory, description, or explanation. Once you have figured this out, then you can go ahead and determine what is going to be your independent and dependent variables in order to begin your research. Close-ended questions are preferred because they take less time to fill out, they need to be clear, avoid double barreled questions, short questions, and avoid negative items within your questions. Once you have completed this step then you can move onto analyzing the data you have received to cross compare with your initial reason on why you began the research.
The research question I am using is: Does income affect parent involvement? Questions that I will use to operationalize my dependent variable are questions such as: Did you and your child attempt the activity (0-10)? Did your child enjoy the activity (0-10)? Was your child able to successfully cut out the leaves from the construction paper (yes, no, somewhat)? Was your child able to use the glue successfully (yes, no, somewhat)? A question I will use to operationalize my independent variable are questions such as: What is your household income (give different ranges of income)?
The best practices for survey questions is to make sure you are asking questions in the correct form in order to avoid negative items being asked, doubled barreled questions, and to avoid biased items and terms as well. We want to use closed ended questions which forces the respondent to choose one answer making it easier to fill out. At the same time, we should look to avoid using open ended questions which are questions that the respondent will have to take longer to fill out because they will have to think through their answer. By following these guidelines these are good questions to ask because they are simple and to the point and will get you the information you need in order to complete you survey and research analysis.