Survey Design

The best practices for survey research are creating questions that are clear and not double barreled. The respondents must be competent to answer as well as willing to answer the questions. The questions should also be relevant, the items must be short, avoid negative items, and avoid biased items and terms. The research question for this study is “how does the family fun time activity influence family involvement?”.  Since the independent variable of this research question is the family fun time activity, the question being used to operationalize this variable is “Was the activity completed?” with responses of yes, no, partially, and unsure. Since the dependent variable is family involvement, the question being used to operationalize this variable is “On a scale of 0-10 (0 being not at all, 10 being very involved), how involved were you in the family fun time activity?” with responses on a scale of 0-10. These are good, well written questions because they clear, not double barreled, relevant, short, avoid negative items, and avoid biased items and terms.