questionnaires and web experiments
A questionnaire is a tool for research that includes questions that are in an established format to collect the responses of respondents. The responses to each question (item) on a structured survey can be consolidated and analysed statistically. Many kinds of research employ questionnaires, such as academic research and market research.
When designing your survey, it is crucial to consider the target audience. The questions should be simple and easy to understand, without technical terms or jargon that are difficult for non-experts. It is also important to keep the length of the survey as short as possible. People don’t like long surveys, and the longer a survey is, the lower the response rate will be.
Web experiments are the method of conducting online experiments using a browser-based interface such as a site or mobile application. The advantages of this method include the possibility of creating interactive and personalized experiments, the ability to track user activity, and the possibility of using conditional branching based upon previous answers given by the participant.
The disadvantages of web-based experiments include the absence of a control group which can result in unintentional confusion and inadequate generalization. Due to the interactive nature of web-based experiments, it could be difficult to assess their results.
It is also important to pretest your questionnaire, at the very least, using a suitable sample before administering it in the field. This will allow you to spot any ambiguity or unclear words in the questions and eliminate them prior to giving the survey to your intended audience.