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The following guidelines are offered for those constructing their own questionnaires.

• Ensure questionnaires especially, those for students, are simple, short and unambiguous.

• Ensure the language used in the questionnaire is appropriate for the target group.

• Avoid leading questions, that is, questions which in themselves suggest a desired response.

• Consider the place of open ended or pre-coded questions in your questionnaire. Both may be appropriate but for different sorts of data.

• Don't mystify the process of finding out through questionnaires - ensure the questions are sensible and really add useful information to your data gathering.

• Questions that are likely to get an 'it depends' response should be avoided. They may be important to probe, but a questionnaire is probably the wrong strategy.

• And above all, ensure the questionnaire is bias-free.
  BEFORE USING THE QUESTIONNAIRE, TRIAL IT WITH A GROUP THAT IS SIMILAR TO THE GROUP TO BE SURVEYED. IT IS USEFUL TO BE ABLE TO DISCUSS THE QUESTIONNAIRE WITH THOSE INVOLVED IN THE TRIAL.

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