About the Author

Norman M. Bradburn is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor emeritus psychology, at the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy and the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago. He was a senior vice president at the National Opinion Research Center.

Seymour Sudman was a Walter H. Stellner Distinguished Professor of Marketing and deputy director and research professor at the Survey Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Professor Sudman died in 2000.

Brian Wansink is Professor of Marketing, Nutritional Science, Advertising and Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is also Research Professor at Cornell University and at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Book Description

Since it was first published more than twenty-five years ago, Asking Questions has become a classic guide for designing questionnaires?the most widely used method for collecting information about peoples attitudes and behavior. An essential tool for market researchers advertisers, pollsters, and social scientists, this thoroughly updated and definitive work combines time-proven techniques with the most current research, findings, and methods. The book presents a cognitive approach to questionnaire design and includes timely information on the Internet and electronic resources. Comprehensive and concise, Asking Questions can be used to design questionnaires for any subject area, whether administered by telephone, online, mail, in groups, or face-to-face. The book describes the design process from start to finish and is filled with illustrative examples from actual surveys.

From the Back Cover

"The best single source about the present state of knowledge of questionnaire construction."

–Choice

Since it was first published more than twenty-five years ago, Asking Questions has become a classic guide for designing questionnaires–the most widely used method for collecting information about people’s attitudes and behavior. An essential tool for market researchers advertisers, pollsters, and social scientists, this thoroughly updated and definitive work combines time-proven techniques with the most current research, findings, and methods. The book presents a cognitive approach to questionnaire design and includes timely information on the Internet and electronic resources. Comprehensive and concise, Asking Questions can be used to design questionnaires for any subject area, whether administered by telephone, online, mail, in groups, or face-to-face. The book describes the design process from start to finish and is filled with illustrative examples from actual surveys. Asking Questions guides you through how to

Determine what information is needed

Phrase questions to minimize bias and distortion

Obtain successful questions from existing questionnaires

Control the level of threat

Order questions to encourage response

Select the best administration method

Adapt questions and format to specific situations

Test and validate the completed survey

Evaluate and revise the questionnaire for improved results