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Designing Opinionnaires
As already stated, the opinionnaires are used to measure the attitude and the belief of the respondents. Opinionnaires are also a type of information forms, also known as attitude scale. The opinionnaires are devised with view to probing into the minds of the people. The researchers analyze the responses and reach to a conclusion about the beliefs or attitude pattern of the respondents. The expressed reactions to a statement show their attitude towards the matter in the question. However, it is not always possible to get to the real feelings of the people merely by what they say. Even the methods like observation sometimes fail to generalize because even the behaviour is not always the right expression of attitude. The various methods of designing an opinionnaire form generally employ the techniques by which the degree of the agreement to a matter can be traced. Some of the widely used procedures are: Thrustone Technique, Likert Method, and Semantic Differential.
Thrustone Technique:
The technique was developed by Thrustone and Chave in 1929. The full name of the method is Thrustone Technique of Scaled Values. Various prevalent views about a matter are expressed in a number of statements (usually twenty or more). The statements express various points of view held by significant groups in the population. A team of experts further arranges these statements in a particular order. The sequence given by each of the judge in the team may vary. Some of the statements are discarded if there is a marked disagreement about their position. The rest of the statements are assigned a scale value. The listed statements with the scale value are then given to the respondents. They are asked to mark only those statements with which they agree. The scale value assigned to each of the statement is calculated to know about their attitude.
Likert Method:
The Likert Method of Summated Ratings is commonly known as ‘The Likert Method’. Renis Likert had developed this method in 1932. There is not a marked difference between the two methods in terms of results. The Likert method has shown similar results to that of the Thrustone Technique. The Likert Method is comparatively easier since it does not require a panel of judges for sequencing the statements. Although a number of statements are collected expressing the opinion held by a substantial number of people, the classification of the statements are not as difficult as in the Thrustone Technique. After scrutiny, the most important statements to the study should be assigned scale values. The scale values are assigned according to the importance of the statements in the study. The most favouring statement is assigned the maximum value, and the least favouring or the negative statement is assigned the minimum value. The respondent is asked to give the reply according to the degree of his agreement with the statements. All the positions are between two extremes of the opinion. The values that are assigned to the statements are calculated later. The scale value makes the score on which the respondent is judged. The scale values that are generally used are 3, 5, and 7. The five scale form is widely used. The Likert method is often used in the opinionnaires printed often in the newspapers and the magazines. In this method, no questions are asked as such but only statements are made. The example given below will make the idea clear.
Strongly Not Strongly
Agree Agree Sure Disagree Disagree
1. A Teacher’s confidence is most dependent on his/her own proficiency of the language s/he is teaching.
2. A good teacher should develop personal relations with his/her students.
3. A Teacher should use his/her research in his/her teaching.
Some of the examples of alternate wordings used in the method to show the difference in opinion are:
Strongly Approve.......... Approve........ Undecided....... Disapprove........ Strongly Disapprove
Probably Right.......... ..........Right.............Doubtful......... Probably Wrong..........Certainly Wrong
Much Greater..........Somewhat Greater..........Equal..........Somewhat Less..........Not at All
Very High...........A Little Above Average..........Average..........A Little Below Average..........Very Low
Practically All..........Many..........About Half..........A few..........Practically All
Like Very Much ..........Like Somewhat..........Neutral..........Dislike Somewhat..........Dislike Very Much
Everyone..........The Majority..........Quite a Few.......... A Few.......... None
Strongly Urge.......... Approve.......... Neutral.......... Slightly Disapprove.......... Strongly Diapprove
Favour in All Aspects.......... In Most Aspects.......... Neutral.......... Favour In a Few Aspects..........Do not Favour at All
Absolutely True.......... Partly True..........In Doubt..........Partly Flase..........Absolutely False
The respondents are asked just to mark under the one of the given headings such as ‘Strongly Disagree’, ‘Disagree’, ‘Not Sure’, ‘Agree’ and ‘Strongly Agree’. The only limitation of this method is that the values assigned to the five statements may not be able to represent the difference in the opinions. The five positions do not count for equal difference in attitude. Scoring equally in the test does not mean that the respondents have the same attitude since the final scores are the result of the combinations of the answers.
Semantic Differential:
Osgood, Suci and Tannebaum developed the third method in 1957. The method has the same principal as the Likert Method. However, the difference lies in the scale value assigned to the responses. Semantic Differential has the system of seven scales as against the five-scale-system of the Likert Method. The seven scales provide a wider area of analysis since the two extremes between which the answers are placed are stretched further.
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