It may seem easy to construct a survey, and in fact, no one ever died trying to make one. But there are hundreds of ways to do it wrong and only a few ways to do it right. The right ways are documented in an extensive body of scientific literature on questionnaire design. That research has shown that the ways questions are worded and answer choices are presented affect the answers that respondents give. It also has shown that the ways questions are presented affect respondents' willingness to answer.
You may ask, Is research done on a topic like this really science? The answer is yes, if the researcher follows certain principles. Usually the researcher will design an experiment in which multiple versions of a question or questionnaire are shown to respondents. The best research uses a representative, random sample of respondents, which allows the researcher to make inferences about...
