qualitative research survey questionnaire example

Qualitative study design: Surveys & questionnaires

• Qualitative study design
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Surveys & questionnaires

Qualitative surveys use open-ended questions to produce long-form written/typed answers. Questions will aim to reveal opinions, experiences, narratives or accounts. Often a useful precursor to interviews or focus groups as they help identify initial themes or issues to then explore further in the research. Surveys can be used iteratively, being changed and modified over the course of the research to elicit new information. 

Structured Interviews may follow a similar form of open questioning.  

Qualitative surveys frequently include quantitative questions to establish elements such as age, nationality etc. 

Qualitative surveys aim to elicit a detailed response to an open-ended topic question in the participant’s own words.  Like quantitative surveys, there are three main methods for using qualitative surveys including face to face surveys, phone surveys, and online surveys. Each method of surveying has strengths and limitations.

Face to face surveys  

• Researcher asks participants one or more open-ended questions about a topic, typically while in view of the participant’s facial expressions and other behaviours while answering. Being able to view the respondent’s reactions enables the researcher to ask follow-up questions to elicit a more detailed response, and to follow up on any facial or behavioural cues that seem at odds with what the participants is explicitly saying.
• Face to face qualitative survey responses are likely to be audio recorded and transcribed into text to ensure all detail is captured; however, some surveys may include both quantitative and qualitative questions using a structured or semi-structured format of questioning, and in this case the researcher may simply write down key points from the participant’s response.

Telephone surveys

• Similar to the face to face method, but without researcher being able to see participant’s facial or behavioural responses to questions asked. This means the researcher may miss key cues that would help them ask further questions to clarify or extend participant responses to their questions, and instead relies on vocal cues.

Online surveys

• Open-ended questions are presented to participants in written format via email or within an online survey tool, often alongside quantitative survey questions on the same topic.
• Researchers may provide some contextualising information or key definitions to help ‘frame’ how participants view the qualitative survey questions, since they can’t directly ask the researcher about it in real time. 
• Participants are requested to responses to questions in text ‘in some detail’ to explain their perspective or experience to researchers; this can result in diversity of responses (brief to detailed).
• Researchers can not always probe or clarify participant responses to online qualitative survey questions which can result in data from these responses being cryptic or vague to the researcher.
• Online surveys can collect a greater number of responses in a set period of time compared to face to face and phone survey approaches, so while data may be less detailed, there is more of it overall to compensate.

Qualitative surveys can help a study early on, in finding out the issues/needs/experiences to be explored further in an interview or focus group. 

Surveys can be amended and re-run based on responses providing an evolving and responsive method of research. 

Online surveys will receive typed responses reducing translation by the researcher 

Online surveys can be delivered broadly across a wide population with asynchronous delivery/response. 

Limitations

Hand-written notes will need to be transcribed (time-consuming) for digital study and kept physically for reference. 

Distance (or online) communication can be open to misinterpretations that cannot be corrected at the time. 

Questions can be leading/misleading, eliciting answers that are not core to the research subject. Researchers must aim to write a neutral question which does not give away the researchers expectations. 

Even with transcribed/digital responses analysis can be long and detailed, though not as much as in an interview. 

Surveys may be left incomplete if performed online or taken by research assistants not well trained in giving the survey/structured interview. 

Narrow sampling may skew the results of the survey. 

Example questions

Here are some example survey questions which are open ended and require a long form written response:

• Tell us why you became a doctor? 
• What do you expect from this health service? 
• How do you explain the low levels of financial investment in mental health services? (WHO, 2007) 

Example studies

• Davey, L. , Clarke, V. and Jenkinson, E. (2019), Living with alopecia areata: an online qualitative survey study. British Journal of Dermatology, 180 1377-1389. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy-f.deakin.edu.au/doi/10.1111%2Fbjd.17463    
• Richardson, J. (2004). What Patients Expect From Complementary Therapy: A Qualitative Study. American Journal of Public Health, 94(6), 1049–1053. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=s3h&AN=13270563&site=eds-live&scope=site  
• Saraceno, B., van Ommeren, M., Batniji, R., Cohen, A., Gureje, O., Mahoney, J., ... & Underhill, C. (2007). Barriers to improvement of mental health services in low-income and middle-income countries. The Lancet, 370(9593), 1164-1174. Retrieved from https://www-sciencedirect-com.ezproxy-f.deakin.edu.au/science/article/pii/S014067360761263X?via%3Dihub  

Below has more detail of the Lancet article including actual survey questions at: 

• World Health Organization. (2007.) Expert opinion on barriers and facilitating factors for the implementation of existing mental health knowledge in mental health services. Geneva: World Health Organization. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/44808
• Green, J. 1961-author., & Thorogood, N. (2018). Qualitative methods for health research. SAGE. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat00097a&AN=deakin.b4151167&authtype=sso&custid=deakin&site=eds-live&scope=site   
• JANSEN, H. The Logic of Qualitative Survey Research and its Position in the Field of Social Research Methods. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung, 11(2), Retrieved from http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1450/2946  
• Neilsen Norman Group, (2019). 28 Tips for Creating Great Qualitative Surveys. Retrieved from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/qualitative-surveys/   
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• Last Updated: Apr 8, 2024 11:12 AM
• URL: https://deakin.libguides.com/qualitative-study-designs

10+ Qualitative Survey Questions to Collect Deep Insights

Just like great ingredients are the basis for preparing an amazing meal, a great survey needs to have amazing questions. And unless you know the recipe by heart, choosing effective survey questions can be difficult. One of the most common choices you can make are qualitative survey questions.

They let you uncover deep insights with qualitative research, but they do come with some challenges. In this article, we’ll show you how to write great qualitative questions, what makes them good (and bad) choices for your qualitative surveys, as well as some examples to get you inspired.

Qualitative vs. quantitative questions

Before we go any further, we need to make a distinction between qualitative and quantitative survey questions .

Qualitative questions help you get qualitative data. These are the questions that get behind the why, what, and how of a particular subject through qualitative research of your focus groups. An example of a qualitative question would be: Please describe your recent experience with our customer support.

Use qualitative research questions when you need customers to explain their experience in their own words and provide you with deeper insights. 

Quantitative questions help you collect quantitative, numerical data. They help you put a numerical value on your customers’ feedback. An example of a quantitative question would be: “On a scale from 1 to 10, please rate your satisfaction with your recent experience with our customer support?”

‍ Use quantitative research questions when you need data that is easy to analyze and quantify so that you can make an important decision based on data.

Both question types have their pros and cons, and depending on your needs, you’ll want to use one or the other or a combination of both research methods on your target audience.

How to write good qualitative survey questions

Qualitative survey questions can unearth impressive data. However, you need to be very careful about how you write them to get the best feedback from your focus groups. Here are some quick tips to get started.

Make the qualitative research questions specific

The first rule is very simple. A qualitative question leaves your audience with a space to write anything they want. And the truth is, they will literally write anything if you don’t point them in the right direction.

If your survey questions are too broad, they will result in broad answers and feedback that is not particularly useful. For example, asking “How do you like our dashboard?” is going to give you a wide range of answers.

Instead, ask something along the lines of “What do you think of the different visualization styles in our reporting dashboard?”

The more specific the survey questions, the better the feedback. 

Have a clear purpose

Why are you asking a certain question? In the case of quantitative surveys, you don’t always need a specific reason, e.g. checking up on your NPS score .

However, qualitative questions demand lengthier answers and you need to motivate your target audience to provide that answer. The best way to do so? Just let them know why you’re asking.

For example, you could say that you’re asking about the checkout process in order to make it quicker to purchase and easier to choose a preferred payment method. The stronger the benefit for the customer, the more reasons for stating the purpose of the survey.

Focus on quality, not numbers

You won’t get the same number of answers with qualitative questions compared to quantitative ones such as CSAT surveys . Put simply, writing out an answer takes more time than selecting a number on a scale.

You may be tempted to simplify your survey questions to get more answers from your survey participants. However, try and resist the temptation.

Your aim is to get amazing feedback so don’t shy away from asking the survey questions that really interest you. Five good answers are much better than 50 superficial ones you can’t use.

Add subquestions when necessary

Sometimes, you can’t get all the info you need from one answer. If you want to ensure you get all the feedback you need, asking a subquestion makes sense.

For example, you could ask customers about their thoughts on a new feature you launched. A subquestion could be one where you ask the customers what would make them use that feature more.

You can actually ask this question in a matter of seconds by using this survey template:

Your customers are willing to provide feedback to help you out, but you sometimes need to nudge them in the right direction.

Pros and cons of using qualitative questions for surveys

Qualitative survey questions can yield amazing results. However, they have their good and bad sides, and you need to be aware of both before creating your next survey.

Advantages of using qualitative questions in surveys

Let’s start with the good stuff.

They help you get in-depth data

A quantitative question tells you how likely someone is to recommend you on a scale. While a number is a good piece of info, a few sentences describing why and how they would recommend you will provide the context. If you want in-depth data where customers describe how they feel about you in more detail, you need qualitative research questions.

They are more flexible by nature

The typical quantitative question has a standard form. Survey types such as CSAT, NPS, and CES have question formats that don’t vary much. On the other hand, the sky is the limit with qualitative research questions. You can phrase them in any way you want, using specific expressions to narrow down the type of feedback you want to get.

They encourage discussion

There is little that can happen once an NPS survey is complete. You get the results, analyze them (in minutes, thanks to Survicate’s dashboard ), and the conversation is over. Qualitative research questions encourage your customers to speak their minds and share how they feel.

Disadvantages of using qualitative survey questions

There are some downsides to keep in mind with this question type.

The sample size

Qualitative data is amazing when it comes to the insights that you get. But on the flip side, it requires detailed analysis, and you have to manually go through all the survey responses to find the gold nuggets in your feedback. As a result, the sample is usually much smaller than in quantitative surveys, and you have to use focus groups with limited respondent numbers.

Sample bias

With the smaller size sample usually comes the sample bias . This means that you’ll tend to pick customers who are similar in some way, including demographics, use cases, location, and your data might be skewed. 

Lack of privacy

Lots of data is always a great thing for businesses, but there may be some concerns from the customers’ end. 

If they give you detailed answers, you can accurately pinpoint the identity of the customer who supplied the answer. You can solve a part of the problem by making the survey anonymous , but bear in mind that some customers will be concerned about privacy issues regardless.

Difficulty with statistical analysis

Imagine 500 respondents filled in your NPS survey. You could get your NPS score within seconds using survey software like Survicate. On the other hand, getting qualitative research results from a focus group with 500 people could take weeks. Be prepared to set aside some time to go through the responses to your qualitative surveys manually.

Qualitative question examples

Here are some amazing qualitative question examples to get you inspired. You can adapt these to a specific use case depending on your industry and niche.

Exploratory questions

The most common of the qualitative research questions, the exploratory question aims to just… explore. You ask your survey participants about a particular topic so you can learn more about their thoughts, experiences, and attitudes.

• Describe the last interaction you had with our product.
• Does our product meet your overall expectations?
• What is the most valuable feature in our product?
• Why did you choose to use our product compared to the competitors?
• What is the one aspect of our product that you never use?
• What is your biggest objection to our checkout process and why?

Predictive questions

Predictive survey questions put survey participants in a certain situation. Based on past events, you ask them to predict what would happen in a hypothetical situation. If you phrase the questions correctly, they can provide a wealth of feedback about the respondents’ pain points and your product.

• If we added free returns on all orders above $50, would you shop more with us?
• If you could add one more feature to our product, what would that feature be and why?
• If we had a Zapier integration for our app, how often would you use it?
• If you were in charge of our customer support for a day, what would you change and why?
• Would you be more likely to buy our product if it was endorsed by a large company such as Microsoft?

Get ready for deep insights with qualitative questions in your surveys

Not everyone is born a great writer or a qualitative research expert. But nowadays, you don’t have to be either of those things to write amazing qualitative questions and have great qualitative surveys.

Survey software has come a long way and nowadays, it does more than just provide a platform for creating and distributing online surveys. Survicate comes with 125+ survey templates out of the box, packed with quantitative and qualitative questions, ready to use.

Kickstart your qualitative research today by choosing the right tool for the job. Try Survicate and see why online surveys are the future of conducting qualitative research.

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Qualitative Research Questions: Gain Powerful Insights + 25 Examples

We review the basics of qualitative research questions, including their key components, how to craft them effectively, & 25 example questions.

Einstein was many things—a physicist, a philosopher, and, undoubtedly, a mastermind. He also had an incredible way with words. His quote, "Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted," is particularly poignant when it comes to research. 

Some inquiries call for a quantitative approach, for counting and measuring data in order to arrive at general conclusions. Other investigations, like qualitative research, rely on deep exploration and understanding of individual cases in order to develop a greater understanding of the whole. That’s what we’re going to focus on today.

Qualitative research questions focus on the "how" and "why" of things, rather than the "what". They ask about people's experiences and perceptions , and can be used to explore a wide range of topics.

The following article will discuss the basics of qualitative research questions, including their key components, and how to craft them effectively. You'll also find 25 examples of effective qualitative research questions you can use as inspiration for your own studies.

Let’s get started!

What are qualitative research questions, and when are they used?

When researchers set out to conduct a study on a certain topic, their research is chiefly directed by an overarching question . This question provides focus for the study and helps determine what kind of data will be collected.

By starting with a question, we gain parameters and objectives for our line of research. What are we studying? For what purpose? How will we know when we’ve achieved our goals?

Of course, some of these questions can be described as quantitative in nature. When a research question is quantitative, it usually seeks to measure or calculate something in a systematic way.

For example:

• How many people in our town use the library?
• What is the average income of families in our city?
• How much does the average person weigh?

Other research questions, however—and the ones we will be focusing on in this article—are qualitative in nature. Qualitative research questions are open-ended and seek to explore a given topic in-depth.

According to the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry , “Qualitative research aims to address questions concerned with developing an understanding of the meaning and experience dimensions of humans’ lives and social worlds.”

This type of research can be used to gain a better understanding of people’s thoughts, feelings and experiences by “addressing questions beyond ‘what works’, towards ‘what works for whom when, how and why, and focusing on intervention improvement rather than accreditation,” states one paper in Neurological Research and Practice .

Qualitative questions often produce rich data that can help researchers develop hypotheses for further quantitative study.

• What are people’s thoughts on the new library?
• How does it feel to be a first-generation student at our school?
• How do people feel about the changes taking place in our town?

As stated by a paper in Human Reproduction , “...‘qualitative’ methods are used to answer questions about experience, meaning, and perspective, most often from the standpoint of the participant. These data are usually not amenable to counting or measuring.”

Both quantitative and qualitative questions have their uses; in fact, they often complement each other. A well-designed research study will include a mix of both types of questions in order to gain a fuller understanding of the topic at hand.

If you would like to recruit unlimited participants for qualitative research for free and only pay for the interview you conduct, try using Respondent  today. 

Crafting qualitative research questions for powerful insights

Now that we have a basic understanding of what qualitative research questions are and when they are used, let’s take a look at how you can begin crafting your own.

According to a study in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, there is a certain process researchers should follow when crafting their questions, which we’ll explore in more depth.

1. Beginning the process 

Start with a point of interest or curiosity, and pose a draft question or ‘self-question’. What do you want to know about the topic at hand? What is your specific curiosity? You may find it helpful to begin by writing several questions.

For example, if you’re interested in understanding how your customer base feels about a recent change to your product, you might ask: 

• What made you decide to try the new product?
• How do you feel about the change?
• What do you think of the new design/functionality?
• What benefits do you see in the change?

2. Create one overarching, guiding question 

At this point, narrow down the draft questions into one specific question. “Sometimes, these broader research questions are not stated as questions, but rather as goals for the study.”

As an example of this, you might narrow down these three questions: 

into the following question: 

• What are our customers’ thoughts on the recent change to our product?

3. Theoretical framing 

As you read the relevant literature and apply theory to your research, the question should be altered to achieve better outcomes. Experts agree that pursuing a qualitative line of inquiry should open up the possibility for questioning your original theories and altering the conceptual framework with which the research began.

If we continue with the current example, it’s possible you may uncover new data that informs your research and changes your question. For instance, you may discover that customers’ feelings about the change are not just a reaction to the change itself, but also to how it was implemented. In this case, your question would need to reflect this new information: 

• How did customers react to the process of the change, as well as the change itself?

4. Ethical considerations 

A study in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education stresses that ethics are “a central issue when a researcher proposes to study the lives of others, especially marginalized populations.” Consider how your question or inquiry will affect the people it relates to—their lives and their safety. Shape your question to avoid physical, emotional, or mental upset for the focus group.

In analyzing your question from this perspective, if you feel that it may cause harm, you should consider changing the question or ending your research project. Perhaps you’ve discovered that your question encourages harmful or invasive questioning, in which case you should reformulate it.

5. Writing the question 

The actual process of writing the question comes only after considering the above points. The purpose of crafting your research questions is to delve into what your study is specifically about” Remember that qualitative research questions are not trying to find the cause of an effect, but rather to explore the effect itself.

Your questions should be clear, concise, and understandable to those outside of your field. In addition, they should generate rich data. The questions you choose will also depend on the type of research you are conducting: 

• If you’re doing a phenomenological study, your questions might be open-ended, in order to allow participants to share their experiences in their own words.
• If you’re doing a grounded-theory study, your questions might be focused on generating a list of categories or themes.
• If you’re doing ethnography, your questions might be about understanding the culture you’re studying.

Whenyou have well-written questions, it is much easier to develop your research design and collect data that accurately reflects your inquiry.

In writing your questions, it may help you to refer to this simple flowchart process for constructing questions:

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25 examples of expertly crafted qualitative research questions

It's easy enough to cover the theory of writing a qualitative research question, but sometimes it's best if you can see the process in practice. In this section, we'll list 25 examples of B2B and B2C-related qualitative questions.

Let's begin with five questions. We'll show you the question, explain why it's considered qualitative, and then give you an example of how it can be used in research.

1. What is the customer's perception of our company's brand?

Qualitative research questions are often open-ended and invite respondents to share their thoughts and feelings on a subject. This question is qualitative because it seeks customer feedback on the company's brand. 

This question can be used in research to understand how customers feel about the company's branding, what they like and don't like about it, and whether they would recommend it to others.

2. Why do customers buy our product?

This question is also qualitative because it seeks to understand the customer's motivations for purchasing a product. It can be used in research to identify the reasons  customers buy a certain product, what needs or desires the product fulfills for them, and how they feel about the purchase after using the product.

3. How do our customers interact with our products?

Again, this question is qualitative because it seeks to understand customer behavior. In this case, it can be used in research to see how customers use the product, how they interact with it, and what emotions or thoughts the product evokes in them.

4. What are our customers' biggest frustrations with our products?

By seeking to understand customer frustrations, this question is qualitative and can provide valuable insights. It can be used in research to help identify areas in which the company needs to make improvements with its products.

5. How do our customers feel about our customer service?

Rather than asking why customers like or dislike something, this question asks how they feel. This qualitative question can provide insights into customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a company. 

This type of question can be used in research to understand what customers think of the company's customer service and whether they feel it meets their needs.

20 more examples to refer to when writing your question

Now that you’re aware of what makes certain questions qualitative, let's move into 20 more examples of qualitative research questions:

• How do your customers react when updates are made to your app interface?
• How do customers feel when they complete their purchase through your ecommerce site?
• What are your customers' main frustrations with your service?
• How do people feel about the quality of your products compared to those of your competitors?
• What motivates customers to refer their friends and family members to your product or service?
• What are the main benefits your customers receive from using your product or service?
• How do people feel when they finish a purchase on your website?
• What are the main motivations behind customer loyalty to your brand?
• How does your app make people feel emotionally?
• For younger generations using your app, how does it make them feel about themselves?
• What reputation do people associate with your brand?
• How inclusive do people find your app?
• In what ways are your customers' experiences unique to them?
• What are the main areas of improvement your customers would like to see in your product or service?
• How do people feel about their interactions with your tech team?
• What are the top five reasons people use your online marketplace?
• How does using your app make people feel in terms of connectedness?
• What emotions do people experience when they're using your product or service?
• Aside from the features of your product, what else about it attracts customers?
• How does your company culture make people feel?

As you can see, these kinds of questions are completely open-ended. In a way, they allow the research and discoveries made along the way to direct the research. The questions are merely a starting point from which to explore.

This video offers tips on how to write good qualitative research questions, produced by Qualitative Research Expert, Kimberly Baker.

Wrap-up: crafting your own qualitative research questions.

Over the course of this article, we've explored what qualitative research questions are, why they matter, and how they should be written. Hopefully you now have a clear understanding of how to craft your own.

Remember, qualitative research questions should always be designed to explore a certain experience or phenomena in-depth, in order to generate powerful insights. As you write your questions, be sure to keep the following in mind:

• Are you being inclusive of all relevant perspectives?
• Are your questions specific enough to generate clear answers?
• Will your questions allow for an in-depth exploration of the topic at hand?
• Do the questions reflect your research goals and objectives?

If you can answer "yes" to all of the questions above, and you've followed the tips for writing qualitative research questions we shared in this article, then you're well on your way to crafting powerful queries that will yield valuable insights.

Download Free E-Book

Asking the right questions in the right way is the key to research success. That’s true for not just the discussion guide but for every step of a research project. Following are 100+ questions that will take you from defining your research objective through  screening and participant discussions.

Fill out the form below to access free e-book! 

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How to Write Qualitative Research Questions: Types & Examples

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Qualitative research questions focus on depth and quality, exploring the “why and how” behind decisions, without relying on statistical tools.

Unlike quantitative research, which aims to collect tangible, measurable data from a broader demographic, qualitative analysis involves smaller, focused datasets, identifying patterns for insights.

The information collected by qualitative surveys can vary from text to images, demanding a deep understanding of the subject, and therefore, crafting precise qualitative research questions is crucial for success.

In this guide, we’ll discuss how to write effective qualitative research questions, explore various types, and highlight characteristics of good qualitative research questions.

Let’s dive in!

What Are Qualitative Research Questions?

Qualitative questions aim to understand the depth and nuances of a phenomenon, focusing on “why” and “how” rather than quantifiable measures.

They explore subjective experiences, perspectives, and behaviors, often using open-ended inquiries to gather rich, descriptive data.

Unlike quantitative questions, which seek numerical data, qualitative questions try to find out meanings, patterns, and underlying processes within a specific context.

These questions are essential for exploring complex issues, generating hypotheses, and gaining deeper insights into human behavior and phenomena.

Here’s an example of a qualitative research question:

“How do you perceive and navigate organizational culture within a tech startup environment?”

This question asks about the respondent’s subjective interpretations and experiences of organizational culture within a specific context, such as a tech startup.

It seeks to uncover insights into the values, norms, and practices that shape workplace dynamics and employee behaviors, providing qualitative data for analysis and understanding.

When Should We Use Qualitative Research Questions?

Qualitative research questions typically aim to open up conversations, encourage detailed narratives, and foster a deep understanding of the subject matter. Here are some scenarios they are best suited for:

• Exploring Complex Phenomena : When the research topic involves understanding complex processes, behaviors, or interactions that cannot be quantified easily, qualitative questions help delve into these intricate details.
• Understanding Contexts and Cultures : To grasp the nuances of different social contexts, cultures, or subcultures, qualitative research questions allow for an in-depth exploration of these environments and how they influence individuals and groups.
• Exploring Perceptions and Experiences : When the aim is to understand people’s perceptions, experiences, or feelings about a particular subject, qualitative questions facilitate capturing the depth and variety of these perspectives.
• Developing Concepts or Theories : In the early stages of research, where concepts or theories are not yet well-developed, qualitative questions can help generate hypotheses, identify variables, and develop theoretical frameworks based on observations and interpretations.
• Investigating Processes : To understand how processes unfold over time and the factors that influence these processes, qualitative questions are useful for capturing the dynamics and complexities involved.
• Seeking to Understand Change : When researching how individuals or groups experience change, adapt to new circumstances, or make decisions, qualitative research questions can provide insights into the motivations, challenges, and strategies involved.
• Studying Phenomena Not Easily Quantified : For phenomena that are not easily captured through quantitative measures, such as emotions, beliefs, or motivations, qualitative questions can probe these abstract concepts more effectively.
• Addressing Sensitive or Taboo Topics : In studies where topics may be sensitive, controversial, or taboo, qualitative research questions allow for a respectful and empathetic exploration of these subjects, providing space for participants to share their experiences in their own words.

How to Write Qualitative Research Questions?

Read this guide to learn how you can craft well-thought-out qualitative research questions:

1. Begin with Your Research Goals

The first step in formulating qualitative research questions is to have a clear understanding of what you aim to discover or understand through your research. There are two types of qualitative questionnaires or research – Ontological and Epistemological.

Finding out the nature of your research influences all aspects of your research design, including the formulation of research questions.

Subsequently:

• Identify your main objective : Consider the broader context of your study. Are you trying to explore a phenomenon, understand a process, or interpret the meanings behind behaviors? Your main objective should guide the formulation of your questions, ensuring they are aligned with what you seek to achieve.
• Focus on the ‘how’ and ‘why’ : Qualitative research is inherently exploratory and aims to understand the nuances of human behavior and experience. Starting your questions with “how” or “why” encourages a deeper investigation into the motivations, processes, and contexts underlying the subject matter. This approach facilitates an open-ended exploration, allowing participants to provide rich, detailed responses that illuminate their perspectives and experiences.

Take a quick look at the following visual for a better understanding:

So, if you are doing Ontological research, ensure that the questions focus on the “what” aspects of reality (the premise of your research) and opt for the nature of the knowledge for Epistemological research.

2. Choose the Right Structure

The structure of your research questions significantly impacts the depth and quality of data you collect. Opting for an open-ended format allows respondents the flexibility to express themselves freely, providing insights that pre-defined answers might miss.

• Open-ended format : These questions do not constrain respondents to a set of predetermined answers, unlike closed-ended questions. By allowing participants to articulate their thoughts in their own words, you can uncover nuances and complexities in their responses that might otherwise be overlooked.
• Avoid yes/no questions : Yes/no questions tend to limit the depth of responses. While they might be useful for gathering straightforward factual information, they are not conducive to exploring the depths and nuances that qualitative research seeks to uncover. Encouraging participants to elaborate on their experiences and perspectives leads to richer, more informative data.

For example, take a look at some qualitative questions examples shown in the following image:

3. Be Clear and Specific

Clarity and specificity in your questions are crucial to ensure that participants understand what is being asked and that their responses are relevant to your research objectives.

• Use clear language : Use straightforward, understandable language in your questions. Avoid jargon, acronyms, or overly technical terms that might confuse participants or lead to misinterpretation. The goal is to make your questions accessible to everyone involved in your study.
• Be specific : While maintaining the open-ended nature of qualitative questions, it’s important to narrow down your focus to specific aspects of the phenomenon you’re studying. This specificity helps guide participants’ responses and ensures that the data you collect directly relates to your research objectives.

4. Ensure Relevance and Feasibility

Each question should be carefully considered for its relevance to your research goals and its feasibility, given the constraints of your study.

• Relevance : Questions should be crafted to address the core objectives of your research directly. They should probe areas that are essential to understanding the phenomenon under investigation and should align with your theoretical framework or literature review findings.
• Feasibility : Consider the practical aspects of your research, including the time available for data collection and analysis, resources, and access to participants. Questions should be designed to elicit meaningful responses within the constraints of your study, ensuring that you can gather and analyze data effectively.

5. Focus on a Single Concept or Theme per Question

To ensure clarity and depth, each question should concentrate on a single idea or theme. However, if your main qualitative research question is tough to understand or has a complex structure, you can create sub-questions in limited numbers and with a “ladder structure”.

This will help your respondents understand the overall research objective in mind, and your research can be executed in a better manner.

For example, suppose your main question is – “What is the current state of illiteracy in your state?”

Then, you can create the following subquestions: 

“How does illiteracy block progress in your state?”

“How would you best describe the feelings you have about illiteracy in your state?”

For an even better understanding, you can see the various examples of qualitative research questions in the following image:

Types of Qualitative Research Questions With Examples

Qualitative survey questions primarily focus on a specific group of respondents that are participating in case studies, surveys, ethnography studies, etc., rather than numbers or statistics.

As a result, the questions are mostly open-ended and can be subdivided into the following types as discussed below:

1. Descriptive Questions

Descriptive research questions aim to detail the “what” of a phenomenon, providing a comprehensive overview of the context, individuals, or situations under study. These questions are foundational, helping to establish a baseline understanding of the research topic.

• What are the daily experiences of teachers in urban elementary schools?
• What strategies do small businesses employ to adapt to rapid technological changes?
• How do young adults describe their transition from college to the workforce?
• What are the coping mechanisms of families with members suffering from chronic illnesses?
• How do community leaders perceive the impact of gentrification in their neighborhoods?

2. Interpretive Questions

Interpretive questions seek to understand the “how” and “why” behind a phenomenon, focusing on the meanings people attach to their experiences. These questions delve into the subjective interpretations and perceptions of participants.

• How do survivors of natural disasters interpret their experiences of recovery and rebuilding?
• Why do individuals engage in voluntary work within their communities?
• How do parents interpret and navigate the challenges of remote schooling for their children?
• Why do consumers prefer local products over global brands in certain markets?
• How do artists interpret the influence of digital media on traditional art forms?

3. Comparative Questions

Comparative research questions are designed to explore differences and similarities between groups, settings, or time periods. These questions can help to highlight the impact of specific variables on the phenomenon under study.

• How do the strategies for managing work-life balance compare between remote and office workers?
• What are the differences in consumer behavior towards sustainable products in urban versus rural areas?
• How do parenting styles in single-parent households compare to those in dual-parent households?
• What are the similarities and differences in leadership styles across different cultures?
• How has the perception of online privacy changed among teenagers over the past decade?

4. Process-oriented Questions

These questions focus on understanding the processes or sequences of events over time. They aim to uncover the “how” of a phenomenon, tracing the development, changes, or evolution of specific situations or behaviors.

• How do non-profit organizations develop and implement community outreach programs?
• What is the process of decision-making in high-stakes business environments?
• How do individuals navigate the process of career transition after significant industry changes?
• What are the stages of adaptation for immigrants in a new country?
• How do social movements evolve from inception to national recognition?

5. Evaluative Questions

Evaluative questions aim to assess the effectiveness, value, or impact of a program, policy, or phenomenon. These questions are critical for understanding the outcomes and implications of various initiatives or situations.

• How effective are online therapy sessions compared to in-person sessions in treating anxiety?
• What is the impact of community gardening programs on neighborhood cohesion?
• How do participants evaluate the outcomes of leadership training programs in their professional development?
• What are the perceived benefits and drawbacks of telecommuting for employees and employers?
• How do residents evaluate the effectiveness of local government policies on waste management?

6. One-on-One Questions

The one-on-one questions are asked to a single person and can be thought of as individual interviews that you can conduct online via phone and video chat as well.

The main aim of such questions is to ask your customers or people in the focus group a series of questions about their purchase motivations. These questions might also come with follow-ups, and if your customers respond with some interesting fact or detail, dig deeper and explore the findings as much as you want.

• What makes you happy in regard to [your research topic]?
• If I could make a wish of yours come true, what do you desire the most?
• What do you still find hard to come to terms with?
• Have you bought [your product] before?
• If so, what was your initial motivation behind the purchase?

7. Exploratory Questions

These questions are designed to enhance your understanding of a particular topic. However, while asking exploratory questions, you must ensure that there are no preconceived notions or biases to it. The more transparent and bias-free your questions are, the better and fair results you will get.

• What is the effect of personal smart devices on today’s youth?
• Do you feel that smart devices have positively or negatively impacted you?
• How do your kids spend their weekends?
• What do you do on a typical weekend morning?

8. Predictive Questions

The predictive questions are used for qualitative research that is focused on the future outcomes of an action or a series of actions. So, you will be using past information to predict the reactions of respondents to hypothetical events that might or might not happen in the future.

These questions come in extremely handy for identifying your customers’ current brand expectations, pain points, and purchase motivation.

• Are you more likely to buy a product when a celebrity promotes it?
• Would you ever try a new product because one of your favorite celebs claims that it actually worked for them?
• Would people in your neighborhood enjoy a park with rides and exercise options?
• How often would you go to a park with your kids if it had free rides?

9. Focus Groups

These questions are mostly asked in person to the customer or respondent groups. The in-person nature of these surveys or studies ensures that the group members get a safe and comfortable environment to express their thoughts and feelings about your brand or services.

• How would you describe your ease of using our product?
• How well do you think you were able to do this task before you started using our product?
• What do you like about our promotional campaigns?
• How well do you think our ads convey the meaning?

10. In-Home Videos

Collecting video feedback from customers in their comfortable, natural settings offers a unique perspective. At home, customers are more relaxed and less concerned about their mannerisms, posture, and choice of words when responding.

This approach is partly why Vogue’s 73 Questions Series is highly popular among celebrities and viewers alike. In-home videos provide insights into customers in a relaxed environment, encouraging them to be honest and share genuine experiences.

• What was your first reaction when you used our product for the first time?
• How well do you think our product performed compared to your expectations?
• What was your worst experience with our product?
• What made you switch to our brand?

11. Online Focus Groups

Online focus groups mirror the traditional, in-person format but are conducted virtually, offering a more cost-effective and efficient approach to gathering data. This digital format extends your reach and allows a rapid collection of responses from a broader audience through online platforms.

You can utilize social media and other digital forums to create communities of respondents and initiate meaningful discussions. Once you have them started, you can simply observe the exchange of thoughts and gather massive amounts of interesting insights!

• What do you like best about our product?
• How familiar are you with this particular service or product we offer?
• What are your concerns with our product?
• What changes can we make to make our product better?

Ask the Right Qualitative Research Questions for Meaningful Insights From Your Respondents

Watch: How to Create a Survey Using ProProfs Survey Maker

By now, you might have realized that manually creating a list of qualitative research questions is a daunting task. Keeping numerous considerations in mind, it’s easy to run out of ideas while crafting qualitative survey questions.

However, investing in smart survey tools, like ProProfs Survey Maker, can significantly streamline this process, allowing you to create various types of surveys in minutes.

With this survey tool , you can generate forms, NPS surveys , tests, quizzes, and assessments.

It’s also useful for conducting polls, sidebar surveys, and in-app surveys. Offering over 100 templates and more than 1,000,000 ready-to-use examples of phenomenological research questions, this software simplifies the task immensely.

Equipped with the right tools and the professional tips shared here, you’re well-prepared to conduct thorough research studies and obtain valuable insights that drive impactful results.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. how do you choose qualitative research questions.

To choose qualitative research questions, identify your main research goal, focus on exploring ‘how’ and ‘why’ aspects, ensure questions are open-ended, and align them with your theoretical framework and methodology.

2. Why are good qualitative research questions important?

Good qualitative research questions are important because they guide the research focus, enable the exploration of depth and complexity, and facilitate the gathering of rich, detailed insights into human experiences and behaviors.

About the author

Emma David is a seasoned market research professional with 8+ years of experience. Having kick-started her journey in research, she has developed rich expertise in employee engagement, survey creation and administration, and data management. Emma believes in the power of data to shape business performance positively. She continues to help brands and businesses make strategic decisions and improve their market standing through her understanding of research methodologies.

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83 Qualitative Research Questions & Examples

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Qualitative research questions help you understand consumer sentiment. They’re strategically designed to show organizations how and why people feel the way they do about a brand, product, or service. It looks beyond the numbers and is one of the most telling types of market research a company can do.

The UK Data Service describes this perfectly, saying, “The value of qualitative research is that it gives a voice to the lived experience .”

Read on to see seven use cases and 83 qualitative research questions, with the added bonus of examples that show how to get similar insights faster with Similarweb Research Intelligence.

What is a qualitative research question?

A qualitative research question explores a topic in-depth, aiming to better understand the subject through interviews, observations, and other non-numerical data. Qualitative research questions are open-ended, helping to uncover a target audience’s opinions, beliefs, and motivations.

How to choose qualitative research questions?

Choosing the right qualitative research questions can be incremental to the success of your research and the findings you uncover. Here’s my six-step process for choosing the best qualitative research questions.

• Start by understanding the purpose of your research. What do you want to learn? What outcome are you hoping to achieve?
• Consider who you are researching. What are their experiences, attitudes, and beliefs? How can you best capture these in your research questions ?
• Keep your questions open-ended . Qualitative research questions should not be too narrow or too broad. Aim to ask specific questions to provide meaningful answers but broad enough to allow for exploration.
• Balance your research questions. You don’t want all of your questions to be the same type. Aim to mix up your questions to get a variety of answers.
• Ensure your research questions are ethical and free from bias. Always have a second (and third) person check for unconscious bias.
• Consider the language you use. Your questions should be written in a way that is clear and easy to understand. Avoid using jargon , acronyms, or overly technical language.

Types of qualitative research questions

For a question to be considered qualitative, it usually needs to be open-ended. However, as I’ll explain, there can sometimes be a slight cross-over between quantitative and qualitative research questions.

Open-ended questions

These allow for a wide range of responses and can be formatted with multiple-choice answers or a free-text box to collect additional details. The next two types of qualitative questions are considered open questions, but each has its own style and purpose.

• Probing questions are used to delve deeper into a respondent’s thoughts, such as “Can you tell me more about why you feel that way?”
• Comparative questions ask people to compare two or more items, such as “Which product do you prefer and why?” These qualitative questions are highly useful for understanding brand awareness , competitive analysis , and more.

Closed-ended questions

These ask respondents to choose from a predetermined set of responses, such as “On a scale of 1-5, how satisfied are you with the new product?” While they’re traditionally quantitative, adding a free text box that asks for extra comments into why a specific rating was chosen will provide qualitative insights alongside their respective quantitative research question responses.

• Ranking questions get people to rank items in order of preference, such as “Please rank these products in terms of quality.” They’re advantageous in many scenarios, like product development, competitive analysis, and brand awareness.
• Likert scale questions ask people to rate items on a scale, such as “On a scale of 1-5, how satisfied are you with the new product?” Ideal for placement on websites and emails to gather quick, snappy feedback.

Qualitative research question examples

There are many applications of qualitative research and lots of ways you can put your findings to work for the success of your business. Here’s a summary of the most common use cases for qualitative questions and examples to ask.

Qualitative questions for identifying customer needs and motivations

These types of questions help you find out why customers choose products or services and what they are looking for when making a purchase.

• What factors do you consider when deciding to buy a product?
• What would make you choose one product or service over another?
• What are the most important elements of a product that you would buy?
• What features do you look for when purchasing a product?
• What qualities do you look for in a company’s products?
• Do you prefer localized or global brands when making a purchase?
• How do you determine the value of a product?
• What do you think is the most important factor when choosing a product?
• How do you decide if a product or service is worth the money?
• Do you have any specific expectations when purchasing a product?
• Do you prefer to purchase products or services online or in person?
• What kind of customer service do you expect when buying a product?
• How do you decide when it is time to switch to a different product?
• Where do you research products before you decide to buy?
• What do you think is the most important customer value when making a purchase?

Qualitative research questions to enhance customer experience

Use these questions to reveal insights into how customers interact with a company’s products or services and how those experiences can be improved.

• What aspects of our product or service do customers find most valuable?
• How do customers perceive our customer service?
• What factors are most important to customers when purchasing?
• What do customers think of our brand?
• What do customers think of our current marketing efforts?
• How do customers feel about the features and benefits of our product?
• How do customers feel about the price of our product or service?
• How could we improve the customer experience?
• What do customers think of our website or app?
• What do customers think of our customer support?
• What could we do to make our product or service easier to use?
• What do customers think of our competitors?
• What is your preferred way to access our site?
• How do customers feel about our delivery/shipping times?
• What do customers think of our loyalty programs?

Qualitative research question example for customer experience

• ‍♀️ Question: What is your preferred way to access our site?
• Insight sought: How mobile-dominant are consumers? Should you invest more in mobile optimization or mobile marketing?
• Challenges with traditional qualitative research methods: While using this type of question is ideal if you have a large database to survey when placed on a site or sent to a limited customer list, it only gives you a point-in-time perspective from a limited group of people.
• A new approach: You can get better, broader insights quicker with Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence. To fully inform your research, you need to know preferences at the industry or market level.
• ⏰ Time to insight: 30 seconds
• ✅ How it’s done: Similarweb offers multiple ways to answer this question without going through a lengthy qualitative research process. 

First, I’m going to do a website market analysis of the banking credit and lending market in the finance sector to get a clearer picture of industry benchmarks.

Here, I can view device preferences across any industry or market instantly. It shows me the device distribution for any country across any period. This clearly answers the question of how mobile dominate my target audience is , with 59.79% opting to access site via a desktop vs. 40.21% via mobile

I then use the trends section to show me the exact split between mobile and web traffic for each key player in my space. Let’s say I’m about to embark on a competitive campaign that targets customers of Chase and Bank of America ; I can see both their audiences are highly desktop dominant compared with others in their space .

Qualitative question examples for developing new products or services

Research questions like this can help you understand customer pain points and give you insights to develop products that meet those needs.

• What is the primary reason you would choose to purchase a product from our company?
• How do you currently use products or services that are similar to ours?
• Is there anything that could be improved with products currently on the market?
• What features would you like to see added to our products?
• How do you prefer to contact a customer service team?
• What do you think sets our company apart from our competitors?
• What other product or service offerings would like to see us offer?
• What type of information would help you make decisions about buying a product?
• What type of advertising methods are most effective in getting your attention?
• What is the biggest deterrent to purchasing products from us?

Qualitative research question example for service development

• ‍♀️ Question: What type of advertising methods are most effective in getting your attention?
• Insight sought: The marketing channels and/or content that performs best with a target audience .
• Challenges with traditional qualitative research methods: When using qualitative research surveys to answer questions like this, the sample size is limited, and bias could be at play.
• A better approach: The most authentic insights come from viewing real actions and results that take place in the digital world. No questions or answers are needed to uncover this intel, and the information you seek is readily available in less than a minute.
• ⏰ Time to insight: 5 minutes
• ✅ How it’s done: There are a few ways to approach this. You can either take an industry-wide perspective or hone in on specific competitors to unpack their individual successes. Here, I’ll quickly show a snapshot with a whole market perspective.

Using the market analysis element of Similarweb Digital Intelligence, I select my industry or market, which I’ve kept as banking and credit. A quick click into marketing channels shows me which channels drive the highest traffic in my market. Taking direct traffic out of the equation, for now, I can see that referrals and organic traffic are the two highest-performing channels in this market.

Similarweb allows me to view the specific referral partners and pages across these channels. 

Looking closely at referrals in this market, I’ve chosen chase.com and its five closest rivals . I select referrals in the channel traffic element of marketing channels. I see that Capital One is a clear winner, gaining almost 25 million visits due to referral partnerships.

Next, I get to see exactly who is referring traffic to Capital One and the total traffic share for each referrer. I can see the growth as a percentage and how that has changed, along with an engagement score that rates the average engagement level of that audience segment. This is particularly useful when deciding on which new referral partnerships to pursue.  

Once I’ve identified the channels and campaigns that yield the best results, I can then use Similarweb to dive into the various ad creatives and content that have the greatest impact.

These ads are just a few of those listed in the creatives section from my competitive website analysis of Capital One. You can filter this list by the specific campaign, publishers, and ad networks to view those that matter to you most. You can also discover video ad creatives in the same place too.

In just five minutes ⏰ 

• I’ve captured audience loyalty statistics across my market
• Spotted the most competitive players
• Identified the marketing channels my audience is most responsive to
• I know which content and campaigns are driving the highest traffic volume
• I’ve created a target list for new referral partners and have been able to prioritize this based on results and engagement figures from my rivals
• I can see the types of creatives that my target audience is responding to, giving me ideas for ways to generate effective copy for future campaigns

Qualitative questions to determine pricing strategies

Companies need to make sure pricing stays relevant and competitive. Use these questions to determine customer perceptions on pricing and develop pricing strategies to maximize profits and reduce churn.

• How do you feel about our pricing structure?
• How does our pricing compare to other similar products?
• What value do you feel you get from our pricing?
• How could we make our pricing more attractive?
• What would be an ideal price for our product?
• Which features of our product that you would like to see priced differently?
• What discounts or deals would you like to see us offer?
• How do you feel about the amount you have to pay for our product?

Get Faster Answers to Qualitative Research Questions with Similarweb Today

Qualitative research question example for determining pricing strategies.

• ‍♀️ Question: What discounts or deals would you like to see us offer?
• Insight sought: The promotions or campaigns that resonate with your target audience.
• Challenges with traditional qualitative research methods: Consumers don’t always recall the types of ads or campaigns they respond to. Over time, their needs and habits change. Your sample size is limited to those you ask, leaving a huge pool of unknowns at play.
• A better approach: While qualitative insights are good to know, you get the most accurate picture of the highest-performing promotion and campaigns by looking at data collected directly from the web. These analytics are real-world, real-time, and based on the collective actions of many, instead of the limited survey group you approach. By getting a complete picture across an entire market, your decisions are better informed and more aligned with current market trends and behaviors.
• ✅ How it’s done: Similarweb’s Popular Pages feature shows the content, products, campaigns, and pages with the highest growth for any website. So, if you’re trying to unpack the successes of others in your space and find out what content resonates with a target audience, there’s a far quicker way to get answers to these questions with Similarweb.

Here, I’m using Capital One as an example site. I can see trending pages on their site showing the largest increase in page views. Other filters include campaign, best-performing, and new–each of which shows you page URLs, share of traffic, and growth as a percentage. This page is particularly useful for staying on top of trending topics , campaigns, and new content being pushed out in a market by key competitors.

Qualitative research questions for product development teams

It’s vital to stay in touch with changing consumer needs. These questions can also be used for new product or service development, but this time, it’s from the perspective of a product manager or development team. 

• What are customers’ primary needs and wants for this product?
• What do customers think of our current product offerings?
• What is the most important feature or benefit of our product?
• How can we improve our product to meet customers’ needs better?
• What do customers like or dislike about our competitors’ products?
• What do customers look for when deciding between our product and a competitor’s?
• How have customer needs and wants for this product changed over time?
• What motivates customers to purchase this product?
• What is the most important thing customers want from this product?
• What features or benefits are most important when selecting a product?
• What do customers perceive to be our product’s pros and cons?
• What would make customers switch from a competitor’s product to ours?
• How do customers perceive our product in comparison to similar products?
• What do customers think of our pricing and value proposition?
• What do customers think of our product’s design, usability, and aesthetics?

Qualitative questions examples to understand customer segments

Market segmentation seeks to create groups of consumers with shared characteristics. Use these questions to learn more about different customer segments and how to target them with tailored messaging.

• What motivates customers to make a purchase?
• How do customers perceive our brand in comparison to our competitors?
• How do customers feel about our product quality?
• How do customers define quality in our products?
• What factors influence customers’ purchasing decisions ?
• What are the most important aspects of customer service?
• What do customers think of our customer service?
• What do customers think of our pricing?
• How do customers rate our product offerings?
• How do customers prefer to make purchases (online, in-store, etc.)?

Qualitative research question example for understanding customer segments

• ‍♀️ Question: Which social media channels are you most active on?
• Insight sought: Formulate a social media strategy . Specifically, the social media channels most likely to succeed with a target audience.
• Challenges with traditional qualitative research methods: Qualitative research question responses are limited to those you ask, giving you a limited sample size. Questions like this are usually at risk of some bias, and this may not be reflective of real-world actions.
• A better approach: Get a complete picture of social media preferences for an entire market or specific audience belonging to rival firms. Insights are available in real-time, and are based on the actions of many, not a select group of participants. Data is readily available, easy to understand, and expandable at a moment’s notice.
• ✅ How it’s done: Using Similarweb’s website analysis feature, you can get a clear breakdown of social media stats for your audience using the marketing channels element. It shows the percentage of visits from each channel to your site, respective growth, and specific referral pages by each platform. All data is expandable, meaning you can select any platform, period, and region to drill down and get more accurate intel, instantly.

This example shows me Bank of America’s social media distribution, with YouTube , Linkedin , and Facebook taking the top three spots, and accounting for almost 80% of traffic being driven from social media.

When doing any type of market research, it’s important to benchmark performance against industry averages and perform a social media competitive analysis to verify rival performance across the same channels.

Qualitative questions to inform competitive analysis

Organizations must assess market sentiment toward other players to compete and beat rival firms. Whether you want to increase market share , challenge industry leaders , or reduce churn, understanding how people view you vs. the competition is key.

• What is the overall perception of our competitors’ product offerings in the market?
• What attributes do our competitors prioritize in their customer experience?
• What strategies do our competitors use to differentiate their products from ours?
• How do our competitors position their products in relation to ours?
• How do our competitors’ pricing models compare to ours?
• What do consumers think of our competitors’ product quality?
• What do consumers think of our competitors’ customer service?
• What are the key drivers of purchase decisions in our market?
• What is the impact of our competitors’ marketing campaigns on our market share ? 10. How do our competitors leverage social media to promote their products?

Qualitative research question example for competitive analysis

• ‍♀️ Question: What other companies do you shop with for x?
• Insight sought: W ho are your competitors? Which of your rival’s sites do your customers visit? How loyal are consumers in your market?
• Challenges with traditional qualitative research methods:  Sample size is limited, and customers could be unwilling to reveal which competitors they shop with, or how often they around. Where finances are involved, people can act with reluctance or bias, and be unwilling to reveal other suppliers they do business with.
• A better approach: Get a complete picture of your audience’s loyalty, see who else they shop with, and how many other sites they visit in your competitive group. Find out the size of the untapped opportunity and which players are doing a better job at attracting unique visitors – without having to ask people to reveal their preferences.
• ✅ How it’s done: Similarweb website analysis shows you the competitive sites your audience visits, giving you access to data that shows cross-visitation habits, audience loyalty, and untapped potential in a matter of minutes.

Using the audience interests element of Similarweb website analysis, you can view the cross-browsing behaviors of a website’s audience instantly. You can see a matrix that shows the percentage of visitors on a target site and any rival site they may have visited.

With the Similarweb audience overlap feature, view the cross-visitation habits of an audience across specific websites. In this example, I chose chase.com and its four closest competitors to review. For each intersection, you see the number of unique visitors and the overall proportion of each site’s audience it represents. It also shows the volume of unreached potential visitors.

Here, you can see a direct comparison of the audience loyalty represented in a bar graph. It shows a breakdown of each site’s audience based on how many other sites they have visited. Those sites with the highest loyalty show fewer additional sites visited.

From the perspective of chase.com, I can see 47% of their visitors do not visit rival sites. 33% of their audience visited 1 or more sites in this group, 14% visited 2 or more sites, 4% visited 3 or more sites, and just 0.8% viewed all sites in this comparison. 

How to answer qualitative research questions with Similarweb

Similarweb Research Intelligence drastically improves market research efficiency and time to insight. Both of these can impact the bottom line and the pace at which organizations can adapt and flex when markets shift, and rivals change tactics.

Outdated practices, while still useful, take time . And with a quicker, more efficient way to garner similar insights, opting for the fast lane puts you at a competitive advantage.

With a birds-eye view of the actions and behaviors of companies and consumers across a market , you can answer certain research questions without the need to plan, do, and review extensive qualitative market research .

Wrapping up

Qualitative research methods have been around for centuries. From designing the questions to finding the best distribution channels, collecting and analyzing findings takes time to get the insights you need. Similarweb Digital Research Intelligence drastically improves efficiency and time to insight. Both of which impact the bottom line and the pace at which organizations can adapt and flex when markets shift.

Similarweb’s suite of digital intelligence solutions offers unbiased, accurate, honest insights you can trust for analyzing any industry, market, or audience.

• Methodologies used for data collection are robust, transparent, and trustworthy.
• Clear presentation of data via an easy-to-use, intuitive platform.
• It updates dynamically–giving you the freshest data about an industry or market.
• Data is available via an API – so you can plug into platforms like Tableau or PowerBI to streamline your analyses.
• Filter and refine results according to your needs.

Are quantitative or qualitative research questions best?

Both have their place and purpose in market research. Qualitative research questions seek to provide details, whereas quantitative market research gives you numerical statistics that are easier and quicker to analyze. You get more flexibility with qualitative questions, and they’re non-directional.

What are the advantages of qualitative research?

Qualitative research is advantageous because it allows researchers to better understand their subject matter by exploring people’s attitudes, behaviors, and motivations in a particular context. It also allows researchers to uncover new insights that may not have been discovered with quantitative research methods.

What are some of the challenges of qualitative research?

Qualitative research can be time-consuming and costly, typically involving in-depth interviews and focus groups. Additionally, there are challenges associated with the reliability and validity of the collected data, as there is no universal standard for interpreting the results.

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Qualitative Surveys: What They Are, Benefits, and How to Conduct Them

Qualitative surveys have been an essential part of research as they help uncover aspects related to respondents’ emotions, behaviors, and perceptions beyond what numbers can convey.

This article will delve into qualitative surveys in detail, so you can effectively use them in your next study.

What are Qualitative Surveys?

Qualitative surveys are a research tool that employs open-ended questions to gather opinions, experiences, narratives, or accounts from respondents. 

These surveys are useful for generating information through a conversation that identifies initial topics or issues to explore further in research . 

Qualitative surveys seek comments, opinions, suggestions, and other types of responses that are not as easy to classify and quantify as numbers. Typically, fewer people may be surveyed compared to quantitative surveys, but richer data can be obtained.

Benefits of Qualitative Surveys

Opinions can change and evolve throughout a conversation; qualitative research can capture this. Here are some benefits of using qualitative surveys:

Capture Changing Attitudes

Researchers can quickly adapt questions, change the environment, or other variables to enhance responses if useful data isn’t obtained. Qualitative research can capture changing attitudes within a target group, such as consumers of a product or service or attitudes in the workplace.

Greater Flexibility

If responses don’t align with researcher expectations, qualitative data is equally useful for adding context and perhaps explaining something that numbers alone cannot reveal.

In-Depth Explanation

Qualitative research methods don’t have the same limitations as quantitative methods. When collecting non-numeric data, there’s the potential to provide explanations that reveal more about the data.

Explore Uncharted Areas

Qualitative surveys allow speculative research into areas that researchers find valuable. Capturing qualitative data empowers researchers to be more speculative about the areas they choose to investigate and how to do so.

Enhance Participation

Using qualitative surveys allows for a more direct approach to research participants , who may feel more listened to and motivated to complete the survey .

Types of Qualitative Surveys

There are numerous types of Qualitative Surveys, each offering a distinct approach to comprehending human experiences and perspectives. The selection of a method depends on research objectives, context, and available resources.

Some common types of qualitative surveys include:

Face-to-Face Surveys

In face-to-face surveys , the researcher asks participants one or more open-ended questions on a topic, usually observing participants’ facial expressions and other behaviors while they respond.

Being able to see participants’ reactions allows the researcher to ask follow-up questions for more detailed responses and record any facial or behavioral cues that seem contrary to what participants are explicitly saying.

Phone Surveys

Phone-based qualitative surveys are similar to face-to-face methods, but the researcher cannot see participants’ facial or behavioral responses to the questions asked. This means the researcher must rely on vocal clues.

Online Qualitative Surveys

Online surveys can collect more responses within a shorter time frame than in-person or phone surveys. Although the data may be less detailed, it is generally more abundant to compensate.

Open-ended questions are presented to participants in written format via email or online survey software , often alongside quantitative survey questions on the same topic.

Researchers may provide contextual information or key definitions to help “frame” how participants view qualitative survey questions, as they cannot directly ask the researcher about it in real-time.

Observational Studies

Observational studies involve systematically observing participants in their natural environments. This method provides insights into behaviors, interactions, and contextual factors.

Grounded Theory

Grounded theory aims to develop theories from the data itself, allowing researchers to derive concepts and relationships directly from participants’ responses.

Focus Groups

In a focus group, a small group of participants discuss a specific topic or issue under the guidance of a moderator. This method encourages participants to interact with each other, generating rich discussions.

How to Conduct a Qualitative Survey

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to conduct a qualitative survey in 7 steps:

1. Set Clear Objectives for Your Survey

Determine the purpose of your survey and be clear about what you want to know and the information you expect to gather. Plan precisely how you’ll record response data, including using specific tables or charts that are useful for report generation.

2. Craft Questions that Probe “Why” and “How”

Qualitative research aims to take a concrete idea, delve into why it exists, and determine how it has come about. 

With that in mind, your survey questions should be phrased and sequenced to elicit these types of insights. For instance, use open-ended text questions.

3. Place Key Questions at the Start

If you have a set of questions that you deem more important than others, place these questions at the beginning of your survey. Respondents may become fatigued after answering multiple questions, and if respondents stop responding to the survey after partially completing it, their response data will be severely affected.

Ensuring each question serves a purpose can mitigate survey fatigue, and it’s also a good idea to place the most important questions at the beginning.

4. Be Concise in Each Question and the Number of Questions

Responses to survey questions should be intuitive and straightforward for respondents. Therefore, complex instructions shouldn’t be necessary. 

Furthermore, each additional question reduces response rates, decreases validity, and makes all results suspect. 

People are much more likely to participate in single-question surveys. Therefore, realistically estimate the time needed to complete the survey, as the more open-ended questions and complex classifications you ask people, the more respondents you’ll lose.

5. Test Your Survey

Before using your survey in the actual research, it’s important to conduct a test to determine if the questions you’ve developed yield the responses you expect. This involves creating a draft of the questions and obtaining feedback from collaborators.

Test the survey system’s format with a small group of testers from your target audience , collecting feedback on each page, and examine the results of the test survey to ensure that the collected data is in a useful and analyzable format.

6. Code Text Responses

Researchers often talk about coding data during analysis. This involves converting text responses into something countable so that the most important trends can be extracted and communicated in a way that makes sense to the report’s audience. 

Coding text responses allows you to capture rich textual data for understanding and quoting.

Create Your Qualitative Surveys with QuestionPro!

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Your ultimate guide to qualitative research (with methods and examples).

16 min read You may be already using qualitative research and want to check your understanding, or you may be starting from the beginning. Learn about qualitative research methods and how you can best use them for maximum effect.

What is qualitative research?

Qualitative research is a research method that collects non-numerical data. Typically, it goes beyond the information that quantitative research provides (which we will cover below) because it is used to gain an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations.

Qualitative research methods focus on the thoughts, feelings, reasons, motivations, and values of a participant, to understand why people act in the way they do .

In this way, qualitative research can be described as naturalistic research, looking at naturally-occurring social events within natural settings. So, qualitative researchers would describe their part in social research as the ‘vehicle’ for collecting the qualitative research data.

Qualitative researchers discovered this by looking at primary and secondary sources where data is represented in non-numerical form. This can include collecting qualitative research data types like quotes, symbols, images, and written testimonials.

These data types tell qualitative researchers subjective information. While these aren’t facts in themselves, conclusions can be interpreted out of qualitative that can help to provide valuable context.

Because of this, qualitative research is typically viewed as explanatory in nature and is often used in social research, as this gives a window into the behavior and actions of people.

It can be a good research approach for health services research or clinical research projects.

Free eBook: The qualitative research design handbook

Quantitative vs qualitative research

In order to compare qualitative and quantitative research methods, let’s explore what quantitative research is first, before exploring how it differs from qualitative research.

Quantitative research

Quantitative research is the research method of collecting quantitative research data – data that can be converted into numbers or numerical data, which can be easily quantified, compared, and analyzed .

Quantitative research methods deal with primary and secondary sources where data is represented in numerical form. This can include closed-question poll results, statistics, and census information or demographic data.

Quantitative research data tends to be used when researchers are interested in understanding a particular moment in time and examining data sets over time to find trends and patterns.

The difference between quantitative and qualitative research methodology

While qualitative research is defined as data that supplies non-numerical information, quantitative research focuses on numerical data.

In general, if you’re interested in measuring something or testing a hypothesis, use quantitative research methods. If you want to explore ideas, thoughts, and meanings, use qualitative research methods.

While qualitative research helps you to properly define, promote and sell your products, don’t rely on qualitative research methods alone because qualitative findings can’t always be reliably repeated. Qualitative research is directional, not empirical.

The best statistical analysis research uses a combination of empirical data and human experience ( quantitative research and qualitative research ) to tell the story and gain better and deeper insights, quickly.

Where both qualitative and quantitative methods are not used, qualitative researchers will find that using one without the other leaves you with missing answers.

For example, if a retail company wants to understand whether a new product line of shoes will perform well in the target market:

• Qualitative research methods could be used with a sample of target customers, which would provide subjective reasons why they’d be likely to purchase or not purchase the shoes, while
• Quantitative research methods into the historical customer sales information on shoe-related products would provide insights into the sales performance, and likely future performance of the new product range.

Approaches to qualitative research

There are five approaches to qualitative research methods:

• Grounded theory: Grounded theory relates to where qualitative researchers come to a stronger hypothesis through induction, all throughout the process of collecting qualitative research data and forming connections. After an initial question to get started, qualitative researchers delve into information that is grouped into ideas or codes, which grow and develop into larger categories, as the qualitative research goes on. At the end of the qualitative research, the researcher may have a completely different hypothesis, based on evidence and inquiry, as well as the initial question.
• Ethnographic research : Ethnographic research is where researchers embed themselves into the environment of the participant or group in order to understand the culture and context of activities and behavior. This is dependent on the involvement of the researcher, and can be subject to researcher interpretation bias and participant observer bias . However, it remains a great way to allow researchers to experience a different ‘world’.
• Action research: With the action research process, both researchers and participants work together to make a change. This can be through taking action, researching and reflecting on the outcomes. Through collaboration, the collective comes to a result, though the way both groups interact and how they affect each other gives insights into their critical thinking skills.
• Phenomenological research: Researchers seek to understand the meaning of an event or behavior phenomenon by describing and interpreting participant’s life experiences. This qualitative research process understands that people create their own structured reality (‘the social construction of reality’), based on their past experiences. So, by viewing the way people intentionally live their lives, we’re able to see the experiential meaning behind why they live as they do.
• Narrative research: Narrative research, or narrative inquiry, is where researchers examine the way stories are told by participants, and how they explain their experiences, as a way of explaining the meaning behind their life choices and events. This qualitative research can arise from using journals, conversational stories, autobiographies or letters, as a few narrative research examples. The narrative is subjective to the participant, so we’re able to understand their views from what they’ve documented/spoken.

Qualitative research methods can use structured research instruments for data collection, like:

Surveys for individual views

A survey is a simple-to-create and easy-to-distribute qualitative research method, which helps gather information from large groups of participants quickly. Traditionally, paper-based surveys can now be made online, so costs can stay quite low.

Qualitative research questions tend to be open questions that ask for more information and provide a text box to allow for unconstrained comments.

Examples include:

• Asking participants to keep a written or a video diary for a period of time to document their feelings and thoughts
• In-Home-Usage tests: Buyers use your product for a period of time and report their experience

Surveys for group consensus (Delphi survey)

A Delphi survey may be used as a way to bring together participants and gain a consensus view over several rounds of questions. It differs from traditional surveys where results go to the researcher only. Instead, results go to participants as well, so they can reflect and consider all responses before another round of questions are submitted.

This can be useful to do as it can help researchers see what variance is among the group of participants and see the process of how consensus was reached.

• Asking participants to act as a fake jury for a trial and revealing parts of the case over several rounds to see how opinions change. At the end, the fake jury must make a unanimous decision about the defendant on trial.
• Asking participants to comment on the versions of a product being developed , as the changes are made and their feedback is taken onboard. At the end, participants must decide whether the product is ready to launch .

Semi-structured interviews

Interviews are a great way to connect with participants, though they require time from the research team to set up and conduct, especially if they’re done face-to-face.

Researchers may also have issues connecting with participants in different geographical regions. The researcher uses a set of predefined open-ended questions, though more ad-hoc questions can be asked depending on participant answers.

• Conducting a phone interview with participants to run through their feedback on a product . During the conversation, researchers can go ‘off-script’ and ask more probing questions for clarification or build on the insights.

Focus groups

Participants are brought together into a group, where a particular topic is discussed. It is researcher-led and usually occurs in-person in a mutually accessible location, to allow for easy communication between participants in focus groups.

In focus groups , the researcher uses a set of predefined open-ended questions, though more ad-hoc questions can be asked depending on participant answers.

• Asking participants to do UX tests, which are interface usability tests to show how easily users can complete certain tasks

Direct observation

This is a form of ethnographic research where researchers will observe participants’ behavior in a naturalistic environment. This can be great for understanding the actions in the culture and context of a participant’s setting.

This qualitative research method is prone to researcher bias as it is the researcher that must interpret the actions and reactions of participants. Their findings can be impacted by their own beliefs, values, and inferences.

• Embedding yourself in the location of your buyers to understand how a product would perform against the values and norms of that society

Qualitative data types and category types

Qualitative research methods often deliver information in the following qualitative research data types:

• Written testimonials

Through contextual analysis of the information, researchers can assign participants to category types:

• Social class
• Political alignment
• Most likely to purchase a product
• Their preferred training learning style

Advantages of qualitative research

• Useful for complex situations: Qualitative research on its own is great when dealing with complex issues, however, providing background context using quantitative facts can give a richer and wider understanding of a topic. In these cases, quantitative research may not be enough.
• A window into the ‘why’: Qualitative research can give you a window into the deeper meaning behind a participant’s answer. It can help you uncover the larger ‘why’ that can’t always be seen by analyzing numerical data.
• Can help improve customer experiences: In service industries where customers are crucial, like in private health services, gaining information about a customer’s experience through health research studies can indicate areas where services can be improved.

Disadvantages of qualitative research

• You need to ask the right question: Doing qualitative research may require you to consider what the right question is to uncover the underlying thinking behind a behavior. This may need probing questions to go further, which may suit a focus group or face-to-face interview setting better.
• Results are interpreted: As qualitative research data is written, spoken, and often nuanced, interpreting the data results can be difficult as they come in non-numerical formats. This might make it harder to know if you can accept or reject your hypothesis.
• More bias: There are lower levels of control to qualitative research methods, as they can be subject to biases like confirmation bias, researcher bias, and observation bias. This can have a knock-on effect on the validity and truthfulness of the qualitative research data results.

How to use qualitative research to your business’s advantage?

Qualitative methods help improve your products and marketing in many different ways:

• Understand the emotional connections to your brand
• Identify obstacles to purchase
• Uncover doubts and confusion about your messaging
• Find missing product features
• Improve the usability of your website, app, or chatbot experience
• Learn about how consumers talk about your product
• See how buyers compare your brand to others in the competitive set
• Learn how an organization’s employees evaluate and select vendors

6 steps to conducting good qualitative research

Businesses can benefit from qualitative research by using it to understand the meaning behind data types. There are several steps to this:

• Define your problem or interest area: What do you observe is happening and is it frequent? Identify the data type/s you’re observing.
• Create a hypothesis: Ask yourself what could be the causes for the situation with those qualitative research data types.
• Plan your qualitative research: Use structured qualitative research instruments like surveys, focus groups, or interviews to ask questions that test your hypothesis.
• Data Collection: Collect qualitative research data and understand what your data types are telling you. Once data is collected on different types over long time periods, you can analyze it and give insights into changing attitudes and language patterns.
• Data analysis: Does your information support your hypothesis? (You may need to redo the qualitative research with other variables to see if the results improve)
• Effectively present the qualitative research data: Communicate the results in a clear and concise way to help other people understand the findings.

Qualitative data analysis

Evaluating qualitative research can be tough when there are several analytics platforms to manage and lots of subjective data sources to compare.

Qualtrics provides a number of qualitative research analysis tools, like Text iQ , powered by Qualtrics iQ, provides powerful machine learning and native language processing to help you discover patterns and trends in text.

This also provides you with:

• Sentiment analysis — a technique to help identify the underlying sentiment (say positive, neutral, and/or negative) in qualitative research text responses
• Topic detection/categorisation — this technique is the grouping or bucketing of similar themes that can are relevant for the business & the industry (eg. ‘Food quality’, ‘Staff efficiency’ or ‘Product availability’)

How Qualtrics products can enhance & simplify the qualitative research process

Even in today’s data-obsessed marketplace, qualitative data is valuable – maybe even more so because it helps you establish an authentic human connection to your customers. If qualitative research doesn’t play a role to inform your product and marketing strategy, your decisions aren’t as effective as they could be.

The Qualtrics XM system gives you an all-in-one, integrated solution to help you all the way through conducting qualitative research. From survey creation and data collection to textual analysis and data reporting, it can help all your internal teams gain insights from your subjective and categorical data.

Qualitative methods are catered through templates or advanced survey designs. While you can manually collect data and conduct data analysis in a spreadsheet program, this solution helps you automate the process of qualitative research, saving you time and administration work.

Using computational techniques helps you to avoid human errors, and participant results come in are already incorporated into the analysis in real-time.

Our key tools, Text IQ™ and Driver IQ™ make analyzing subjective and categorical data easy and simple. Choose to highlight key findings based on topic, sentiment, or frequency. The choice is yours.

Some examples of your workspace in action, using drag and drop to create fast data visualizations quickly:

Related resources

Market intelligence 10 min read, marketing insights 11 min read, ethnographic research 11 min read, qualitative vs quantitative research 13 min read, qualitative research questions 11 min read, qualitative research design 12 min read, primary vs secondary research 14 min read, request demo.

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Qualitative Research Questionnaire: Meaning and Examples

What goes into developing a qualitative research study? Find out here.

When approaching a research question of any kind, one of the most important decisions you’ll make is how you conduct your study. Depending on what specifically you’re hoping to learn and the qualities you hope to glean from your target population, you may choose a quantitative or qualitative approach. If you’re looking to collect opinions, personal insights, or firsthand experiences and narratives from study participants, a qualitative research questionnaire is one method you could use to do so.

While quantitative research provides information that is easy to interpret and derive meaning from—for example, clearly measurable information such as product rating or usage statistics—qualitative data tells you why a user chose that rating and what made them choose one product over another. If you’re working to develop a new product or service to advance your business, creating a qualitative research questionnaire could provide important insight to help ensure you’re offering the most impactful finished product possible.

What is a qualitative research questionnaire?

When working to gain a stronger, more complex understanding of how customers experience the world around them, how they like or use a product, or if a particular service enhanced their lives, qualitative research questionnaires are a great way to achieve your goal. In the business world, this insight can help provide information on things like customer motivation, needs, behaviors, and lifestyles—all of which can be useful in determining how to develop products, services, and resources that simultaneously generate profit and add value to people’s lives.

Simply put, this type of questionnaire is a series of written questions designed to give respondents a chance to explain their perspectives or experiences. Once you know what information you need, you can begin curating your questionnaire. These types of questions should be specific enough that your participants have a clear understanding of what information you want them to provide, but also allow room for them to generate a unique response that elicits in-depth information about them, their lives, and their experiences.

Qualitative questionnaire example

That may sound like a tall order—how do you know which questions will resonate with people, and how do you get them to tap into the information you really need? In short, by carefully curating a series of questions and strategically drilling down with follow-up questions when needed, you’ll have a wealth of information to pull from in no time.

To help you understand how to use a qualitative research questionnaire and the types of questions you should consider including in your own, here are a few tips and examples of questions likely to elicit long-form responses: ‍

Focus on motivation, perception, and experience questions: The benefit of this type of research is that it taps into the wants, needs, and mindset of your customer, and that information can inform business decisions—not just purchase or engagement stats, but the reasons behind those numbers. Ask questions that inspire them to share, like:

• What problem does this product solve in your daily life?
• How could this product be improved to better suit your unique needs?
• What are your perceptions of our brand? In your opinion, how do we compare to X competitors?

Contextualize the questionnaire and its questions: Since your participants are receiving written questions and can’t ask clarifying questions, as they might in a face-to-face interview, be sure you’re thoroughly contextualizing the questionnaire and the questions it includes. Doing so ensures there is no confusion about why a particular topic is being brought up or how they should approach their response.

Start broad, then focus on key points: Be cognizant of the fact that people may not all respond to the same questions with the information you need. With this in mind, consider breaking things into several parts, for example:

• When shopping for a product, what factors most strongly influence your decision about which to buy?
• How do you research products to determine which you want to buy?
• What are the top characteristics you weigh when evaluating a product or brand?

While these questions are all similar, asking variations on a theme increases the likelihood of respondents providing the information you need. Since you can’t ask follow-up questions as you would in an interview, this serves a similar function.

When in doubt, include a follow-up: While some respondents will overshare, there are many others who need a push to fully unpack their thoughts—include that push. By simply adding a “why or why not?” or “explain why you feel that way” follow-up question, you could dramatically improve the impact of your questionnaire.

The exact questions you include will depend heavily on the specific research question you have in mind, but these tips are a great way to ensure your questionnaire returns the most useful and meaningful information for your business or organization. ‍

Pros and cons of qualitative research questionnaires

Every survey method has its strengths and weaknesses, so to make sure this is the right option for you, here is a breakdown of some of the main pros and cons associated with qualitative research questionnaires.

• If you’re in the early stages of developing a product or survey, this method of survey is a great tool for fleshing out the features and characteristics you want the finished product to have.
• If you start your survey and realize it’s unclear or returning the wrong kind of information, it’s easy and inexpensive to modify and rerun.
• If done online, you can find respondents relatively easily and allow them to complete the survey at their leisure, increasing the likelihood of participation and nuance in responses.
• If questionnaires are completed on paper, you may struggle to transcribe handwritten responses. (A voice survey tool like Voiceform that also has transcription capabilities can make this process a whole lot easier.)
• Since respondents are unable to ask clarifying questions, there’s room for misinterpretation and failure to fully engage their response.

Voiceform can make questionnaires easier

If you want to easily collect meaningful insight from your customers, Voiceform provides innovative tools and solutions that make qualitative research and data analysis easier than ever. Just create your questionnaire, share it with your customers, and allow them to effortlessly relay their insight and experience through audio or text—whichever is more comfortable for them. Then let Voiceform collect, transcribe, and prepare your data for export or analysis. Schedule a demo today to begin building your qualitative research questionnaire with Voiceform!

We make collecting, sharing and analyzing data a breeze

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Writing Survey Questions

Perhaps the most important part of the survey process is the creation of questions that accurately measure the opinions, experiences and behaviors of the public. Accurate random sampling will be wasted if the information gathered is built on a shaky foundation of ambiguous or biased questions. Creating good measures involves both writing good questions and organizing them to form the questionnaire.

Questionnaire design is a multistage process that requires attention to many details at once. Designing the questionnaire is complicated because surveys can ask about topics in varying degrees of detail, questions can be asked in different ways, and questions asked earlier in a survey may influence how people respond to later questions. Researchers are also often interested in measuring change over time and therefore must be attentive to how opinions or behaviors have been measured in prior surveys.

Surveyors may conduct pilot tests or focus groups in the early stages of questionnaire development in order to better understand how people think about an issue or comprehend a question. Pretesting a survey is an essential step in the questionnaire design process to evaluate how people respond to the overall questionnaire and specific questions, especially when questions are being introduced for the first time.

For many years, surveyors approached questionnaire design as an art, but substantial research over the past forty years has demonstrated that there is a lot of science involved in crafting a good survey questionnaire. Here, we discuss the pitfalls and best practices of designing questionnaires.

Question development

There are several steps involved in developing a survey questionnaire. The first is identifying what topics will be covered in the survey. For Pew Research Center surveys, this involves thinking about what is happening in our nation and the world and what will be relevant to the public, policymakers and the media. We also track opinion on a variety of issues over time so we often ensure that we update these trends on a regular basis to better understand whether people’s opinions are changing.

At Pew Research Center, questionnaire development is a collaborative and iterative process where staff meet to discuss drafts of the questionnaire several times over the course of its development. We frequently test new survey questions ahead of time through qualitative research methods such as  focus groups , cognitive interviews, pretesting (often using an  online, opt-in sample ), or a combination of these approaches. Researchers use insights from this testing to refine questions before they are asked in a production survey, such as on the ATP.

Measuring change over time

Many surveyors want to track changes over time in people’s attitudes, opinions and behaviors. To measure change, questions are asked at two or more points in time. A cross-sectional design surveys different people in the same population at multiple points in time. A panel, such as the ATP, surveys the same people over time. However, it is common for the set of people in survey panels to change over time as new panelists are added and some prior panelists drop out. Many of the questions in Pew Research Center surveys have been asked in prior polls. Asking the same questions at different points in time allows us to report on changes in the overall views of the general public (or a subset of the public, such as registered voters, men or Black Americans), or what we call “trending the data”.

When measuring change over time, it is important to use the same question wording and to be sensitive to where the question is asked in the questionnaire to maintain a similar context as when the question was asked previously (see  question wording  and  question order  for further information). All of our survey reports include a topline questionnaire that provides the exact question wording and sequencing, along with results from the current survey and previous surveys in which we asked the question.

The Center’s transition from conducting U.S. surveys by live telephone interviewing to an online panel (around 2014 to 2020) complicated some opinion trends, but not others. Opinion trends that ask about sensitive topics (e.g., personal finances or attending religious services ) or that elicited volunteered answers (e.g., “neither” or “don’t know”) over the phone tended to show larger differences than other trends when shifting from phone polls to the online ATP. The Center adopted several strategies for coping with changes to data trends that may be related to this change in methodology. If there is evidence suggesting that a change in a trend stems from switching from phone to online measurement, Center reports flag that possibility for readers to try to head off confusion or erroneous conclusions.

Open- and closed-ended questions

One of the most significant decisions that can affect how people answer questions is whether the question is posed as an open-ended question, where respondents provide a response in their own words, or a closed-ended question, where they are asked to choose from a list of answer choices.

For example, in a poll conducted after the 2008 presidential election, people responded very differently to two versions of the question: “What one issue mattered most to you in deciding how you voted for president?” One was closed-ended and the other open-ended. In the closed-ended version, respondents were provided five options and could volunteer an option not on the list.

When explicitly offered the economy as a response, more than half of respondents (58%) chose this answer; only 35% of those who responded to the open-ended version volunteered the economy. Moreover, among those asked the closed-ended version, fewer than one-in-ten (8%) provided a response other than the five they were read. By contrast, fully 43% of those asked the open-ended version provided a response not listed in the closed-ended version of the question. All of the other issues were chosen at least slightly more often when explicitly offered in the closed-ended version than in the open-ended version. (Also see  “High Marks for the Campaign, a High Bar for Obama”  for more information.)

Researchers will sometimes conduct a pilot study using open-ended questions to discover which answers are most common. They will then develop closed-ended questions based off that pilot study that include the most common responses as answer choices. In this way, the questions may better reflect what the public is thinking, how they view a particular issue, or bring certain issues to light that the researchers may not have been aware of.

When asking closed-ended questions, the choice of options provided, how each option is described, the number of response options offered, and the order in which options are read can all influence how people respond. One example of the impact of how categories are defined can be found in a Pew Research Center poll conducted in January 2002. When half of the sample was asked whether it was “more important for President Bush to focus on domestic policy or foreign policy,” 52% chose domestic policy while only 34% said foreign policy. When the category “foreign policy” was narrowed to a specific aspect – “the war on terrorism” – far more people chose it; only 33% chose domestic policy while 52% chose the war on terrorism.

In most circumstances, the number of answer choices should be kept to a relatively small number – just four or perhaps five at most – especially in telephone surveys. Psychological research indicates that people have a hard time keeping more than this number of choices in mind at one time. When the question is asking about an objective fact and/or demographics, such as the religious affiliation of the respondent, more categories can be used. In fact, they are encouraged to ensure inclusivity. For example, Pew Research Center’s standard religion questions include more than 12 different categories, beginning with the most common affiliations (Protestant and Catholic). Most respondents have no trouble with this question because they can expect to see their religious group within that list in a self-administered survey.

In addition to the number and choice of response options offered, the order of answer categories can influence how people respond to closed-ended questions. Research suggests that in telephone surveys respondents more frequently choose items heard later in a list (a “recency effect”), and in self-administered surveys, they tend to choose items at the top of the list (a “primacy” effect).

Because of concerns about the effects of category order on responses to closed-ended questions, many sets of response options in Pew Research Center’s surveys are programmed to be randomized to ensure that the options are not asked in the same order for each respondent. Rotating or randomizing means that questions or items in a list are not asked in the same order to each respondent. Answers to questions are sometimes affected by questions that precede them. By presenting questions in a different order to each respondent, we ensure that each question gets asked in the same context as every other question the same number of times (e.g., first, last or any position in between). This does not eliminate the potential impact of previous questions on the current question, but it does ensure that this bias is spread randomly across all of the questions or items in the list. For instance, in the example discussed above about what issue mattered most in people’s vote, the order of the five issues in the closed-ended version of the question was randomized so that no one issue appeared early or late in the list for all respondents. Randomization of response items does not eliminate order effects, but it does ensure that this type of bias is spread randomly.

Questions with ordinal response categories – those with an underlying order (e.g., excellent, good, only fair, poor OR very favorable, mostly favorable, mostly unfavorable, very unfavorable) – are generally not randomized because the order of the categories conveys important information to help respondents answer the question. Generally, these types of scales should be presented in order so respondents can easily place their responses along the continuum, but the order can be reversed for some respondents. For example, in one of Pew Research Center’s questions about abortion, half of the sample is asked whether abortion should be “legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, illegal in all cases,” while the other half of the sample is asked the same question with the response categories read in reverse order, starting with “illegal in all cases.” Again, reversing the order does not eliminate the recency effect but distributes it randomly across the population.

Question wording

The choice of words and phrases in a question is critical in expressing the meaning and intent of the question to the respondent and ensuring that all respondents interpret the question the same way. Even small wording differences can substantially affect the answers people provide.

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An example of a wording difference that had a significant impact on responses comes from a January 2003 Pew Research Center survey. When people were asked whether they would “favor or oppose taking military action in Iraq to end Saddam Hussein’s rule,” 68% said they favored military action while 25% said they opposed military action. However, when asked whether they would “favor or oppose taking military action in Iraq to end Saddam Hussein’s rule  even if it meant that U.S. forces might suffer thousands of casualties, ” responses were dramatically different; only 43% said they favored military action, while 48% said they opposed it. The introduction of U.S. casualties altered the context of the question and influenced whether people favored or opposed military action in Iraq.

There has been a substantial amount of research to gauge the impact of different ways of asking questions and how to minimize differences in the way respondents interpret what is being asked. The issues related to question wording are more numerous than can be treated adequately in this short space, but below are a few of the important things to consider:

First, it is important to ask questions that are clear and specific and that each respondent will be able to answer. If a question is open-ended, it should be evident to respondents that they can answer in their own words and what type of response they should provide (an issue or problem, a month, number of days, etc.). Closed-ended questions should include all reasonable responses (i.e., the list of options is exhaustive) and the response categories should not overlap (i.e., response options should be mutually exclusive). Further, it is important to discern when it is best to use forced-choice close-ended questions (often denoted with a radio button in online surveys) versus “select-all-that-apply” lists (or check-all boxes). A 2019 Center study found that forced-choice questions tend to yield more accurate responses, especially for sensitive questions.  Based on that research, the Center generally avoids using select-all-that-apply questions.

It is also important to ask only one question at a time. Questions that ask respondents to evaluate more than one concept (known as double-barreled questions) – such as “How much confidence do you have in President Obama to handle domestic and foreign policy?” – are difficult for respondents to answer and often lead to responses that are difficult to interpret. In this example, it would be more effective to ask two separate questions, one about domestic policy and another about foreign policy.

In general, questions that use simple and concrete language are more easily understood by respondents. It is especially important to consider the education level of the survey population when thinking about how easy it will be for respondents to interpret and answer a question. Double negatives (e.g., do you favor or oppose  not  allowing gays and lesbians to legally marry) or unfamiliar abbreviations or jargon (e.g., ANWR instead of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) can result in respondent confusion and should be avoided.

Similarly, it is important to consider whether certain words may be viewed as biased or potentially offensive to some respondents, as well as the emotional reaction that some words may provoke. For example, in a 2005 Pew Research Center survey, 51% of respondents said they favored “making it legal for doctors to give terminally ill patients the means to end their lives,” but only 44% said they favored “making it legal for doctors to assist terminally ill patients in committing suicide.” Although both versions of the question are asking about the same thing, the reaction of respondents was different. In another example, respondents have reacted differently to questions using the word “welfare” as opposed to the more generic “assistance to the poor.” Several experiments have shown that there is much greater public support for expanding “assistance to the poor” than for expanding “welfare.”

We often write two versions of a question and ask half of the survey sample one version of the question and the other half the second version. Thus, we say we have two  forms  of the questionnaire. Respondents are assigned randomly to receive either form, so we can assume that the two groups of respondents are essentially identical. On questions where two versions are used, significant differences in the answers between the two forms tell us that the difference is a result of the way we worded the two versions.

One of the most common formats used in survey questions is the “agree-disagree” format. In this type of question, respondents are asked whether they agree or disagree with a particular statement. Research has shown that, compared with the better educated and better informed, less educated and less informed respondents have a greater tendency to agree with such statements. This is sometimes called an “acquiescence bias” (since some kinds of respondents are more likely to acquiesce to the assertion than are others). This behavior is even more pronounced when there’s an interviewer present, rather than when the survey is self-administered. A better practice is to offer respondents a choice between alternative statements. A Pew Research Center experiment with one of its routinely asked values questions illustrates the difference that question format can make. Not only does the forced choice format yield a very different result overall from the agree-disagree format, but the pattern of answers between respondents with more or less formal education also tends to be very different.

One other challenge in developing questionnaires is what is called “social desirability bias.” People have a natural tendency to want to be accepted and liked, and this may lead people to provide inaccurate answers to questions that deal with sensitive subjects. Research has shown that respondents understate alcohol and drug use, tax evasion and racial bias. They also may overstate church attendance, charitable contributions and the likelihood that they will vote in an election. Researchers attempt to account for this potential bias in crafting questions about these topics. For instance, when Pew Research Center surveys ask about past voting behavior, it is important to note that circumstances may have prevented the respondent from voting: “In the 2012 presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, did things come up that kept you from voting, or did you happen to vote?” The choice of response options can also make it easier for people to be honest. For example, a question about church attendance might include three of six response options that indicate infrequent attendance. Research has also shown that social desirability bias can be greater when an interviewer is present (e.g., telephone and face-to-face surveys) than when respondents complete the survey themselves (e.g., paper and web surveys).

Lastly, because slight modifications in question wording can affect responses, identical question wording should be used when the intention is to compare results to those from earlier surveys. Similarly, because question wording and responses can vary based on the mode used to survey respondents, researchers should carefully evaluate the likely effects on trend measurements if a different survey mode will be used to assess change in opinion over time.

Question order

Once the survey questions are developed, particular attention should be paid to how they are ordered in the questionnaire. Surveyors must be attentive to how questions early in a questionnaire may have unintended effects on how respondents answer subsequent questions. Researchers have demonstrated that the order in which questions are asked can influence how people respond; earlier questions can unintentionally provide context for the questions that follow (these effects are called “order effects”).

One kind of order effect can be seen in responses to open-ended questions. Pew Research Center surveys generally ask open-ended questions about national problems, opinions about leaders and similar topics near the beginning of the questionnaire. If closed-ended questions that relate to the topic are placed before the open-ended question, respondents are much more likely to mention concepts or considerations raised in those earlier questions when responding to the open-ended question.

For closed-ended opinion questions, there are two main types of order effects: contrast effects ( where the order results in greater differences in responses), and assimilation effects (where responses are more similar as a result of their order).

An example of a contrast effect can be seen in a Pew Research Center poll conducted in October 2003, a dozen years before same-sex marriage was legalized in the U.S. That poll found that people were more likely to favor allowing gays and lesbians to enter into legal agreements that give them the same rights as married couples when this question was asked after one about whether they favored or opposed allowing gays and lesbians to marry (45% favored legal agreements when asked after the marriage question, but 37% favored legal agreements without the immediate preceding context of a question about same-sex marriage). Responses to the question about same-sex marriage, meanwhile, were not significantly affected by its placement before or after the legal agreements question.

Another experiment embedded in a December 2008 Pew Research Center poll also resulted in a contrast effect. When people were asked “All in all, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in this country today?” immediately after having been asked “Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?”; 88% said they were dissatisfied, compared with only 78% without the context of the prior question.

Responses to presidential approval remained relatively unchanged whether national satisfaction was asked before or after it. A similar finding occurred in December 2004 when both satisfaction and presidential approval were much higher (57% were dissatisfied when Bush approval was asked first vs. 51% when general satisfaction was asked first).

Several studies also have shown that asking a more specific question before a more general question (e.g., asking about happiness with one’s marriage before asking about one’s overall happiness) can result in a contrast effect. Although some exceptions have been found, people tend to avoid redundancy by excluding the more specific question from the general rating.

Assimilation effects occur when responses to two questions are more consistent or closer together because of their placement in the questionnaire. We found an example of an assimilation effect in a Pew Research Center poll conducted in November 2008 when we asked whether Republican leaders should work with Obama or stand up to him on important issues and whether Democratic leaders should work with Republican leaders or stand up to them on important issues. People were more likely to say that Republican leaders should work with Obama when the question was preceded by the one asking what Democratic leaders should do in working with Republican leaders (81% vs. 66%). However, when people were first asked about Republican leaders working with Obama, fewer said that Democratic leaders should work with Republican leaders (71% vs. 82%).

The order questions are asked is of particular importance when tracking trends over time. As a result, care should be taken to ensure that the context is similar each time a question is asked. Modifying the context of the question could call into question any observed changes over time (see  measuring change over time  for more information).

A questionnaire, like a conversation, should be grouped by topic and unfold in a logical order. It is often helpful to begin the survey with simple questions that respondents will find interesting and engaging. Throughout the survey, an effort should be made to keep the survey interesting and not overburden respondents with several difficult questions right after one another. Demographic questions such as income, education or age should not be asked near the beginning of a survey unless they are needed to determine eligibility for the survey or for routing respondents through particular sections of the questionnaire. Even then, it is best to precede such items with more interesting and engaging questions. One virtue of survey panels like the ATP is that demographic questions usually only need to be asked once a year, not in each survey.

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28 tips for creating great qualitative surveys.

September 25, 2016 2016-09-25

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Qualitative surveys ask open-ended questions to find out more, sometimes in preparation for doing quantitative surveys. Test surveys to eliminate problems.

Sooner or later, most UX professionals will need to conduct a survey. Survey science from the quantitative side can be intimidating because it’s a specialized realm full of statistics, random selection, and scary stories of people going wrong with confidence. Don’t be afraid of doing qualitative surveys, though. Sure, it’s important to learn from survey experts, but you don’t have to be a survey specialist to get actionable data. You do have to find and fix the bugs in your questions first, however.

In This Article:

Quantitative vs. qualitative surveys, tips for qualitative surveys.

Quantitative surveys count results : how many people do this vs. do that (or rather, how many say that they do this or that). Use quant surveys when you need to ask questions that can be answered by checkbox or radio button, and when you want to be sure your data is broadly applicable to a large number of people. Quantitative surveys follow standard methods for randomly selecting a large number of participants (from a target group) and use statistical analysis to ensure that the results are statistically significant and representative for the whole population.

Qualitative surveys ask open-ended questions . Use them when you need to generate useful information via a conversation rather than a vote, such as when you’re not sure what the right set of answers might include. Qualitative surveys ask for comments, feedback, suggestions, and other kinds of responses that aren’t as easily classified and tallied as numbers can be. You can survey fewer people than in a quantitative survey and get rich data.

It’s possible to mix the two kinds of surveys, and it’s especially useful to do small, primarily qualitative surveys first to help you generate good answers to count later in a bigger survey. This one-two-punch strategy is much preferable to going straight to a closed-ended question with response categories you and your colleagues thought up in your conference room. (Yes, you could add an “other” option, but don’t count on valid statistics for options left to a catch-all bucket.)

Unordered lists can be more time-consuming to look through than lists that have an obvious ordering principle, but unordered lists seem to yield better answers, especially if you can sort the list differently for different respondents.

• Draft questions and get feedback from colleagues.
• Draft survey and get colleagues to attempt to answer the questions. Ask for comments after each question to help you revise questions toward more clarity and usefulness.
• Revise survey and test iteratively on paper. We typically do 4 rounds of testing, with 1 respondent per round. At this stage, don’t rely on colleagues, but recruit participants from the target audience. Revise between each round. Run these tests as think-aloud studies ; do not send out the survey and rely on written comments — they will never be the same as a realtime stream of commentary.
• Randomize some sections and questions of the survey to help ensure that (1) people quitting partway through don’t affect the overall balance of data being collected, and (2) the question or section ordering doesn’t bias people’s responses.
• Test the survey-system format with a small set of testers from the target audience, again collecting comments on each page.
• Examine the output from the test survey to ensure the data gathered is in an analyzable, useful format.
• Revise the survey one more time.
• Don’t make your own tool for surveys if you can avoid it . Many solid survey platforms exist, and they can save you lots of time and money.
• Decide up front what the survey learning goals are . What do you want to report about? What kind of graphs and tables will you want to deliver?
• Write neutral questions that don’t imply particular answers or give away your expectations .
• Open vs. closed answers : Asking open-ended questions is the best approach, but it’s easy to get into the weeds in data analysis when every answer is a paragraph or two of prose. Plus, users quickly tire of answering many open-ended questions, which usually require a lot of typing and explanation. That being said, it’s best to ask open-ended questions during survey testing . The variability of the answers to these questions during the testing phase can help you decide whether the question should be open-ended in the final survey or could be replaced with a closed-ended question that would be easier to answer and analyze.
• Carefully consider how you will analyze and act on the data . The type of questions you ask will have everything to do with the kind of analysis you can make: multiple answers, single answers, open or closed sets, optional and required questions, ratings, rankings, and free-form answer fields are some of the choices open to you when deciding what kinds of answers to accept. (If you won’t act on the data, don’t ask that question. See guideline #12.)
• Multiple vs. single answers : Often multiple-answer questions are better than single-answer ones because people usually want to be accurate, and often several answers apply to them. Survey testing on paper can help you find multiple-answer questions, because people will mark several answers even when you ask them to mark only one (and they will complain about it). If you are counting answers, consider not only how many responses each answer got, but also how many choices people made.
• Front-load the most important questions, because people will quit partway through . Ensure that partial responses will be recorded anyway.
• Provide responses such as, “Not applicable” and “Don’t use” to prevent people skipping questions or giving fake answers. People get angry when asked questions they can’t answer honestly, and it skews your data if they try to do it anyway.
• People have trouble understanding required and optional signals on survey question/forms . It’s common practice to use a red asterisk “ * ” to mark required fields, but that didn’t work well enough, even in a survey of UX professionals — many of whom likely design such forms. People complained that required fields were not marked. Pages that stated at the top that all were required or optional also didn’t help, because many people ignore instruction text. Use “(Optional)” and/or “(Required)” after each question, to be sure people understand.
• When marking is not clear enough, many people feel obligated to answer optional questions . Practically speaking that means you don’t have to require every question, but you should be careful not to include so many questions that people quit the survey in the middle.
• Keep it short . Every extra question reduces your response rate, decreases validity, and makes all your results suspect. Better to administer 2 short surveys to 2 different subsamples of your audience than to lump everything you want to know into a long survey that won’t be completed by the average customer. 20 questions are too many unless you have a highly motivated set of participants. People are much more likely to participate in 1-question surveys. Be sensitive to what your pilot testers tell you, and realistically estimate the time to complete the survey. The more open-ended questions and complex ranking you ask people to do, the more you’ll lose respondents.
• People often overlook examples and instructions that are on the right , after questions. Move instructions and examples to the left margin instead (or the opposite side, for languages that read right to left), to put them in the scannability zone and place them closer to the person’s focus of attention, which is on the answer area.
• Use one-line directions if you can. Less is more. Just as in our original writing for the web studies , people read more text when there is a lot less of it. People complain about not getting enough information, but when it’s there they don’t read it because it’s too long.
• People tend not to read paragraphs or introductions . If you must use a paragraph, bold important ideas to help ensure that most people, who scan instead of reading , glean that information.
• Think carefully about using subjective terms , such as “essential,” “useful,” or “frequent.” Terms that cause people to make a judgment call may get at how they feel, but such questions can be confusing to evaluate logically. Ratings scales are more flexible. If you do need to know how participants perceive a certain aspect, indicate that’s what you want them to base their answer on (for example, instead of asking “Is X essential for Y?” say “Do you feel that X is essential for Y?”).
• Define terms as needed in order to start from a shared meaning. People might quibble about the definition, but it’s better than getting misleading answers because of a misinterpretation.
• Don’t ask about things that your analytics can tell you . Ask why and how questions.
• Include a survey professional in your test group . Your survey method may be criticized after the fact, so get expert advice before you conduct your survey.
• Items at the top and bottom of lists may attract more attention than items in the middle of long lists.
• Because people scan instead of read, the first words of items in lists can cause them to overlook the right choice, especially in alphabetical lists.
• Test where best to place page breaks. Sometimes it’s important for people to be able to see all the topic’s questions before they answer one. Otherwise they volunteer answers for the questions they have not yet seen and write, “see previous answer” later, which adds extra interpretation steps in data analysis. To find questions with these kinds of problems, you can test the survey with each question on its own page first, and then collocate the questions that need to be shown together on one page in the next test version. In some cases, simply forcing one question to come before another one can fix these problems.
• If possible, don’t annoy people by asking questions that don’t apply to them . When respondents choose a particular answer, show them one or two more questions about that topic that would be applicable in that case. Choose a survey platform that allows conditional questions, so you can avoid presenting nonapplicable questions and keep your list of questions as short as possible for each respondent. If most of your questions are conditional, you might be able to put a key conditional question early in the list, then branch to different versions of the survey for the rest of the questions.
• Take your data with a grain of salt . Unlike for quantitative surveys, qualitative survey metrics are rarely representative for the whole target audience; instead, they represent the opinions of the respondents. You can still present descriptive statistics (such as how many people selected a specific response to a multiple-choice question) to summarize the results of the survey, but, unless you use sound statistics tools, you cannot say whether these results are the result of noise or sample selection, as opposed to truly reflecting the attitudes of your whole user population.
• Count whatever you can count . Researchers often refer to coding and normalizing data during analysis. Coding data is the process of making text answers into something you can count, so you can extract the bigger trends and report them in a way that makes sense to your report audience. You can capture rich textual data for understanding and quoting, and code some types of responses as 0, 1, or 2 (no, partially, yes; or none, some, all) for example, or you may be able to define many different phrases as meaning the same thing (for example when people use synonyms or express the same ideas). This coding can be done after the data is collected, in a spreadsheet.
• Show, don’t tell . Use lots of graphs, charts, and tables, with an executive summary of key takeaways.
• Consider graphs before you decide on a spreadsheet layout . Unfortunately some spreadsheets won’t make reasonable graphs until you switch columns to rows or rows to columns. It’s easiest to plan for this necessity before you analyze your data. It’s also possible to take the chart data, put it on its own spreadsheet page, and then reorder it to make the charts. Just be careful not to make data transfer errors.
• Beware of disappearing chart data . Some spreadsheets hide data in charts silently when font-size changes or chart-size changes are made.
• Don’t embed data if you can screenshot it . Screenshots (PNG format is recommended) are lovely and robust over time, unlike embedded data, which tends to cause document corruption, become unlinked, or could be changed by mistake.

Qualitative surveys are tools for gathering rich feedback. They can also help you discover which questions you need to ask and the best way to ask them, for a later quantitative survey. Improve surveys through iterative testing with open-ended feedback. Test surveys on paper first to save time-consuming rework in the testing platform. Then test online to see the effects of page order and question randomization and to gauge how useful the automated results data may be.

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• Doing Survey Research | A Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

Doing Survey Research | A Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

Published on 6 May 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 10 October 2022.

Survey research means collecting information about a group of people by asking them questions and analysing the results. To conduct an effective survey, follow these six steps:

• Determine who will participate in the survey
• Decide the type of survey (mail, online, or in-person)
• Design the survey questions and layout
• Distribute the survey
• Analyse the responses
• Write up the results

Surveys are a flexible method of data collection that can be used in many different types of research .

Table of contents

What are surveys used for, step 1: define the population and sample, step 2: decide on the type of survey, step 3: design the survey questions, step 4: distribute the survey and collect responses, step 5: analyse the survey results, step 6: write up the survey results, frequently asked questions about surveys.

Surveys are used as a method of gathering data in many different fields. They are a good choice when you want to find out about the characteristics, preferences, opinions, or beliefs of a group of people.

Common uses of survey research include:

• Social research: Investigating the experiences and characteristics of different social groups
• Market research: Finding out what customers think about products, services, and companies
• Health research: Collecting data from patients about symptoms and treatments
• Politics: Measuring public opinion about parties and policies
• Psychology: Researching personality traits, preferences, and behaviours

Surveys can be used in both cross-sectional studies , where you collect data just once, and longitudinal studies , where you survey the same sample several times over an extended period.

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Before you start conducting survey research, you should already have a clear research question that defines what you want to find out. Based on this question, you need to determine exactly who you will target to participate in the survey.

Populations

The target population is the specific group of people that you want to find out about. This group can be very broad or relatively narrow. For example:

• The population of Brazil
• University students in the UK
• Second-generation immigrants in the Netherlands
• Customers of a specific company aged 18 to 24
• British transgender women over the age of 50

Your survey should aim to produce results that can be generalised to the whole population. That means you need to carefully define exactly who you want to draw conclusions about.

It’s rarely possible to survey the entire population of your research – it would be very difficult to get a response from every person in Brazil or every university student in the UK. Instead, you will usually survey a sample from the population.

The sample size depends on how big the population is. You can use an online sample calculator to work out how many responses you need.

There are many sampling methods that allow you to generalise to broad populations. In general, though, the sample should aim to be representative of the population as a whole. The larger and more representative your sample, the more valid your conclusions.

There are two main types of survey:

• A questionnaire , where a list of questions is distributed by post, online, or in person, and respondents fill it out themselves
• An interview , where the researcher asks a set of questions by phone or in person and records the responses

Which type you choose depends on the sample size and location, as well as the focus of the research.

Questionnaires

Sending out a paper survey by post is a common method of gathering demographic information (for example, in a government census of the population).

• You can easily access a large sample.
• You have some control over who is included in the sample (e.g., residents of a specific region).
• The response rate is often low.

Online surveys are a popular choice for students doing dissertation research , due to the low cost and flexibility of this method. There are many online tools available for constructing surveys, such as SurveyMonkey and Google Forms .

• You can quickly access a large sample without constraints on time or location.
• The data is easy to process and analyse.
• The anonymity and accessibility of online surveys mean you have less control over who responds.

If your research focuses on a specific location, you can distribute a written questionnaire to be completed by respondents on the spot. For example, you could approach the customers of a shopping centre or ask all students to complete a questionnaire at the end of a class.

• You can screen respondents to make sure only people in the target population are included in the sample.
• You can collect time- and location-specific data (e.g., the opinions of a shop’s weekday customers).
• The sample size will be smaller, so this method is less suitable for collecting data on broad populations.

Oral interviews are a useful method for smaller sample sizes. They allow you to gather more in-depth information on people’s opinions and preferences. You can conduct interviews by phone or in person.

• You have personal contact with respondents, so you know exactly who will be included in the sample in advance.
• You can clarify questions and ask for follow-up information when necessary.
• The lack of anonymity may cause respondents to answer less honestly, and there is more risk of researcher bias.

Like questionnaires, interviews can be used to collect quantitative data : the researcher records each response as a category or rating and statistically analyses the results. But they are more commonly used to collect qualitative data : the interviewees’ full responses are transcribed and analysed individually to gain a richer understanding of their opinions and feelings.

Next, you need to decide which questions you will ask and how you will ask them. It’s important to consider:

• The type of questions
• The content of the questions
• The phrasing of the questions
• The ordering and layout of the survey

Open-ended vs closed-ended questions

There are two main forms of survey questions: open-ended and closed-ended. Many surveys use a combination of both.

Closed-ended questions give the respondent a predetermined set of answers to choose from. A closed-ended question can include:

• A binary answer (e.g., yes/no or agree/disagree )
• A scale (e.g., a Likert scale with five points ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree )
• A list of options with a single answer possible (e.g., age categories)
• A list of options with multiple answers possible (e.g., leisure interests)

Closed-ended questions are best for quantitative research . They provide you with numerical data that can be statistically analysed to find patterns, trends, and correlations .

Open-ended questions are best for qualitative research. This type of question has no predetermined answers to choose from. Instead, the respondent answers in their own words.

Open questions are most common in interviews, but you can also use them in questionnaires. They are often useful as follow-up questions to ask for more detailed explanations of responses to the closed questions.

The content of the survey questions

To ensure the validity and reliability of your results, you need to carefully consider each question in the survey. All questions should be narrowly focused with enough context for the respondent to answer accurately. Avoid questions that are not directly relevant to the survey’s purpose.

When constructing closed-ended questions, ensure that the options cover all possibilities. If you include a list of options that isn’t exhaustive, you can add an ‘other’ field.

Phrasing the survey questions

In terms of language, the survey questions should be as clear and precise as possible. Tailor the questions to your target population, keeping in mind their level of knowledge of the topic.

Use language that respondents will easily understand, and avoid words with vague or ambiguous meanings. Make sure your questions are phrased neutrally, with no bias towards one answer or another.

Ordering the survey questions

The questions should be arranged in a logical order. Start with easy, non-sensitive, closed-ended questions that will encourage the respondent to continue.

If the survey covers several different topics or themes, group together related questions. You can divide a questionnaire into sections to help respondents understand what is being asked in each part.

If a question refers back to or depends on the answer to a previous question, they should be placed directly next to one another.

Before you start, create a clear plan for where, when, how, and with whom you will conduct the survey. Determine in advance how many responses you require and how you will gain access to the sample.

When you are satisfied that you have created a strong research design suitable for answering your research questions, you can conduct the survey through your method of choice – by post, online, or in person.

There are many methods of analysing the results of your survey. First you have to process the data, usually with the help of a computer program to sort all the responses. You should also cleanse the data by removing incomplete or incorrectly completed responses.

If you asked open-ended questions, you will have to code the responses by assigning labels to each response and organising them into categories or themes. You can also use more qualitative methods, such as thematic analysis , which is especially suitable for analysing interviews.

Statistical analysis is usually conducted using programs like SPSS or Stata. The same set of survey data can be subject to many analyses.

Finally, when you have collected and analysed all the necessary data, you will write it up as part of your thesis, dissertation , or research paper .

In the methodology section, you describe exactly how you conducted the survey. You should explain the types of questions you used, the sampling method, when and where the survey took place, and the response rate. You can include the full questionnaire as an appendix and refer to it in the text if relevant.

Then introduce the analysis by describing how you prepared the data and the statistical methods you used to analyse it. In the results section, you summarise the key results from your analysis.

A Likert scale is a rating scale that quantitatively assesses opinions, attitudes, or behaviours. It is made up of four or more questions that measure a single attitude or trait when response scores are combined.

To use a Likert scale in a survey , you present participants with Likert-type questions or statements, and a continuum of items, usually with five or seven possible responses, to capture their degree of agreement.

Individual Likert-type questions are generally considered ordinal data , because the items have clear rank order, but don’t have an even distribution.

Overall Likert scale scores are sometimes treated as interval data. These scores are considered to have directionality and even spacing between them.

The type of data determines what statistical tests you should use to analyse your data.

A questionnaire is a data collection tool or instrument, while a survey is an overarching research method that involves collecting and analysing data from people using questionnaires.

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When are surveys qualitative or quantitative research: Learn the difference!

• December 9, 2019

Are surveys qualitative or quantitative methods of data collection?

What is a qualitative survey, what types of survey questions are analyzed qualitatively, benefits of using a qualitative survey, types of a survey questionnaire in qualitative research, what is a quantitative survey, benefits of using a quantitative survey, an example of a survey with quantitative data, qualitative versus quantitative survey question examples, when to use qualitative versus quantitative research.

If you are new to the world of creating surveys, you might have a few questions about what a survey is and the different types. At SurveyPlanet, we give you the tools you need to create any survey. We also want to help you understand how to create better surveys that serve your distinct purposes.

Interested in finding out when a survey is a part of qualitative versus quantitative research?

What is a survey and how to know if it is qualitative or quantitative?

A survey is a method of gathering information from a select sample of people. Responses can be used to gain insights and data that enable drawing conclusions about a subject. The sample size of a survey represents a larger population and there are two different types of research: qualitative and quantitative. The type of research determines which kind of questions to ask.

A survey can be qualitative or quantitative. If you create a questionnaire with answer options using a scale then it is quantitative. If you have questions that require detailed responses then it is qualitative. Mixed-method surveys involve both.

A qualitative survey collects data in order to describe a topic. In other words, the survey is more interested in learning about opinions, views, and impressions than numerical data. Qualitative surveys are less structured and offer insights into the way people think, their motivations, and attitudes toward a topic. Such surveys are more difficult to analyze but can supply much-needed depth to research. Qualitative surveys give answers to “why” and “how.”

Many of the most powerful surveys are qualitative. They collect data that enables an understanding of people’s attitudes, motivations, and experiences. Qualitative surveys provide a deeper level of insight into consumer behavior and preferences than quantitative surveys.

Qualitative research survey questions examples

Qualitative questions are a useful research method when the goal is describing certain phenomena rather than getting an exact answer. Therefore, instead of sitting down one-on-one with participants, survey questions have a short-answer box that respondents can use to express themselves. Qualitative research questions are open-ended and are useful for market research and other data collection purposes.

Read our “ How to Analyze Survey Data: Learn What to Do With Survey Responses? “ to optimize data collection and analysis.

For the most part, qualitative surveys are completely exploratory. Their main purpose is to understand the way a targeted group thinks—its opinions and attitudes about a particular topic. During the analysis phase, every word written by respondents can be analyzed to form a hypothesis.

Although this type of survey is great for learning more about personal opinions, it’s best suited for a small sample size. Conclusions aren’t necessarily representative of the targeted group, and instead only a small portion of it.

Despite small sample sizes, qualitative surveys are essential for identifying weak points in business operations. Once identified, create related questions to include in a quantitative survey, which often are not carried out without doing qualitative research beforehand.

Examples of qualitative research surveys

There are many different ways to use qualitative research, with qualitative questions often used in interviews that collect data from one person about one topic. If the plan is to send a qualitative research survey to employees about job satisfaction or company culture, interviewing a few employees first is a good start. This way, you have an idea of what topics to bring up as well as possible follow-up questions. Think of qualitative surveys as a way to gain insight that will help in the creation of a comprehensive quantitative survey down the line.

Another example of qualitative research is a case study, which is like interviews in that they collect data from one source and are primarily focused on opinions. If you want to use a case study as a marketing tool to attract more customers, conduct a one-on-one interview and ask participants a series of questions about your business that can be showcased on your website.

Expert opinions are another example of qualitative research in which an expert weighs in on a topic. Again, this is a way to gather insights from a single source about a specific topic.

Yet another example of qualitative research is focus groups, where A small sample size is asked for opinions on a certain subject. Focus groups allow the reactions of individuals to be gauged in a free-flowing setting. This is a great way to test a new product or marketing strategy.

You can also collect the same type of information by conducting a qualitative survey.

A quantitative survey collects facts and numbers from respondents. It’s most commonly used to prove or disprove a hypothesis after completing qualitative research. The analysis phase looks at the statistical data to draw conclusions, such as proving or disproving a specific hypothesis. Choosing the right type of survey to distribute depends on the ultimate goal of the research.

There are several benefits to using quantitative surveys to collect data. For one, they allow the testing and substantiation of conclusions previously developed. The analysis phase is usually straightforward since it involves looking at numbers. Short, written answers do not need to be analyzed. There are no opinions or detailed answers involved.

On the flip side, quantitative surveys aren’t always ideal because a large sample size is required to come to a credible conclusion. For example, a survey sent to 100 people to sample the operations of a business with millions of customers is not credible. It’s safe to say that the answers of 100 participants won’t represent the entire customer base. Read about analyzing survey data correctly here .

Quantitative research can be conducted by carrying out one of two types of surveys. The first is a cross-sectional survey, which gives multiple variables to analyze during a particular time period. It’s most common in the health care, retail, and small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) industries.

The other type is a longitudinal survey. This type of survey is commonly conducted over a certain amount of time, anywhere from days to years. The purpose is to observe changes in behavior or thought processes over time. For example, the buying habits of a teenager can be tracked through their adult years. This type of survey is ideal for long-term feedback on services or products, or when a certain sequence of events is important.

To sum up and better illustrate the theme, we prepared a table with quantitative and qualitative survey question examples that will aid in the writing of an excellent survey.

So, when do you use a qualitative survey as opposed to a quantitative survey? Use qualitative research when the main objective is to understand respondents’ motivations and opinions or gather insights with which to create a hypothesis. Use quantitative research to measure findings from qualitative research. The data gathered from quantitative research will usually allow for a conclusion to be drawn, while qualitative research only allows for the development of a hypothesis.

If you’re ready to test out either qualitative or quantitative research, it’s time to create a survey and get started. SurveyPlanet has many different themes and pre-made surveys to help. Sign up for a free account today! If you want to gather more insights and further expand your research, our Pro plan gives access to even more features (such as question branching).

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Understanding and Evaluating Survey Research

A variety of methodologic approaches exist for individuals interested in conducting research. Selection of a research approach depends on a number of factors, including the purpose of the research, the type of research questions to be answered, and the availability of resources. The purpose of this article is to describe survey research as one approach to the conduct of research so that the reader can critically evaluate the appropriateness of the conclusions from studies employing survey research.

SURVEY RESEARCH

Survey research is defined as "the collection of information from a sample of individuals through their responses to questions" ( Check & Schutt, 2012, p. 160 ). This type of research allows for a variety of methods to recruit participants, collect data, and utilize various methods of instrumentation. Survey research can use quantitative research strategies (e.g., using questionnaires with numerically rated items), qualitative research strategies (e.g., using open-ended questions), or both strategies (i.e., mixed methods). As it is often used to describe and explore human behavior, surveys are therefore frequently used in social and psychological research ( Singleton & Straits, 2009 ).

Information has been obtained from individuals and groups through the use of survey research for decades. It can range from asking a few targeted questions of individuals on a street corner to obtain information related to behaviors and preferences, to a more rigorous study using multiple valid and reliable instruments. Common examples of less rigorous surveys include marketing or political surveys of consumer patterns and public opinion polls.

Survey research has historically included large population-based data collection. The primary purpose of this type of survey research was to obtain information describing characteristics of a large sample of individuals of interest relatively quickly. Large census surveys obtaining information reflecting demographic and personal characteristics and consumer feedback surveys are prime examples. These surveys were often provided through the mail and were intended to describe demographic characteristics of individuals or obtain opinions on which to base programs or products for a population or group.

More recently, survey research has developed into a rigorous approach to research, with scientifically tested strategies detailing who to include (representative sample), what and how to distribute (survey method), and when to initiate the survey and follow up with nonresponders (reducing nonresponse error), in order to ensure a high-quality research process and outcome. Currently, the term "survey" can reflect a range of research aims, sampling and recruitment strategies, data collection instruments, and methods of survey administration.

Given this range of options in the conduct of survey research, it is imperative for the consumer/reader of survey research to understand the potential for bias in survey research as well as the tested techniques for reducing bias, in order to draw appropriate conclusions about the information reported in this manner. Common types of error in research, along with the sources of error and strategies for reducing error as described throughout this article, are summarized in the Table .

Sources of Error in Survey Research and Strategies to Reduce Error

The goal of sampling strategies in survey research is to obtain a sufficient sample that is representative of the population of interest. It is often not feasible to collect data from an entire population of interest (e.g., all individuals with lung cancer); therefore, a subset of the population or sample is used to estimate the population responses (e.g., individuals with lung cancer currently receiving treatment). A large random sample increases the likelihood that the responses from the sample will accurately reflect the entire population. In order to accurately draw conclusions about the population, the sample must include individuals with characteristics similar to the population.

It is therefore necessary to correctly identify the population of interest (e.g., individuals with lung cancer currently receiving treatment vs. all individuals with lung cancer). The sample will ideally include individuals who reflect the intended population in terms of all characteristics of the population (e.g., sex, socioeconomic characteristics, symptom experience) and contain a similar distribution of individuals with those characteristics. As discussed by Mady Stovall beginning on page 162, Fujimori et al. ( 2014 ), for example, were interested in the population of oncologists. The authors obtained a sample of oncologists from two hospitals in Japan. These participants may or may not have similar characteristics to all oncologists in Japan.

Participant recruitment strategies can affect the adequacy and representativeness of the sample obtained. Using diverse recruitment strategies can help improve the size of the sample and help ensure adequate coverage of the intended population. For example, if a survey researcher intends to obtain a sample of individuals with breast cancer representative of all individuals with breast cancer in the United States, the researcher would want to use recruitment strategies that would recruit both women and men, individuals from rural and urban settings, individuals receiving and not receiving active treatment, and so on. Because of the difficulty in obtaining samples representative of a large population, researchers may focus the population of interest to a subset of individuals (e.g., women with stage III or IV breast cancer). Large census surveys require extremely large samples to adequately represent the characteristics of the population because they are intended to represent the entire population.

DATA COLLECTION METHODS

Survey research may use a variety of data collection methods with the most common being questionnaires and interviews. Questionnaires may be self-administered or administered by a professional, may be administered individually or in a group, and typically include a series of items reflecting the research aims. Questionnaires may include demographic questions in addition to valid and reliable research instruments ( Costanzo, Stawski, Ryff, Coe, & Almeida, 2012 ; DuBenske et al., 2014 ; Ponto, Ellington, Mellon, & Beck, 2010 ). It is helpful to the reader when authors describe the contents of the survey questionnaire so that the reader can interpret and evaluate the potential for errors of validity (e.g., items or instruments that do not measure what they are intended to measure) and reliability (e.g., items or instruments that do not measure a construct consistently). Helpful examples of articles that describe the survey instruments exist in the literature ( Buerhaus et al., 2012 ).

Questionnaires may be in paper form and mailed to participants, delivered in an electronic format via email or an Internet-based program such as SurveyMonkey, or a combination of both, giving the participant the option to choose which method is preferred ( Ponto et al., 2010 ). Using a combination of methods of survey administration can help to ensure better sample coverage (i.e., all individuals in the population having a chance of inclusion in the sample) therefore reducing coverage error ( Dillman, Smyth, & Christian, 2014 ; Singleton & Straits, 2009 ). For example, if a researcher were to only use an Internet-delivered questionnaire, individuals without access to a computer would be excluded from participation. Self-administered mailed, group, or Internet-based questionnaires are relatively low cost and practical for a large sample ( Check & Schutt, 2012 ).

Dillman et al. ( 2014 ) have described and tested a tailored design method for survey research. Improving the visual appeal and graphics of surveys by using a font size appropriate for the respondents, ordering items logically without creating unintended response bias, and arranging items clearly on each page can increase the response rate to electronic questionnaires. Attending to these and other issues in electronic questionnaires can help reduce measurement error (i.e., lack of validity or reliability) and help ensure a better response rate.

Conducting interviews is another approach to data collection used in survey research. Interviews may be conducted by phone, computer, or in person and have the benefit of visually identifying the nonverbal response(s) of the interviewee and subsequently being able to clarify the intended question. An interviewer can use probing comments to obtain more information about a question or topic and can request clarification of an unclear response ( Singleton & Straits, 2009 ). Interviews can be costly and time intensive, and therefore are relatively impractical for large samples.

Some authors advocate for using mixed methods for survey research when no one method is adequate to address the planned research aims, to reduce the potential for measurement and non-response error, and to better tailor the study methods to the intended sample ( Dillman et al., 2014 ; Singleton & Straits, 2009 ). For example, a mixed methods survey research approach may begin with distributing a questionnaire and following up with telephone interviews to clarify unclear survey responses ( Singleton & Straits, 2009 ). Mixed methods might also be used when visual or auditory deficits preclude an individual from completing a questionnaire or participating in an interview.

FUJIMORI ET AL.: SURVEY RESEARCH

Fujimori et al. ( 2014 ) described the use of survey research in a study of the effect of communication skills training for oncologists on oncologist and patient outcomes (e.g., oncologist’s performance and confidence and patient’s distress, satisfaction, and trust). A sample of 30 oncologists from two hospitals was obtained and though the authors provided a power analysis concluding an adequate number of oncologist participants to detect differences between baseline and follow-up scores, the conclusions of the study may not be generalizable to a broader population of oncologists. Oncologists were randomized to either an intervention group (i.e., communication skills training) or a control group (i.e., no training).

Fujimori et al. ( 2014 ) chose a quantitative approach to collect data from oncologist and patient participants regarding the study outcome variables. Self-report numeric ratings were used to measure oncologist confidence and patient distress, satisfaction, and trust. Oncologist confidence was measured using two instruments each using 10-point Likert rating scales. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was used to measure patient distress and has demonstrated validity and reliability in a number of populations including individuals with cancer ( Bjelland, Dahl, Haug, & Neckelmann, 2002 ). Patient satisfaction and trust were measured using 0 to 10 numeric rating scales. Numeric observer ratings were used to measure oncologist performance of communication skills based on a videotaped interaction with a standardized patient. Participants completed the same questionnaires at baseline and follow-up.

The authors clearly describe what data were collected from all participants. Providing additional information about the manner in which questionnaires were distributed (i.e., electronic, mail), the setting in which data were collected (e.g., home, clinic), and the design of the survey instruments (e.g., visual appeal, format, content, arrangement of items) would assist the reader in drawing conclusions about the potential for measurement and nonresponse error. The authors describe conducting a follow-up phone call or mail inquiry for nonresponders, using the Dillman et al. ( 2014 ) tailored design for survey research follow-up may have reduced nonresponse error.

CONCLUSIONS

Survey research is a useful and legitimate approach to research that has clear benefits in helping to describe and explore variables and constructs of interest. Survey research, like all research, has the potential for a variety of sources of error, but several strategies exist to reduce the potential for error. Advanced practitioners aware of the potential sources of error and strategies to improve survey research can better determine how and whether the conclusions from a survey research study apply to practice.

The author has no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

6 Qualitative data examples for thorough market researchers

Types of qualitative data in market research, 6 qualitative data examples, get nuanced insights from qualitative market research.

There are plenty of ways to gather consumer insights for fresh campaigns and better products, but qualitative research is up there with the best sources of insight.

This guide is packed with examples of how to turn qualitative data into actionable insights, to spark your creativity and sharpen your research strategy. You’ll see how qualitative data, especially through surveys, opens doors to deeper understanding by inviting consumers to share their experiences and thoughts freely, in their own words — and how qualitative data can transform your brand.

Before we dig into some examples of how qualitative data can empower your teams to make focused, confident and quick decisions on anything from product to marketing, let’s go back to basics. We can categorize qualitative data into roughly three categories: binary, nominal and ordinal data. Here’s how each of them is used in qualitative data analysis.

Binary data

Binary data represents a choice between two distinct options, like ‘yes’ or ‘no’. In market research, this type of qualitative data is useful for filtering responses or making clear distinctions in consumer preferences.

Binary data in qualitative research is great for straightforward insights, but has its limits. Here’s a quick guide on when to use it and when to opt for qualitative data that is more detailed:

Binary data is great for:

• Quick Yes/No questions : like “Have you used our app? Yes or No.”
• Initial screening : to quickly sort participants for further studies.
• Clear-cut answers : absolute factors, such as ownership or usage.

Avoid binary data for:

• Understanding motivations : it lacks the depth to explore why behind actions.
• Measuring intensity : can’t show how much someone likes or uses something.
• Detail needed for product development : misses the nuanced feedback necessary for innovations.

Nominal data

Nominal data categorizes responses without implying any order. For example, when survey respondents choose their favorite brand from a list, the data collected is nominal, offering insights into brand preferences among different demographics.

Some other examples of qualitative data that can be qualified as nominal are asking participants to name their primary information source about products in categories like social media, friends, or online reviews. Or in focus groups, discussing brand perceptions could classify brands into categories such as luxury, budget-friendly, or eco-conscious, based on participant descriptions.

Nominal data is great for:

• Categorizing responses : such as types of consumer complaints (product quality, customer service, delivery issues).
• Identifying preferences : like favorite product categories (beverages, electronics, apparel).
• Segmentation : grouping participants based on attributes (first-time buyers, loyal customers).

Nominal data is not for:

• Measuring quantities : it can’t quantify how much more one category is preferred over another.
• Ordering or ranking responses : it doesn’t indicate which category is higher or lower in any hierarchy.
• Detailed behavioral analysis : While it can group behaviors, it doesn’t delve into the frequency or intensity of those behaviors.

Ordinal data

Ordinal data introduces a sense of order, ranking preferences or satisfaction levels. In qualitative analysis, it’s particularly useful for understanding how consumers prioritize features or products, giving researchers a clearer picture of market trends.

Other examples of qualitative data analyses that use ordinal data, are for instance a study on consumer preferences for coffee flavors, participants might rank flavors in order of preference, providing insights into flavor trends. You can also get ordinal data from focus groups on things like customer satisfaction surveys or app usability, by asking users to rate their ease of use or happiness on an ordinal scale.

Ordinal data is great for:

• Ranking preferences : asking participants to rank product features from most to least important.
• Measuring satisfaction levels : using scales like “very satisfied,” “satisfied,” “neutral,” “dissatisfied,” “very dissatisfied.”
• Assessing Agreement : with statements on a scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”

Ordinal data is not for:

• Quantifying differences : it doesn’t show how much more one rank is preferred over another, just the order.
• Precise measurements : can’t specify the exact degree of satisfaction or agreement, only relative positions.

This mix of qualitative and quantitative data will give you a well-rounded view of participant attitudes and preferences.

The things you can do with qualitative data are endless. But this article shouldn’t turn into a work of literature, so we’ll highlight six ways to collect qualitative data and give you examples of how to use these qualitative research methods to get actionable results.

How to get qual insights with Attest

You can get to the heart of what your target customers think, with reliable qualitative insights from Attest Video Responses

1. Highlighting brand loyalty drivers with open-ended surveys and questionnaires

Open-ended surveys and questionnaires are great at finding out what makes customers choose and stick with a brand. Here’s why this qualitative data analysis tool is so good for gathering qualitative data on things like brand loyalty and customer experience:

Straight from the source

Open-ended survey responses show the actual thoughts and feelings of your target audience in their own words, while still giving you structure in your data analysis.

Understanding ‘why’

Numbers can show us how many customers are loyal; open-ended survey responses explain why they are. You can also easily add thematic analysis to the mix by counting certain keywords or phrases.

Guiding decisions

The insights from these surveys can help a brand decide where to focus its efforts, from making sure their marketing highlights what customers love most to improving parts of their product.

Surveys are one of the most versatile and efficient qualitative data collection methods out there. We want to bring the power of qualitative data analysis to every business and make it easy to gather qualitative data from the people who matter most to your brand. Check out our survey templates to hit the ground running. And you’re not limited to textual data as your only data source — we also enable you to gather video responses to get additional context from non verbal cues and more.

2. Trend identification with observation notes

Observation notes are a powerful qualitative data analysis tool for spotting trends as they naturally unfold in real-world settings. Here’s why they’re particularly valuable insights and effective for identifying new trends:

Real behavior

Observing people directly shows us how they actually interact with products or services, not just how they say they do. This can highlight emerging trends in consumer behavior or preferences before people can even put into words what they are doing and why.

Immediate insights

By watching how people engage with different products, we can quickly spot patterns or changes in behavior. This immediate feedback is invaluable for catching trends as they start.

Context matters

Observations give you context. You can see not just what people do, but where and how they do it. This context can be key to understanding why a trend is taking off.

Unprompted reactions

Since people don’t know they’re being observed for these purposes, their actions are genuine. This leads to authentic insights about what’s really catching on.

3. Understanding consumer sentiments through semi-structured interviews

Semi-structured interviews for qualitative data analysis are an effective method for data analysts to get a deep understanding of consumer sentiments. It provides a structured yet flexible approach to gather in-depth insights. Here’s why they’re particularly useful for this type of research question:

Personal connection

These interviews create a space for a real conversation, allowing consumers to share their feelings, experiences, and opinions about a brand or product in a more personal setting.

Flexibility

The format lets the interviewer explore interesting points that come up during the conversation, diving deeper into unexpected areas of discussion. This flexibility uncovers richer insights than strictly structured interviews.

Depth of understanding

By engaging in detailed discussions, brands can understand not just what consumers think but why they think that way and what stations their train of thought passes by.

Structure and surprise

Semi-structured interviews can be tailored to explore specific areas of interest while still allowing for new insights to emerge.

4. Using focus groups for informing market entry strategies

Using a focus group to inform market entry strategies provides a dynamic way to discover your potential customers’ needs, preferences, and perceptions before launching a product or entering a new market. Here’s how focus groups can be particularly effective for this kind of research goal:

Real conversations

Focus groups allow for real-time, interactive discussions, giving you a front-row seat to hear what your potential customers think and feel about your product or service idea.

Diverse Perspectives

By bringing together people from various backgrounds, a focus group can offer a wide range of views and insights, highlighting different consumer needs and contextual information that you might miss out on in a survey.

Spotting opportunities and challenges

The dynamic nature of focus groups can help uncover unique market opportunities or potential challenges that might not be evident through other research methods, like cultural nuances.

Testing ideas

A focus group is a great way to test and compare reactions to different market entry strategies, from pricing models to distribution channels, providing clear direction on what approach might work best.

5. Case studies to gain a nuanced understanding of consumers on a broad level

Case studies in qualitative research zoom in on specific stories from customers or groups using a product or service, great for gaining a nuanced understanding of consumers at a broad level. Here’s why case studies are a particularly effective qualitative data analysis tool for this type of research goal:

In-depth analysis

Case studies can provide a 360-degree look at the consumer experience, from initial awareness to post-purchase feelings.

This depth of insight reveals not just what consumers do, but why they do it, uncovering motivations, influences, and decision-making processes.

Longitudinal insight

Case studies can track changes in consumer behavior or satisfaction over time, offering a dynamic view of how perceptions evolve.

This longitudinal perspective is crucial for giving context to the lifecycle of consumer engagement with a brand.

Storytelling power

The narrative nature of case studies — when done right — makes them powerful tools for communicating complex consumer insights in an accessible and engaging way, which can be especially useful for internal strategy discussions or external marketing communications.

6. Driving product development with diary studies

Diary studies are a unique qualitative research method that involves participants recording their thoughts, experiences, or behaviors over a period of time, related to using a product or service. This qualitative data analysis method is especially valuable for driving product development for several reasons:

Real-time insights

Diary studies capture real-time user experiences and feedback as they interact with a product in their daily lives.

This ongoing documentation provides a raw, unfiltered view of how a product fits into the user’s routine, highlighting usability issues or unmet needs that might not be captured in a one-time survey or interview.

Realistic user journey mapping

By analyzing diary entries, you can map out the entire user journey, identifying critical touch points where users feel delighted, frustrated, or indifferent.

This then enables you to implement targeted improvements and innovations at the moments that matter most.

Identifying patterns

Over the course of a diary study, patterns in behavior, preferences, and challenges can emerge, which is great for thematic analysis.

It can guide product developers to prioritize features or fixes that will have the most significant impact on user satisfaction, which is especially great if they don’t know what areas to focus on first.

Qualitative research brings your consumers’ voices directly to your strategy table. The examples we’ve explored show how qualitative data analysis methods like surveys, interviews, and case studies illuminate the ‘why’ behind consumer choices, guiding more informed decisions. Using these insights means crafting products and messages that resonate deeply, ensuring your brand not only meets but exceeds consumer expectations.

Customer Research Manager 

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CRO Guide   >  Chapter 3.1

Qualitative Research: Definition, Methodology, Limitation & Examples

Qualitative research is a method focused on understanding human behavior and experiences through non-numerical data. Examples of qualitative research include:

• One-on-one interviews,
• Focus groups, Ethnographic research,
• Case studies,
• Record keeping,
• Qualitative observations

In this article, we’ll provide tips and tricks on how to use qualitative research to better understand your audience through real world examples and improve your ROI. We’ll also learn the difference between qualitative and quantitative data.

Table of Contents

Marketers often seek to understand their customers deeply. Qualitative research methods such as face-to-face interviews, focus groups, and qualitative observations can provide valuable insights into your products, your market, and your customers’ opinions and motivations. Understanding these nuances can significantly enhance marketing strategies and overall customer satisfaction.

What is Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is a market research method that focuses on obtaining data through open-ended and conversational communication. This method focuses on the “why” rather than the “what” people think about you. Thus, qualitative research seeks to uncover the underlying motivations, attitudes, and beliefs that drive people’s actions. 

Let’s say you have an online shop catering to a general audience. You do a demographic analysis and you find out that most of your customers are male. Naturally, you will want to find out why women are not buying from you. And that’s what qualitative research will help you find out.

In the case of your online shop, qualitative research would involve reaching out to female non-customers through methods such as in-depth interviews or focus groups. These interactions provide a platform for women to express their thoughts, feelings, and concerns regarding your products or brand. Through qualitative analysis, you can uncover valuable insights into factors such as product preferences, user experience, brand perception, and barriers to purchase.

Types of Qualitative Research Methods

Qualitative research methods are designed in a manner that helps reveal the behavior and perception of a target audience regarding a particular topic.

The most frequently used qualitative analysis methods are one-on-one interviews, focus groups, ethnographic research, case study research, record keeping, and qualitative observation.

1. One-on-one interviews

Conducting one-on-one interviews is one of the most common qualitative research methods. One of the advantages of this method is that it provides a great opportunity to gather precise data about what people think and their motivations.

Spending time talking to customers not only helps marketers understand who their clients are, but also helps with customer care: clients love hearing from brands. This strengthens the relationship between a brand and its clients and paves the way for customer testimonials.

• A company might conduct interviews to understand why a product failed to meet sales expectations.
• A researcher might use interviews to gather personal stories about experiences with healthcare.

These interviews can be performed face-to-face or on the phone and usually last between half an hour to over two hours. 

When a one-on-one interview is conducted face-to-face, it also gives the marketer the opportunity to read the body language of the respondent and match the responses.

2. Focus groups

Focus groups gather a small number of people to discuss and provide feedback on a particular subject. The ideal size of a focus group is usually between five and eight participants. The size of focus groups should reflect the participants’ familiarity with the topic. For less important topics or when participants have little experience, a group of 10 can be effective. For more critical topics or when participants are more knowledgeable, a smaller group of five to six is preferable for deeper discussions.

The main goal of a focus group is to find answers to the “why”, “what”, and “how” questions. This method is highly effective in exploring people’s feelings and ideas in a social setting, where group dynamics can bring out insights that might not emerge in one-on-one situations.

• A focus group could be used to test reactions to a new product concept.
• Marketers might use focus groups to see how different demographic groups react to an advertising campaign.

One advantage that focus groups have is that the marketer doesn’t necessarily have to interact with the group in person. Nowadays focus groups can be sent as online qualitative surveys on various devices.

Focus groups are an expensive option compared to the other qualitative research methods, which is why they are typically used to explain complex processes.

3. Ethnographic research

Ethnographic research is the most in-depth observational method that studies individuals in their naturally occurring environment.

This method aims at understanding the cultures, challenges, motivations, and settings that occur.

• A study of workplace culture within a tech startup.
• Observational research in a remote village to understand local traditions.

Ethnographic research requires the marketer to adapt to the target audiences’ environments (a different organization, a different city, or even a remote location), which is why geographical constraints can be an issue while collecting data.

This type of research can last from a few days to a few years. It’s challenging and time-consuming and solely depends on the expertise of the marketer to be able to analyze, observe, and infer the data.

4. Case study research

The case study method has grown into a valuable qualitative research method. This type of research method is usually used in education or social sciences. It involves a comprehensive examination of a single instance or event, providing detailed insights into complex issues in real-life contexts.  

• Analyzing a single school’s innovative teaching method.
• A detailed study of a patient’s medical treatment over several years.

Case study research may seem difficult to operate, but it’s actually one of the simplest ways of conducting research as it involves a deep dive and thorough understanding of the data collection methods and inferring the data.

5. Record keeping

Record keeping is similar to going to the library: you go over books or any other reference material to collect relevant data. This method uses already existing reliable documents and similar sources of information as a data source.

• Historical research using old newspapers and letters.
• A study on policy changes over the years by examining government records.

This method is useful for constructing a historical context around a research topic or verifying other findings with documented evidence.

6. Qualitative observation

Qualitative observation is a method that uses subjective methodologies to gather systematic information or data. This method deals with the five major sensory organs and their functioning, sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing.

• Sight : Observing the way customers visually interact with product displays in a store to understand their browsing behaviors and preferences.
• Smell : Noting reactions of consumers to different scents in a fragrance shop to study the impact of olfactory elements on product preference.
• Touch : Watching how individuals interact with different materials in a clothing store to assess the importance of texture in fabric selection.
• Taste : Evaluating reactions of participants in a taste test to identify flavor profiles that appeal to different demographic groups.
• Hearing : Documenting responses to changes in background music within a retail environment to determine its effect on shopping behavior and mood.

Below we are also providing real-life examples of qualitative research that demonstrate practical applications across various contexts:

Qualitative Research Real World Examples

Let’s explore some examples of how qualitative research can be applied in different contexts.

1. Online grocery shop with a predominantly male audience

Method used: one-on-one interviews.

Let’s go back to one of the previous examples. You have an online grocery shop. By nature, it addresses a general audience, but after you do a demographic analysis you find out that most of your customers are male.

One good method to determine why women are not buying from you is to hold one-on-one interviews with potential customers in the category.

Interviewing a sample of potential female customers should reveal why they don’t find your store appealing. The reasons could range from not stocking enough products for women to perhaps the store’s emphasis on heavy-duty tools and automotive products, for example. These insights can guide adjustments in inventory and marketing strategies.

2. Software company launching a new product

Method used: focus groups.

Focus groups are great for establishing product-market fit.

Let’s assume you are a software company that wants to launch a new product and you hold a focus group with 12 people. Although getting their feedback regarding users’ experience with the product is a good thing, this sample is too small to define how the entire market will react to your product.

So what you can do instead is holding multiple focus groups in 20 different geographic regions. Each region should be hosting a group of 12 for each market segment; you can even segment your audience based on age. This would be a better way to establish credibility in the feedback you receive.

3. Alan Pushkin’s “God’s Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School”

Method used: ethnographic research.

Moving from a fictional example to a real-life one, let’s analyze Alan Peshkin’s 1986 book “God’s Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School”.

Peshkin studied the culture of Bethany Baptist Academy by interviewing the students, parents, teachers, and members of the community alike, and spending eighteen months observing them to provide a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of Christian schooling as an alternative to public education.

The study highlights the school’s unified purpose, rigorous academic environment, and strong community support while also pointing out its lack of cultural diversity and openness to differing viewpoints. These insights are crucial for understanding how such educational settings operate and what they offer to students.

Even after discovering all this, Peshkin still presented the school in a positive light and stated that public schools have much to learn from such schools.

Peshkin’s in-depth research represents a qualitative study that uses observations and unstructured interviews, without any assumptions or hypotheses. He utilizes descriptive or non-quantifiable data on Bethany Baptist Academy specifically, without attempting to generalize the findings to other Christian schools.

4. Understanding buyers’ trends

Method used: record keeping.

Another way marketers can use quality research is to understand buyers’ trends. To do this, marketers need to look at historical data for both their company and their industry and identify where buyers are purchasing items in higher volumes.

For example, electronics distributors know that the holiday season is a peak market for sales while life insurance agents find that spring and summer wedding months are good seasons for targeting new clients.

5. Determining products/services missing from the market

Conducting your own research isn’t always necessary. If there are significant breakthroughs in your industry, you can use industry data and adapt it to your marketing needs.

The influx of hacking and hijacking of cloud-based information has made Internet security a topic of many industry reports lately. A software company could use these reports to better understand the problems its clients are facing.

As a result, the company can provide solutions prospects already know they need.

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Qualitative Research Approaches

Once the marketer has decided that their research questions will provide data that is qualitative in nature, the next step is to choose the appropriate qualitative approach.

The approach chosen will take into account the purpose of the research, the role of the researcher, the data collected, the method of data analysis , and how the results will be presented. The most common approaches include:

• Narrative : This method focuses on individual life stories to understand personal experiences and journeys. It examines how people structure their stories and the themes within them to explore human existence. For example, a narrative study might look at cancer survivors to understand their resilience and coping strategies.
• Phenomenology : attempts to understand or explain life experiences or phenomena; It aims to reveal the depth of human consciousness and perception, such as by studying the daily lives of those with chronic illnesses.
• Grounded theory : investigates the process, action, or interaction with the goal of developing a theory “grounded” in observations and empirical data. 
• Ethnography : describes and interprets an ethnic, cultural, or social group;
• Case study : examines episodic events in a definable framework, develops in-depth analyses of single or multiple cases, and generally explains “how”. An example might be studying a community health program to evaluate its success and impact.

How to Analyze Qualitative Data

Analyzing qualitative data involves interpreting non-numerical data to uncover patterns, themes, and deeper insights. This process is typically more subjective and requires a systematic approach to ensure reliability and validity. 

1. Data Collection

Ensure that your data collection methods (e.g., interviews, focus groups, observations) are well-documented and comprehensive. This step is crucial because the quality and depth of the data collected will significantly influence the analysis.

2. Data Preparation

Once collected, the data needs to be organized. Transcribe audio and video recordings, and gather all notes and documents. Ensure that all data is anonymized to protect participant confidentiality where necessary.

3. Familiarization

Immerse yourself in the data by reading through the materials multiple times. This helps you get a general sense of the information and begin identifying patterns or recurring themes.

Develop a coding system to tag data with labels that summarize and account for each piece of information. Codes can be words, phrases, or acronyms that represent how these segments relate to your research questions.

• Descriptive Coding : Summarize the primary topic of the data.
• In Vivo Coding : Use language and terms used by the participants themselves.
• Process Coding : Use gerunds (“-ing” words) to label the processes at play.
• Emotion Coding : Identify and record the emotions conveyed or experienced.

5. Thematic Development

Group codes into themes that represent larger patterns in the data. These themes should relate directly to the research questions and form a coherent narrative about the findings.

6. Interpreting the Data

Interpret the data by constructing a logical narrative. This involves piecing together the themes to explain larger insights about the data. Link the results back to your research objectives and existing literature to bolster your interpretations.

7. Validation

Check the reliability and validity of your findings by reviewing if the interpretations are supported by the data. This may involve revisiting the data multiple times or discussing the findings with colleagues or participants for validation.

8. Reporting

Finally, present the findings in a clear and organized manner. Use direct quotes and detailed descriptions to illustrate the themes and insights. The report should communicate the narrative you’ve built from your data, clearly linking your findings to your research questions.

Limitations of qualitative research

The disadvantages of qualitative research are quite unique. The techniques of the data collector and their own unique observations can alter the information in subtle ways. That being said, these are the qualitative research’s limitations:

1. It’s a time-consuming process

The main drawback of qualitative study is that the process is time-consuming. Another problem is that the interpretations are limited. Personal experience and knowledge influence observations and conclusions.

Thus, qualitative research might take several weeks or months. Also, since this process delves into personal interaction for data collection, discussions often tend to deviate from the main issue to be studied.

2. You can’t verify the results of qualitative research

Because qualitative research is open-ended, participants have more control over the content of the data collected. So the marketer is not able to verify the results objectively against the scenarios stated by the respondents. For example, in a focus group discussing a new product, participants might express their feelings about the design and functionality. However, these opinions are influenced by individual tastes and experiences, making it difficult to ascertain a universally applicable conclusion from these discussions.

3. It’s a labor-intensive approach

Qualitative research requires a labor-intensive analysis process such as categorization, recording, etc. Similarly, qualitative research requires well-experienced marketers to obtain the needed data from a group of respondents.

4. It’s difficult to investigate causality

Qualitative research requires thoughtful planning to ensure the obtained results are accurate. There is no way to analyze qualitative data mathematically. This type of research is based more on opinion and judgment rather than results. Because all qualitative studies are unique they are difficult to replicate.

5. Qualitative research is not statistically representative

Because qualitative research is a perspective-based method of research, the responses given are not measured.

Comparisons can be made and this can lead toward duplication, but for the most part, quantitative data is required for circumstances that need statistical representation and that is not part of the qualitative research process.

While doing a qualitative study, it’s important to cross-reference the data obtained with the quantitative data. By continuously surveying prospects and customers marketers can build a stronger database of useful information.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research

Image source

Quantitative and qualitative research are two distinct methodologies used in the field of market research, each offering unique insights and approaches to understanding consumer behavior and preferences.

As we already defined, qualitative analysis seeks to explore the deeper meanings, perceptions, and motivations behind human behavior through non-numerical data. On the other hand, quantitative research focuses on collecting and analyzing numerical data to identify patterns, trends, and statistical relationships.  

Let’s explore their key differences: 

Nature of Data:

• Quantitative research : Involves numerical data that can be measured and analyzed statistically.
• Qualitative research : Focuses on non-numerical data, such as words, images, and observations, to capture subjective experiences and meanings.

Research Questions:

• Quantitative research : Typically addresses questions related to “how many,” “how much,” or “to what extent,” aiming to quantify relationships and patterns.
• Qualitative research: Explores questions related to “why” and “how,” aiming to understand the underlying motivations, beliefs, and perceptions of individuals.

Data Collection Methods:

• Quantitative research : Relies on structured surveys, experiments, or observations with predefined variables and measures.
• Qualitative research : Utilizes open-ended interviews, focus groups, participant observations, and textual analysis to gather rich, contextually nuanced data.

Analysis Techniques:

• Quantitative research: Involves statistical analysis to identify correlations, associations, or differences between variables.
• Qualitative research: Employs thematic analysis, coding, and interpretation to uncover patterns, themes, and insights within qualitative data.

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• Last modified: January 3, 2023
• Conversion Rate Optimization , User Research

Valentin Radu

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