Depending on the length and complexity of a questionnaire, you may want to plan it on paper before creating it in a document. The following sections give an overview of what you should consider as you plan a questionnaire.
Decide what you want users to have learned from reading the document. For example, if the document is about your company's family and medical leave policy, you might include the following as learning objectives.
Be able to:
Each learning objective can be tested with one or more questions. Go through each of your learning objectives and decide what and how many questions are needed to adequately test whether the learning objective has been met. If you come up with multiple questions for different objectives, consider grouping each set of questions under a stated learning objective that is visible to the questionnaire taker.
You also need to decide what type of questions to use. You can create multiple-choice, true-or-false, and open-ended questions. Open-ended questions allow for survey-type questions for soliciting feedback, such as opinions or preferences, or for questions for which no single answer is correct.
You can also choose which question a reader will see next based on how the reader answers the current question. For example, a questionnaire for a conflict of interest policy might ask if the user had ever accepted a gift from a vendor. If the reader answers no, the questionnaire could move on to the next top-level question. If the reader answers yes, the questionnaire could go to a survey question where the reader could describe the gift before moving on to the next top-level question.
Write down your questions and make a note as to what type of question each should be. Leave room below each question to write the correct and incorrect answers.
True or false questions always have only two answers, while multiple choice questions can have any number of answers to select from. Open-ended questions have no prewritten answers; rather, the user sees a text box to answer the question essay style. If your questionnaire will branch depending on the answers selected, map out all the possible paths a reader could follow when taking the questionnaire.
Write down answers below each question.
Decide how many of the questionnaire questions a reader must answer correctly in order to pass the questionnaire and mark the document as read. You will need to express the passing score as a percentage in the questionnaire settings. (To calculate the passing percentage, divide the minimum number of questions that must be correct by the total number of questions. For example, if a questionnaire contains 5 questions, and you decide that readers can only get one of those questions wrong and still pass the questionnaire, divide 4 by 5 (4/5), which equals 0.8, or 80 percent.)
When creating the questionnaire, you can, but don't have to, include introductory text and include feedback on the answered questions when the reader finishes taking the questionnaire. If you decide to include feedback, you must also decide whether to provide it for all questions or only those that were incorrectly answered. You can also choose whether to include all possible answers, readers' responses, and the correct answers with the feedback.
Once you have planned your questionnaire, move on to Adding Questions and Answers.