Special Lecture by Mr. Daniel (University Gaja Mada)
How to get honest answer from people throw questionnaire survey
[Introduction]
I visited UGM from 19 to 25 October. I did field survey with Prof.Wiratni research group. They are researching about biogas digester system in farms and a fruit market in villages around Jogjakarta. This project aims at management of waste from domestic animals and production of biogas for cooking. However in some place the system are not used effectively. For example, villagers don’t mix water and cow manure in a right proportion, then they don’t get enough amount of biogas or suffer from clogging.
To understand the reasons and develop more appropriate maintenance system or appropriate design of technology, I conducted questionnaire survey by using time use diary method.
After the questionnaire survey, we discuss how to make effective questionnaire survey and Mr. Daniel who is researcher in Prof. Wiratni research group gave me a special lecture “How to get honest answer from people throw questionnaire survey”. He has plenty of experience of questionnaire survey among villagers.
[How to get honest answer from people throw questionnaire survey]
1. 3 important thing when we design questions When we design questions, we should try to make
・ More specific
If the topic or purpose of each question is not clear it will make respondents confused and lead misunderstanding.
・ More unserious
If the sentence of the question is serious, respondents may scare or suspect that questioner is unreliable. Then they may pretend as ideal person or hide their honest opinion.
・ More ridiculous
In order to make their mind open, joking or ridiculous question make them laugh and make the time happy. Moreover funny question can lead more honest information rather than direct question.
For example, if I want to know how they maintain their house, I can ask, “ How often you clean up your house?” It is clear what I want to know. But respondents may answer just 1 or 2. We can get only information about number. Instead asking like that, I can ask “How many broom sticks do you have in your house?” This question sounds ridiculous because this information looks useless. But if respondents can answer slightly and she/he has a lot of broom sticks, they have strong consider about clean up. We can imagine their perspective or custom.
2. Magician’s strategy
When we conduct questionnaire survey, we should learn magician’s strategy to entertain audience. The strategy of magician is “Lead audience’s focus on wrong point”. In order to trick audience, Magician lead audience’s point of view to wrong point where there is not any kind of trick. Then finally magicians accomplish tricking audience.
This magician’s strategy is helpful example to understand the three important factors of question that I mention before.
・ Magicians prepare they trick so detail before they show the performance
・ Magicians do not show what they prepare the trick and audiences don’t know what they are going to do.
・ Magicians entertain their audiences.
3. Focus on housewives to understand villagers basic needs
To understand villager’s daily life or their basic needs, it is better to ask housewives rather than husband or singles. Because their activity is strongly based on basic human needs. Moreover usually housewives in village have community and this culture is helpful for distribute information among the village or gather other housewives to conduct questionnaire survey.
In Indonesia, society is relatively husband dominated society so if we conduct questionnaire survey with both wife and husband at the same time, wife tends to just follow her husband’s answer. Questioners have to pay attention to get the honest opinion from housewives.
It is good to know for everyone that questionnaire should be designed for respondents.
Hope this article will give you some hint to your research.
Yuji Hirai