A Case Study of Analyzing Questionnaires

Abstract:The thesis focuses on applying some international communication strategies to analyze questionnaires designed for acquiring information.

Key words: Questionnaires analysis， international communication， strategies

Introduction

The questionnaire aims at constructing questions to get information for writing a biography about a long-time employee for her special presentation in her retirement party. This questionnaire includes five questions for the opening portion in our interview. For an effective and successful questionnaire， we should pay attention to some important elements in questionnaires: question forms， question meaning， and question sequences， etc. Rationale for sequencing questions is applied to lead in the guidance for questionnaires， while we classify those questions to open， closed and secondary sorts.

Rationale for Sequencing Questions

This questionnaire is not just respectively constructed in the form of a funnel sequence or an inverted funnel sequence or a tunnel sequence， but constituted in the mixture of an inverted funnel sequence and a funnel sequence， because the funnel sequence starts with broad question and moves toward narrow one. It can dig out more detail information of one topic about interviewees， such as from Q8 to Q10. The inverted funnel is with a closed question at the beginning and moves to broad one， such as Q6 and Q7. The mixture of those two question sequence is better for undergoing the interview and easier for an interviewer to change topic and get more information required for writing the biography.

Analysis of Questions Selection

In this questionnaire， three types of question forms are utilized， open， closed and secondary questions. The reasons for choosing those forms are that open question is goal-oriented， and closed questions are easier for an interviewer to control and make a preparation， and secondary questions can be the complement of the mentioned question.Q1， Q2， Q3， Q4， Q5， Q8 and Q9 all belongs to open questions， while Q6 and Q10 are closed questions. Besides， Q7 is the secondary question of Q6. All those questions are directed to some purpose for getting information about the employee’s work and life. Information which gains from those questions is useful for the biography writing. For Q1， this question can not only ask some information about her work， but also have the function of closing your relationship with the interviewee， which shows our concern about her or him.

Conclusion

In the process of interviewing， proper and effective questions can not only make both interviewees and interviewers less nervous and anxious， but also make an interview conduct as smooth as possible. In other word， it is necessary for interviewees to make a good preparation about questions before interviewing and take all those important elements about creating an effective questionnaire into consideration.

Questionnaires

Question 1: How is everything going recently?

Question 2: When did you join in our company?

Question 3: What is your first impression when you applied for our company?

Question 4: Being a long-time worker in our company， can you share some working experience with me?

Question 5: How do you develop and maintain good interpersonal relationship with team members and colleagues?

Question 6: Is there any conflict between you and your colleagues?

Question 7: Could you tell me more about how did you deal with some conflicts with colleagues?

Question 8: Could you share with me the most moved thing you feel in this company?

Question 9: Could you make a brief self-evaluation in this company?

Question 10: Do you have carried out the handover of your work?

Bibliographies：

[1]Oatey， H. S.，(2000). Culturally Speaking: Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures. MA: Continuum International Publishing Group.

[2] Varner， I.， Beamer， L.，(2010). Intercultural Communication in the Global Workplace. 5th ed.，MA:McGraw-Hill/Irwin.