This course will run online. Content is delivered via a mix of live and pre-recorded lectures, live Q&A and practical tasks to be completed in small online breakout groups and participants' own time. Opportunities to meet other delegates are provided through group practical tasks, utilising online padlets and open Q&A sessions. Likely time commitment is approximately 5-6 hours per day. 

By the end of the course participants should be able to:

1. understand the basic principles of questionnaire design including developing and testing a questionnaire/outcome measure using qualitative and quantitative approaches;
2. understand the important aspects and key issues to consider for administering questionnaires and maximising response rates across a range of health care settings;
3. understand how to handle questionnaire data; and
4. understand how to explore and interpret qualitative and quantitative questionnaire data.

The course is intended for researchers, public health specialists, clinicians and other health care professionals who want to design and/or use questionnaires in a healthcare setting, or understand the processes involved in questionnaire design, application and interpretation.

This course will cover an introduction to the key topics of:

1. questionnaire construction: using qualitative methods to inform content and design, developing concepts to be measured, question type, wording and layout, and piloting;
2. using quantitative methods to assess the reliability of scales, validity, sensitivity to change and interpreting multi-item scales;
3. questionnaire application: choosing a questionnaire, maximising response rates, examples from case studies;
4. using different methods and technologies for questionnaire administration;
5. qualitative analysis of open responses; and
6. quantitative data management, data coding and cleaning.

Opportunities for delegates to discuss their own projects with course tutors and other delegates will be included.

This course is organised by Dr Christin Hoffmann and Dr Rhiannon Macefield. Tutors on this course are academics and clinical researchers experienced in developing, conducting and analysing questionnaire-based research.

Before booking this course, please make sure you read the information provided above about the target audience. It is important that you have access to the relevant IT resources needed for the course and meet the knowledge prerequisites to ensure you can get the most from the course.

Bookings are taken via our online booking system, for which you must register an account. To check if you are eligible for free or discounted courses please see our fees and voucher packs page. All bookings are subject to our terms & conditions, which can be read in full here.

For help and support with booking a course refer to our booking information page, FAQs or feel free to contact us directly. For available payment options please see: How to pay your short course fees.

Participants are granted access to our virtual learning platform (Blackboard) 1 to 2 weeks in advance of the course. This allows time for any pre-course work to be completed and to familiarise with the platform.

To gain the most from the course, we recommend that you attend in full and participate in all interactive components. We endeavour to record all live lecture sessions and upload these to the online learning environment within 24 hours. This allows course participants to review these sessions at leisure and revisit them multiple times. Please note that we do not record breakout sessions.

All course participants retain access to the online learning materials and recordings for 3 months after the course. 

University of Bristol staff and postgraduate students who do not wish to attend the full course may instead register for access to the 'Materials & Recordings' version of this course: Further information and bookings.

97% of attendees recommend this course*.
*Attendee feedback from 2025.

Here is a sample of feedback from the last run of the course:

“Well thought out programme giving a comprehensive overview of questionnaire design start to finish.” – course feedback, January 2025.

“I was impressed by the breadth of topics and angles covered. I hadn't expected it to cover so much, and to pull off doing so without seeming superficial (no easy task).” – course feedback, January 2025.

“Really informative and thorough, great to hear about people's real experiences and examples.” – course feedback, January 2025.

“The course was very engaging. All lectures were very useful and I particularly liked that we had the chance to practice skills and receive feedback. It is great that the time was so keen to help everyone that had questions and needed advice for ongoing studies.” – course feedback, January 2025.

“The course was well-paced and organised extremely well. Instructors were great.” – course feedback, January 2025.

“Good mix of synchronous and asynchronous material, useful practicals, excellent input from tutors / opportunities for discussion.” – course feedback, January 2025.

“Good range of topics and approaches covered.” – course feedback, January 2025.

“I definitely feel I understand questionnaire design and analysis better now, which is obviously the main point! I liked the mix of pre-recorded with live and the amount of practical sessions too.” – course feedback, January 2025.

“I liked the content and found it a useful overview of the main issues to be aware of, the mixture of pre-recorded and live sessions, and the different opportunities to ask questions.” – course feedback, January 2025.

“I thought the delivery of the course was done very well and the presenters were all very welcoming and happy to discuss the topics.” – course feedback, January 2025.

“I thought the leadership of the course were really informed and organised. Attentive to answering questions. All really good.” – course feedback, January 2025.

“I was grateful to how quickly the recordings of the live sessions were uploaded as I missed the beginning on one due to a powercut but was able to catch up the same day.” – course feedback, January 2025.

“I also really liked how you could ask questions both using the comments and on the padlet. It was helpful that some Q&A was added to the padlet to refer back to.” – course feedback, January 2025.