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Questionnaires have limitations as data-gathering tools. If you get a 50% return on your target audience then you are doing very well. You need to know who your target audience is and how to phrase the questions. Why is age important for example? Data collection relies on more than one method to increase its accuracy (interviews, written evidence, focus groups etc - yes, guess who is doing a PGCE at the moment!) and people who design accurate questionnaires for organisations get well paid for doing so. Therefore I will not criticise the attempts I've seen here on the forum. What the GCSE syllabus probably doesn't include is politeness and deference to seniority and experience - sadly lacking in some of our more youthful followers but only some I'd hasten to add (although the media would have us believe otherwise of course). In addition, many questionnaire fillers will want to know the "what's in it for me" aspect. If the aim of the questionnaire is to provide data to produce better model buildings for model railway enthusiasts then they might respond more readily than if its for some poor sod who wants to get a GCSE in some subject that a future employer only looks at and says "What in the name of sanity is that?"
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