Research Tips
Watch Your Language
Whether you’re writing a questionnaire, preparing a moderator’s guide for a focus group, or developing an interview guide, it’s important to be careful about the language that you use.
- First, it’s important that your language is appropriate for the type of people who will be participating in your research. For example, if you’re surveying children, you’ll want to use simpler language than if you’re surveying highly educated adults.
- Second, it’s important to limit the use of jargon unless it’s very clear that the meaning of the words used are known and interpreted the same way by all participants. For example, most industries have their own jargon, yet sometimes people interpret the meaning of some terms differently and other times a word or an acronym has more than one meaning.
- Finally, it’s particularly important to be careful about language if your research will include participants from different cultures because cultural differences or imperfect translations can lead to different interpretations of the same question.