Formulate Screening Questions - I

Once you have isolated the different factors for which you are screening you need to formulate questions to ascertain whether a person has that expertise and other characteristics defined for the test. Use the same approach you would use for creating any sort of questionnaire, especially if you will be handing your screener over to someone else to do the recruiting and scheduling We present a number of question formats in Chapter 8. Besides those question formats, you will have to operationalize a definition of expertise Determine

levels of expertise by creating a way of checking proficiency (what we call a criterion test) such as an actual quiz or a matrix similar to the one we show in Figure 7-1. Because people are often reluctant to divulge exact personal details if you must gather personal information, such as age or salary, frame your questions in ranges. For example, instead of asking, "What is your annual household income?" ask instead:

"Into what category does your annual household income fall?"

$20,000- $45,000 $46,000-$55,000
$56,000-$75,000 $76,0000-$100,000