PRINCIPLES OF QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN FOR FREE ASSOCIATIVE EXPERIMENT

Abstract

The article substantiates the expediency of conducting a free associative experiment within the implementation of an applied project “Corpus and Experimental Diagnostics of Resilience of Different Language Cultures Representatives and Behavioural Models Development for Adaptation to Crisis Phenomena”. The project is being implemented at the Kyiv National Linguistic University. The procedure of questionnaire design taking into account the basic provisions of psycholinguistic research is described. Questionnaire design for free associative experiment is considered as an iterative process. This process consists of the following main stages: 1) determination of the purpose of the questionnaire, which is correlated with the purpose of a free associative experiment; 2) formation of the list of stimulus words; 3) determination of the form of the experiment (oral, orally and written, written, electronic) and the method of presenting stimulus material; 4) designing a questionnaire; 5) questionnaire design; 6) testing (verification) and optimization of the questionnaire. It has been established that in the case of conducting a survey using the online service Google Forms, it is important to take into account the mandatory component of a free associative experiment – spontaneity of reaction. It is necessary to exclude the possibility to make changes to the completed questionnaire and to control the time parameter (limit the time of filling in the questionnaire and / or indicate the spontaneity of the response). It is concluded that in order to achieve the goal of a free associative experiment, the questionnaire must comply with the following key principles: goal setting; implementation of the design of the questionnaire focused on respondents; ethical principles. The basic ethical norms and principles of conducting a free associative experiment include: providing by respondents informed consent to participate in the survey and the statistical processing of their personal data; acquaintance of respondents with the instructions of the survey, the estimated time of its course, the purpose and organizers of the survey; guaranteeing confidentiality and security to respondents; questionnaires among minors are conducted with the consent of their parents or official guardians.