EWCS 2010 - Questionnaire

A high quality questionnaire is a key element of a successful survey. Eurofound invests considerably in the development of its questionnaires. The 5th European Working Conditions Survey questionnaire includes questions from previous rounds, where possible and relevant, to enable analysis of trends over time. In addition, new concepts are integrated to reflect new and emerging areas of interest. The questionnaire underwent detailed preparation inhouse and was developed in close collaboration with an expert group. The process included pre-testing in two countries. For further information please see the questionnaire development section.

Another vital element to ensure the success of a pan-European survey is the quality of the language versions used in each country. The extensive translation procedure developed by Eurofound and its contractor reflects the importance of high quality translations. For more information on the process, and to access all the language versions, please see the questionnaire translation section.

The master questionnaire for the 5th EWCS is available in English.

The questionnaire is based on previous rounds of the survey, updated with a view to:

• maintain the balance between the different topics
• retain core 'trend' questions to ensure continuity
• identify new and emerging areas of interest

The main topics covered are: job context; working time; work intensity; physical factors; cognitive factors; psychosocial factors; health and well-being; skills, training and career prospects; work organisation; social relationships; job fulfillment; work-life balance; financial security and violence, harassment and discrimination.

New questions were introduced to enable more in-depth analysis of psychosocial risks, worker participation, precarious employment and job security, place of work, work-life balance, leadership styles and health. The questionnaire also included new questions addressed specifically to self-employed workers (e.g. financial security). In addition, the questions on household characteristics were expanded to find out more about the other members of the respondent’s household (age, gender, economic activity, working full time or part-time).

Development of the questionnaire started approximately two years before fieldwork. Firstly, Eurofound carried out literature reviews and made an internal evaluation of the previous survey. An external review also took place with key users of the previous EWCS. This was followed by a general user survey aimed at finding out more about the type and origin of the user and for what reason they used the dataset, learning which themes and topics the users were particularly interested in and gathering feedback about how satisfied they were with the EWCS and what could be improved. The user survey provided some valuable input to the preparation for the 5th EWCS and, reassuringly, confirmed user satisfaction to be high.

The draft questionnaire was then developed in close cooperation with a questionnaire development expert group. This group included members of Eurofound's Governing Board, representatives of the European Social Partners, other EU bodies (EU Commission, Eurostat, European Agency for Safety and Health at Work), international organisations (OECD, ILO), national statistical institutes and leading European experts in the field.

Subsequently, the draft questionnaire was finalised into a version which could be pre-tested. The pre-test was held in English and in French and comprised cognitive interviews and 'real life' interviews. The respondent and interviewer feedback from the pre-test helped to establish the final questionnaire.

Eurofound has produced a historical overview that maps the development of the questionnaire. It includes all the questions that were ever asked in all of the waves of the EWCS, organised by topic. For each question, it allows tracing in which wave(s) it was asked, and whether anything was changed in the phrasing or in the answering categories.

As a part of fieldwork preparation, the questionnaire was pre-tested in two countries: the United Kingdom and France. The aim was, firstly, to assess whether the questionnaire was relevant to and easily understood by the respondents, in terms of the concepts and the way they phrased in the questions; and secondly to assess the technical functioning of the questionnaire. 

There were two stages of testing. In the first stage,  ‘real life’ interviews were carried out, using the draft version of the questionnaire. This part focused on the interviewer-respondent interaction and technical functioning of the questionnaire (interviewer instructions, order of questions, filters, response categories, interview duration). In the second stage, cognitive interviews were conducted, aimed at gaining an understanding of the answering processes and finding out whether the new survey questions were understood as intended in both countries. 

Based on the results of the pre-testing the final version of the survey questionnaire was compiled. The modifications that were made can be grouped into the following broad categories:

• revising the structure of the questionnaire (order of questions, filters etc.)
• adding more instructions to the questionnaire and interviewer manual
• deleting questions and adding new ones
• rephrasing questions

After finalising the English master questionnaire and translating it, pilot interviews were carried out in each of the countries to ensure that interviews ran smoothly in all languages.

For more information please see the Pre-test report.

In order to develop a valid, reliable and internationally comparable questionnaire the translation from the English master file into the other languages required a series of steps and contributions from a team of experts.

For each version:

1. Two independent experts translated the questionnaire into their language
2. A third person combined these versions into one
3. This combined version was translated back into English, and
4. A final version was validated by our EWCO correspondents who are experts on working conditions research.

The European Working Conditions Survey has been carried out 5 times with some questions repeated in one or more waves. That makes it necessary to treat previously used questions (trend questions) differently from new questions to enable comparisons over time and to maintain the consistency of the data. The translations of trend questions - some of them dating back as far as 1991 - were changed only in case of serious discrepancies between the English master and the translation.

The 5th EWCS questionnaire was translated into 32 languages including the key minority languages of the surveyed countries. Nine of the languages were used in more than one country and adapted to the cultural context when necessary.

Below is the list of languages for each country.

For more information please see the Translation Process Report.