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Writing Effective Surveys Top Tips

How to create a survey using Survey Galaxy

Writing surveys is considered easy; but is it? The reality is that writing surveys is easy but writing effective surveys is more difficult. The following twenty tips will help you with your survey questionnaire design.

1. What is the purpose of the survey?

Surveys are conducted for many reasons. By correctly phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in many ways and for a variety of reasons. When designing a survey don’t lose sight of its purpose.

2. Title the survey

The survey title is a golden opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents are going to invest time in completing the survey so make them feel that their investment is worthwhile.

3. Keep the length of the survey as short as possible

Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Limit asking questions that will provide you with ‘nice to know’ information and instead concentrate on the ‘need to know’ questions.

4. Use plain English, maintain consistency, avoid jargon and acronyms and don’t ask questions that may result in ambiguous answers

Word the question carefully. If a question can be interpreted in more ways than one then there is a risk that any analysis of the survey results will be meaningless or at the very least misleading.

5. Avoid having long questions

Use concise sentences wherever possible. Long questions can lead to a higher level of incidents where respondents abandon a survey.

6. Ask only one question at a time

Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like football and athletics?’

7. Do not influence the answer

Do not load the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell alcohol to minors be prosecuted?’ is unlikely to have any value.

8. Ensure that the chosen answer format allows the respondent to answer the question being asked

Allow the respondent to answer how they really feel or they may be less inclined to complete the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “Don’t know”, “Can’t say” or similar response option.

9. While compiling your survey consider how you will analyse the results once the survey has been published

When asking questions that allow for a free text open ended response, such as when asking the respondent for their comments, appreciate that such information is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider how the answers could be grouped. For example “How long have you worked here?” – ‘less than 3 year’, ‘between 3 and 8 years’ and ‘more than 8′.

10. Try and ensure that the questionnaire flows

Group questions into clear categories as this will make it easier for the participants completing the survey.

11. Target your respondents

Sometimes you will want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t easily control the respondents consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents that don’t match your target profile.

12. Allow the respondent to expand on their answer or make comments

Allowing the respondent to make additional comments will increase their satisfaction level and will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember that for large sample collections that free text open ended responses may be difficult to analyse.

13. If you are conducting a confidential survey ensure that your pledge for confidentiality is upheld

If you have guaranteed the respondents that the survey is confidential ensure that the individual data is not to be shared with anyone and the information is not going to be used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any contact information destroyed after the survey is complete.

14. Weigh up the benefits and disadvantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable

If your respondents are to be anonymous then you will be unable to follow up specific complaints or match “pre” or “post” surveys. Allowing people to remain anonymous will however allow people to respond without possible peer pressure.

15. Consideration carefully the best response format

Being consistent with the format used for responses is good practice. When creating your survey keep in mind that when analyzing the data radio buttons are easier to analyze than check boxes that offer the respondent multiple responses. Do not use a check box if a radio response would do.

16. Give the respondent an idea of how much time the survey will take

Respondent drop out can increase if the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions. It is a good idea to give an indication as to how long the survey is likely to take so the respondents can choose the best time to complete the survey.

17. Advise the respondents of the survey end date

Encourage your invited respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise the respondents of the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.

18. Trial the survey

Before publishing a live survey publish a pilot survey to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to confirm that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.

19. Before publishing the survey proof read the survey carefully

Check more than once that the survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If possible ask a colleague to check the survey before you publish, if you are unable to do this then take a break before checking again.

20. Remember to thank the respondent

Respondents invest their time when completing surveys and should therefore be thanked at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider an incentive such as a reward of some sort.

Getting started is easy and there are many survey software websites to choose from.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 11th, 2009 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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