The Nuts and Bolts of Surveys Creating a Survey

What to Expect A good survey has the potential to: Reach a large number of respondents Represent an even larger population Generate standardized, quantitative data Be confidential and anonymous Generate qualitative data through the use of open ended questions

Basic Survey Types There are 3 common ways to administer a survey Face-to-Face – allows surveyors to establish a rapport with respondent, has high rate of response, often lengthy and expensive Telephone – relatively inexpensive and quick, response rate lower, often inconvenient for respondents Self-administered – offer anonymity and confidentiality, wide coverage, convenient for respondents, very low response rates and no opportunity for question clarification

First Steps Before you ever start to create a survey, you must first know what information you are trying to obtain from the people you are having fill it out It is this information that will guide the questions that you will ask Depending on the information needed, a variety of questions could be asked

Title Every survey needs to be named Some people discard a survey based entirely on its subject or sender. You should consider other titles that will pique the interest of those filling it out. For example: Evaluation of Services of the Benefits Office  Your Opinion About Financial Services  Free T-shirt  Win a Trip to Paris  Please Respond By Friday Free Subscription

Introduction Every survey needs to have an introduction that explains why the person is taking this survey A good cover memo or introduction should be short and includes:   Purpose of the survey  Why it is important to hear from the correspondent  What may be done with the results and what possible impacts may occur with the results Address identification  Person to contact for questions about the survey Due date for response

The Beginning Questions Start the survey with questions that are likely to sound interesting and attract the respondents' attention. Save the questions that might be difficult or threatening for later. Voicing questions in the third person can be less threatening than questions voiced in the second person. For example, ask: "How do your colleagues feel about management?" rather than "How do you feel about management?" 

Survey Length Above all, your questionnaire should be as short as possible. When drafting your questionnaire, make a mental distinction between what is essential to know, what would be useful to know and what would be unnecessary. Retain the essential, keep the useful to a minimum and discard the rest.

Questions to Avoid Poorly Worded Biased, Leading, or Loaded Complex terms and language Ambiguous questions Double negatives Making assumptions in your questions Biased, Leading, or Loaded Hard to disagree with statements Leading questions Leading with your order of questioning

Questions to Avoid Problematical for the Respondent Recall dependant questions Offensive questions Questions with assumed knowledge Questions with unwarranted assumptions Questions with socially desirable responses

Open-Ended vs. Closed-Ended Close-ended – simple yes/no, check the box etc. Very easy to fill out and go tabulate the results but often it si shallow data, doesn’t have a lot of meaning If the list of answer categories is long and unfamiliar, it is difficult for respondents to evaluate all of them. Keep the list of choices short. An open-ended question is a written response For example: "If you do not want a company picnic, please explain why“ If there are an excessive number of written response questions, it reduces the quality and attention the respondents give to the answers.     

Order of Questions The issues raised in one question can influence how people think about subsequent questions. It is good to ask a general question and then ask more specific questions. For example, you should avoid asking a series of questions about a free banking service and then question about the most important factors in selecting a bank.  

Essential Information Your survey should always include questions that determine the demographics of the person filling it out This information will help you to classify the information that you received and make sense of the data Ensure that you keep any sensitive questions at the end of the survey, you want to ease your respondent into them