1. Writing Survey Questions
What are you curious about?
Now is your chance to find it out!
Generating Data to Analyze During the Semester

2. Find the issue and fix it…..
The government should force you to pay higher taxes.
Yes No
Indifferent

3. Avoid Leading Words or Questions
Words like Should, Force, Prohibit, Outstanding, Legendary, ect… can bias a question’s responses. Be careful in your wording to not bias responses.

4. Find the issue and fix it…..
What is your age?
0-10
10-20
20-30
30-40
40-50
50-60

5. Give Mutually Exclusive Choices and Give Options that Cover All Possible Choices
Have answer choices that do not overlap with each other and do not leave out answer choices leaving a respondent with no choice to answer.

6. Find the issue and fix it…..
What do you like to do for fun?

7. Ask Direct Questions and Consider How You Will Use the Responses (What Stats Will You Do?)
Consider what you want to find out about the topic and consider listing 5 or so most common answers you expect to receive. You could ask the respondent to chose the option that most describes him/her. Or, you could ask the respondent to rank the choices from best to worst.

8. Find the issue and fix it…..
What are your religious beliefs?
Who did you vote for in the last election?

9. Add a “Prefer Not to Answer” Option on Sensitive Issues and Intrusive Questions
Prefer Not to Answer options could increase data quality or response rates, as many respondents appreciate such a non- disclosure option. Furthermore, different cultural groups may respond differently. Studies have shown that that while U.S. respondents skip sensitive questions, Asian respondents often discontinue the survey entirely.

10. Find the issue and fix it…..
What is your opinion of WTCC Advising Center?
Pretty good
Great
Fantastic
Incredible
The Best Ever

11. Use a Balanced Scale
When wanting to ask about public satisfaction on any item, the rating scale should include choices that are equal conceptual distance from one point to the next and equal number of choices on each side of “indifferent”.

12. Find the issue and fix it…..
How likely are you to go out for dinner and a movie this weekend?

13. Ask Only One Question At A Time
There is often a temptation to ask multiple questions within one question. This can cause problems for respondents not knowing how to answer if they fit one situation and not the other.

14. Your Turn To Write a Survey Question:
Choose a topic of interest to you pertaining to WTCC Students? What would you like to know about students that attend WTCC? What are you curious about?
Write a survey question that will generate qualitative responses.
Write a second survey question that will generate quantitative responses.

15. Survey Monkey Develop Questionnaire Email link to students through BB
Results downloaded into Excel or accessible in format to the right

16. Spreadsheet of Responses
Rate your experience with Wake Tech's Student Advising Department. (Resources and staff)
What is the most important reason you are attending WTCC?
Were you raised primarily by a single parent (single parent household)?
How many hours, on average, do you work a job each week?
How many credit hours are you taking this semester?
Response
Other (please specify)
Open-Ended Response
Satisfied
Financial No 20 12
No Opinion 13
To transfer to a 4 year school 35
Financial and transfer 14
Unsatisfied 17
Very Satisfied 15 11

17. Descriptive Stats With Data
Quantitative Data
Create frequencies within classes (Data Analysis Toolpack)
Create histograms
Compute mean, median, mode, and standard deviation
Qualitative Data
Create relative frequencies (Pivot Table)
Create Pie charts
Create Bar charts

18. Probability of Outcomes
If you were raised by a single parent, what is the probability that the main reason you attended WTCC is financial?
What is the probability of a student taking 12 credit hours or more and working 30 hours or more?

19. Creating a Confidence Interval
Quantitative Data
CI for the population mean μ
Example: Create a 95% CI for the mean number of credit hours that WTCC students are currently taking.
Qualitative Data
CI for the population proportion p
Example: Create a 95% CI for the percent of WTCC students that were raised by a single parent.

20. Conducting a Hypothesis Test
Quantitative Data
HT for a claim on the population mean μ
Example: The average number of hours that WTCC students work per week is greater than 10 hours.
Qualitative Data
HT for a claim on the population proportion p
Example: A majority of WTCC students are satisfied with Wake Tech's Student Advising Department.

21. Resources and Summary Using Pivot Tables in Excel Survey Monkey
Survey Monkey
Pitfalls of Survey Questions