1. The Nuts and Bolts of Surveys
Creating a Survey

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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?" 

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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. 
   

12. 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.  

13. 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