Writing Effective Surveys
Designing surveys is considered easy; but is it? The reality is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is more difficult. The following tips will help you write more effective surveys.
1. What is the purpose of the survey?
There are many reasons for conducting surveys and questionnaires. By correctly phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in many ways and for a variety of reasons. When compiling a survey don’t lose sight of its purpose.
2. Title the survey
The title of the survey is an opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents need to invest time in completing the survey so make them feel that their investment is worthwhile.
3. Avoid making the survey any longer than it needs to be
Every question that is asked should be asked for a reason. Pay attention to the ‘need to know’ questions and minimise ‘nice to know’ information.
4. Use plain English, maintain consistency, avoid jargon and acronyms and don’t ask questions that may result in ambiguous answers
Take care when wording a question. If a question can be interpreted in more ways than one then there is a real risk that any analysis of the survey data will be meaningless or at the very least misleading.
5. Avoid long questions
Where practical use short sentences. Long questions can cause a respondent discomfort and lead to them abandoning the survey.
6. Ask 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
It is important to avoid loading the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell alcohol to children be prosecuted?’ is likely to have no value.
8. Ensure that the answer format used allows the respondent to answer the question being asked
Ensure that the respondent is able to answer how they really feel or they may abandon the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “Don’t know”, “No comment” or similar response option.
9. While you are compiling the survey consider, when the survey is complete, how the compiled data is going be analysed
Appreciate that questions that allow for a free text open ended response is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider how answers can be grouped. For example “How long have you worked here?” - ‘less than 2 year’, ‘between 2 and 5 years’ and ‘more than 5′.
10. Try and ensure that the questionnaire flows
When asking questions group the questions into clear categories as this makes the task of completing the survey easier for the participants.
11. Target your respondents carefully
In some cases 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 who don’t fit your target profile.
12. Allow the respondent to expand or make comments
Allowing respondents to make additional comments will increase their satisfaction level and the comments will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember that for large sample collections it may prove difficult to analyze free text open ended responses.
13. If you are conducting a confidential survey ensure that your pledge for confidentiality is honoured
If you have made guarantees to the respondents that the survey is confidential you need to ensure that the individual data is not shared with anyone or used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any contact information destroyed after the survey is complete.
14. Consider the benefits and disadvantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable
If your respondents are to be anonymous then appreciate that you will be unable to follow up or match “pre” or “post” surveys. There are advantages to allowing respondents to remain anonymous for example it would allow respondents to respond without possible peer pressure.
15. Carefully consider the best response format
Maintaining a consistency in 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. If a radio response format can be used do not use a check box format.
16. Inform the respondent as to the approximate time it will take to complete the survey
If the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions then respondent drop can increase. 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. Inform the respondents of the survey end date
Try and 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 check the survey several times
Check and then check again that a survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If practical get a colleague to check the survey before you publish, if no one else is available then take a break before checking again.
20. Thank your respondents
To complete surveys respondents have to devote their time and should be thanked either in a covering letter, at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider incentives such as a reward of some sort.
For further information please visit Survey Galaxy
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