Tips to Writing Effective Surveys
Designing surveys is easy; isn’t it? The truth is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is a little bit more difficult. The following twenty tips will help you with your survey questionnaire design.
1. What is the purpose of the survey?
There are many reasons for conducting surveys and questionnaires. By phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in a multitude of ways and for a variety of reasons. When designing a survey don’t lose sight of its purpose.
2. Give the survey a good title
The survey title 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. Ensure that you do not make the survey any longer than it needs to be
Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Minimize the questions providing you with ‘nice to know’ information and focus instead on the ‘need to know’ questions.
4. Use plain English, avoid terminology and acronyms, be consistent 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 resulting survey data will be worthless or at the very least suspect.
5. Avoid questions that are long
Where practical use short sentences. Long questions can cause a respondent to lose concentration and lead to them abandoning the survey.
6. Ask only one question at a time
Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like tennis and football?’
7. Do not influence the answer
It is important to avoid loading the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell tobacco to children be prosecuted?’ is likely to have no value.
8. Ensure that the selected answer format 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 “Can’t say”, “Don’t know” or similar response option.
9. When you are 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 appreciate that such information is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider grouping the answers into groups that will match your analysis requirements. For example “How long have you worked here?” – ‘less than 2 year’, ‘between 2 and 4 years’ and ‘more than 4′.
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
Sometimes you will want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t control who responds to your survey 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 on their answer or make comments
By allowing respondents to make additional comments you 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 that free text open ended responses may be difficult to analyze.
13. If you are conducting a confidential survey ensure that your pledge for confidentiality is honoured
If you have guaranteed the respondents that the survey is confidential ensure that the individual data is not to be shared with anyone and not 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 advantages 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. Carefully consider what the best response format will be
Maintaining a consistency in the format used for responses is good practice. When designing 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 format if a radio response format would do.
16. Give the respondent an estimate as to how much time the survey will take to complete
Respondent drop out can increase if there is no end in sight to the survey questions. It is good practice 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. Provide respondents with 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. Pilot the survey
Before publishing a live survey publish the survey as a trial to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to ensure that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.
19. Before publishing the survey check the survey several times
Check more than once that the survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If practical get someone else to proof read the survey before you publish, if no one else is available then take a break before checking again.
20. Remember to thank the respondent
To complete surveys respondents will need to invest their time and therefore should be thanked either at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider incentives such as a prize draw or reward.
To get started there are numerous survey software websites to choose from.
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