Writing Effective Surveys Top Tips
By Article Expert on Jul. 4, 2009.
Writing surveys is easy; or is it? The reality is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is a little bit more difficult. The following are twenty tips that if followed will help you with your survey questionnaire design and help you write effective surveys.
1. What is the purpose of the survey?
There are many reasons for conducting questionnaires. By correctly phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in many 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 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 encourage them that the investment they make will be worthwhile.
3. Avoid making the survey any longer than it needs to be
Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Minimize asking questions that will provide you with ‘nice to know’ information and concentrate instead on ‘need to know’ questions.
4. Use plain English, avoid jargon and acronyms, be consistent and ensure that the questions you ask will not result in ambiguous answers
Care must be taken in wording a question. If a question is not clear then there is every chance that respondents may interpret the question differently to that intended by the publisher making any analysis of the data meaningless or at the very least misleading.
5. Avoid questions that are long
Try to use short sentences wherever possible. 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 tennis?’
7. Avoid influencing the answer
Avoid loading the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell alcohol to minors be prosecuted?’ is unlikely to have any value.
8. Make sure that the chosen answer format allows the respondent to answer the question being asked
Allow the respondent to answer how they really feel or they may be less inclined to complete 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 your survey consider how the survey results are going to be analysed when the survey is complete
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 3 year’, ‘between 3 and 5 years’ and ‘more than 5′.
10. Ensure that the questionnaire flows
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 match your target profile.
12. Provide a channel for your respondents to expand on their answers 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. Keep in mind though that for a large sample collection it may be difficult to analyze free text open ended responses.
13. If you are conducting a confidential survey ensure that your pledge for confidentiality is upheld
If you have assured 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 benefits of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable
If your respondents are to be anonymous then you will be unable to follow up or match “pre” or “post” surveys. There are advantages to allowing people to remain anonymous for example it would allow people to respond without possible peer pressure.
15. Carefully consider the best response format
Being consistent with the format used for responses is good practice. When designing your survey keep in mind that when analyzing the data single selection radio buttons are easier to analyze than multiple selection check boxes. Do not use a check box format if a radio response format would do.
16. Provide the respondent with an estimate as to how much time the survey will take to complete
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. Advise 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. Test the survey
Before publishing a live survey publish a small pilot survey 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 and then check again that a survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If possible ask a colleague to check the survey before you publish, if you are unable to do this then take a break before checking again.
20. Thank the respondent
Respondents invest their time when completing surveys and should therefore be thanked at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to provide an incentive such as entry into a prize draw or a reward.
To get started there are numerous survey software websites to choose from.
Category: Business