Top Tips to Writing Effective Surveys
How to create a survey using Survey Galaxy
Designing surveys is easy; isn’t it? The truth is that creating surveys is easy but creating effective surveys is more difficult. The following tips will help you with your survey questionnaire design so you can 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 a multitude of ways and for a variety of reasons. When designing a survey do not lose sight of its purpose.
2. Title the survey
The survey title is key and 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. Don’t make the survey any longer than it needs to be
Every question that is 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
Word the question carefully. If a question can be interpreted in more ways than one then there is a risk that any analysis of the survey results will be worthless or at the very least misleading.
5. Avoid long questions
Use succinct sentences wherever possible. Long questions can cause a respondent to lose concentration and can lead to a higher level of incidents where respondents abandon a survey.
6. Ask one question at a time
Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like football and athletics?’
7. Don’t influence 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 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 “Can’t say”, “Don’t know” 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 the answers could be grouped. For example “Indicate your length of service?” – ‘less than 1 year’, ‘between 1 and 6 years’ and ‘more than 6′.
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
You may 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 that don’t match your target profile.
12. Allow the respondent to expand 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 free text open ended responses may prove difficult to analyze.
13. If the survey you are conducting is to be confidential ensure that your pledge is upheld
If you have assured respondents that the survey is to be confidential you need to ensure that the collated data is not shared with anyone or used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained and any contact information deleted after the survey is complete.
14. Weigh up the advantages 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 respondents to remain anonymous for example it would allow respondents to respond without possible peer pressure.
15. Give careful consideration to the best response format
Maintaining a consistency in 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. If a radio response can be used do not use a check box.
16. Inform the respondent as to how much time the survey will take to complete
Respondent drop out can increase if the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions. It is good practice to give an indication as to how long the survey is likely to take so that the participants can determine 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. 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
Carefully check and then check again that the survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If possible get someone else to proof read the survey before you publish, if you are unable to do this then take a break before checking again.
20. Remember to thank the respondent
To complete surveys respondents need to invest 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 an incentive such as a reward of some sort.
Getting started is easy and there are many survey software websites to choose from.