Twenty Top Tips to Writing Effective Surveys
How to create a survey using Survey Galaxy
Writing surveys is easy; or is it? The truth is that creating surveys is easy but creating effective surveys is more difficult. The following twenty tips will help you with your survey questionnaire design.
1. What is the purpose of the survey?
Surveys and questionnaires are conducted for many reasons. By phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in a multitude of ways and for a variety of reasons. When compiling 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 you need to encourage them that their investment will be worthwhile.
3. Keep the survey as short as possible
Every question that is 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, maintain consistency, avoid jargon and acronyms and don’t ask questions that may result in ambiguous answers
Be careful when wording the 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 having long questions
Use concise sentences wherever possible. Long questions tend to cause respondents discomfort and can lead to respondents abandoning a survey.
6. Ask only one question at a time
Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like tennis and golf?’
7. Avoid influencing the answer
Do not load the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell alcohol to minors be prosecuted?’ is unlikely to have any value.
8. Ensure that the chosen 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 be less inclined to complete the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “No comment”, “Can’t say”, “Don’t know” or similar response option.
9. While compiling your survey consider how you will want to analyse the results once the survey has been published
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. 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 or make comments
Allowing respondents to make additional comments will increase their satisfaction level and will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember that for large sample collections it may be difficult to analyze free text open ended responses.
13. If the survey you are conducting is to be confidential ensure that you honour your pledge
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 and any contact information deleted after the survey is complete.
14. Consider 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 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 what the best response format will be
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. 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
Respondent drop out can occur if the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions. 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
Encourage respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise respondents as to 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 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 proof read the survey several times
Check and 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. Thank the respondent
To complete surveys respondents need to invest their time and they should be thanked at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider incentives such as entry into a prize draw or a reward.
Getting started is easy and there are many survey software websites to choose from.