20 Top Tips to Writing Effective Surveys
Designing surveys is easy; or is it? The truth is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective 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 survey’s purpose?
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 compiling 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. The length of the survey needs to be as short as possible
Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Minimize the questions providing you with ‘nice to know’ information and concentrate instead on the ‘need to know’ questions.
4. Use plain English, maintain consistency and avoid jargon, acronyms and asking questions that could 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. Don’t have long questions
Use concise sentences wherever possible. Long questions tend to cause respondents discomfort and can lead to respondents abandoning a survey.
6. Ask one question at a time
Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like football and tennis?’
7. Don’t influence the answer
Do not load the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell tobacco to children be prosecuted?’ is likely to have no 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 be less inclined to complete the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “No comment”, “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
Appreciate that questions that allow for a free text open ended response, such as when asking the respondent for their comments, is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider how the answers could be grouped. 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
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 that don’t match your target profile.
12. Allow the respondent to expand on their answer 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 that free text open ended responses may be difficult to analyse.
13. If the survey you are conducting is to be confidential ensure that your pledge is upheld
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 and any identifying information deleted after the survey is complete.
14. Weigh up the benefits 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. However in some cases allowing respondents to remain anonymous will allow respondents to respond without possible peer pressure.
15. Carefully consider the best response format
It is good practice to maintain a consistency in the format used for responses. 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. 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 out can occur. It is good practice to indicate how long the survey is likely to take so that the participants can choose the best time to complete the survey.
17. Provide respondents with 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 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 carefully
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. Thank your respondents
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.
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