How to ask good questions to create meaningful surveys
Surveys are excellent tools to gather both quantitative and qualitative information, but often they are long, unstructured, and invasive.
I believe that a good survey is designed with the end user in mind and questions asked must be valid, reliable, and meaningful.
Ask a good question – there is a skill to asking a good question - here are 5 tips to get you started:
Think about the survey purpose from the outset – it’s good to use a theory of change to guide this thinking (see my other blog post).
Use simple language – choose your words carefully and use simple, easy to understand words.
Be precise – only ask one thing per question. It is better to break a big concept into several questions – this will give you more reliable answers.
Stick to facts (mostly) – don’t overdo the attitude questions or ask loaded questions.
Keep it short – put yourself in the shoes of the respondent and think about the questions and their worth – only include worthwhile questions.
Once you have worked out what questions you want to ask - you want to get your responses in a systematic and consistent way. It is good to use both quantitative (closed questions) and qualitative (open ended responses) in your survey.
Quantitative data questions- Use closed questions for your quantitative data (questions that are multiple choice, use a likert scale, rank order).
Likert scale example:
⃞ Strongly agree
⃞ Agree
⃞ Neutral
⃞ Strongly disagree
⃞ Don’t know / not applicable
Qualitative questions - Use open ended questions when you want to collect more detail – or want to collect information about feelings, attitudes or understanding.
Once you’ve created the survey, pilot test it (!!) to check how respondent find the questions AND how long it takes to do – perhaps test on a group of colleagues?!
I am currently conducting interactive online workshops in survey design for the community sector. Please get in touch maria@iotaconsulting.com.au, if you want to learn more about these small group workshops. In these workshops we explore the fundamentals of good survey design and work together to examine your existing or future surveys and refine them to ensure meaningful data for use.
Need to create meaningful surveys for your organisation?
