Make the Best Survey Possible With These Tips

 

Hello, and welcome to part two of our blog series on essential tips to building an effective survey. As a survey management and data processing organization, we here at DataStar are well-versed in what it takes to build a survey that will not only get respondents but will also collect the data desired by the author of the survey. In today’s post, we wanted to share some of our knowledge with you and list out a few more tips that will help to ensure that your survey is as well built as possible. If you haven’t read our last post we suggest that you do so, however, if you’d like to jump right in continue reading below.

 

Design a Survey That Produces Results

 

Chances are, if you have crafted a survey you are trying to collect data to answer a certain question. No matter what this question may be, it is essential that you craft your survey around it. This will ensure that the survey has a logical flow to it and that respondents do not become confused by the questions. Below, we have listed a few more tips that will help you build the best survey possible.

 

 

  • One Question at a Time: When coming up with questions for your survey, it is important to make sure that your questions are only asking one thing at a time. Take a look at the questions you have come up with for your survey and determine if any of them have two parts. For example, say you have a question asking which breakfast food people think is the healthiest and most delicious. This question could be difficult for people to answer if they feel that one food is healthier yet another is more delicious. Questions like this can skew survey results because people are not sure how to best answer. If you notice any questions like this in your survey we suggest that you split them into two separate questions.
  • Avoid Biased and Leading Questions: The purpose of a survey is to better understand what a given population thinks about something. However, it is very important that when you are crafting survey questions, ensure that you do not have questions that lead respondents to certain answers or may contain unintentional bias. To avoid questions like this, we suggest that you study each question and determine whether or not any of the descriptors you have used might lead people to answer a certain way. Remember, you’re trying to determine what other people think about something, not whether or not they agree with the way you think.

We hope that this short blog series has given you some useful tips on what to do and not do when it comes to crafting a survey. If you would like to learn more about our survey management services or you would like to contact us about a particular survey job you may have,  please visit our website today and shoot us an email. Our survey management experts will help you through every stage of the survey process, ensuring that you effectively collect the data you are trying to obtain.