Jump to main content

Designing a Survey

The key to obtaining good data through a survey is to develop a good survey questionnaire. Whether you are conducting interviews or mailing out surveys, you will need to know how to design a good survey questionnaire.

What is a survey questionnaire?

Survey questionnaires present a set of questions to a subject who with his/her responses will provide data to a researcher. On the surface, it seems a fairly simple task to write up a set of questions to collect information, but there are many pitfalls that should be avoided to develop a good survey questionnaire. We will focus here on describing some of the key elements in designing a survey questionnaire, and then highlighting some tips and tricks to for creating a good survey questionnaire.

Objectives

The key to developing a good survey questionnaire is to keep it short while ensuring that you capture all of the information that you need. This is not an easy task. Before you even begin to design your survey questionnaire, you should develop a set of objectives for your research and list out the information that you are trying to capture. This list of objectives and research goals will serve as your plan for the survey questionnaire.

Now that you know what you are looking for, you can begin to structure the questions that will help you capture the information. Once you have developed your survey questionnaire, you can use your objectives to go back through the questions and determine if each of the questions is providing you with information that you need. Any question that is not providing necessary information should be removed.

Types of Questions:

There are two different types of questions that can be used to collect information. The first is called a structured or fixed response question and the second is called non-structured or open question. It is important to understand when and how to use these questions when designing your survey.

Structured (fixed response)

Structured questions are questions that offer the respondent a closed set of responses from which to choose. Structured questions make data collection and analysis much simpler and they take less time to answer. Structured questions are best suited in the following situations: (1) when you have a thorough understanding of the responses so that you can appropriately develop the answer choices (2) when you are not trying to capture new ideas or thoughts from the respondent.

Examples of Structured Questions

Do you have a driver's license?
( ) Yes
( ) No
Which subject do you enjoy the most at school?
( ) Math
( ) Science
( ) English
( ) Foreign Language
( ) History
( ) Government
( ) Art / Music
( ) Other
How many hours a day do you spend doing homework?
( ) 0 to 1 hour
( ) 2 to 3 hours
( ) 4 to 5 hours
( ) more than 5 hours

When writing the selection of responses for a structured question, you should make certain that the list covers all possible alternatives that the respondent might select AND that each of the answers is unique (ie they do not overlap). So for example, in the homework question above, we have included every option on the number of hours (from 0 to infinity). Also, you will notice that we were careful not to overlap the hours when defining the ranges by stating them as "0 to 1 hour" and "2 to 3 hours" rather than saying "0 to 1 hour" and "1 to 2 hours".

Sometimes, including general catch all responses (such as "Other", "Don't know", "None of the above", etc...) at the end of a list of answer choices will help to ensure that the data you are collecting will be accurate. In the school subject example above, you will notice that the last answer choice is "Other". Since the selection of non-required courses varies dramatically from school to school the option of "Other" helps to ensure that you are capturing the responses that do not fit into the broader subject areas already listed, rather than forcing respondents to select one of the other subject areas. Similarly, adding "Don't know" to a response list for a question that some of the respondents may not be capable of answering will help ensure you are collecting valid data. In general however, you want to use the "Don't know" option sparingly. You should try to ensure that your respondents are capable of answering the majority of the questions on your survey questionnaire.

You should also make sure that all of the answers are relevant to the question. Irrelevant responses may distract the respondent in addition to adding unnecessary length to your survey questionnaire. Consider the following change to the favorite school subject question.

Example of a Bad Question With an Irrelevant Answer Choice

Which subject do you enjoy the most at school?
( ) Math
( ) Science
( ) English
( ) Foreign Language
( ) History
( ) Government
( ) Art / Music
( ) Football Practice
( ) Other

If we added a choice of "Football practice", we may find that football practice is someone's favorite "activity" at school, but it is not relevant to this particular question which asks "Which subject do you enjoy the most at school?"

Consistency is very important in writing the list of responses. All of the responses should be similar so that no single response stands out to the individual except the answer that is true for them. Consistency simply helps to ensure that you are not leading respondents to a particular answer by making that answer different from the others. It also makes it much easier for respondents to find the answer that is relevant to them. Here's an example using the homework question you have already seen above:

Example of a Bad Question with Inconsistent Answer Choices

How many hours a day do you spend doing homework?
( ) 0 to 1 hour
( ) 120 to 180 minutes
( ) 4 to 5 hours
( ) more than 5 hours

In this example, the second choice is exactly the same as what we had before, but it is listed in minutes rather than hours making it inconsistent with the other answer choices. Listing answer choices in this way is very confusing for the respondent and makes it more likely that they will provide you with incorrect information.

Sometimes you will be interested in obtaining a person's opinion on a topic, subject, product, event, etc.... To capture varying degrees of emotion about a subject, it is best to use either a rating or a ranking question. A rating question asks respondents to explain the degree with which they feel about a certain topic, subject, event, etc... For example:

Example of a Rating Question

Please describe how you felt about the Homecoming Pep Rally.

 Unsatisfied   Somewhat Satisfied   Satisfied   Very Satisfied   Extremely Satisfied 
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

A ranking question asks respondents to explain how they feel about something by comparing it to other items in a list. For example:

Example of a Ranking Question

Please rank the following Homecoming activities in order of preference (starting with 1 for your favorite activity).

___Homecoming Pep Rally
___Homecoming Parade
___Homecoming Football Game
___Homecoming Dance

In general, if you are trying to get a respondent's opinion about something, it is best to have them do a rating rather than a ranking. A ranking asks respondents to list their responses in order of preference. This type of question leads you to an answer where the respondent is comparing one thing to another rather than giving you their feeling about each individual item. The disadvantage to a ranking is that if the respondent feels the same about two or more items, they are still forced to sort them into a ranking. The results of a ranking basically tell you which is the most preferred and which is the least preferred item on the list, but you do not know from a ranking if the respondent likes or dislikes any or all of the items on the list.

Non-structured (open-ended)

Non-structured questions, or open-ended questions, are questions where there is no list of answer choices from which to choose. Respondents are simply asked to write their response to a question. Here is an example:

Example of a Non-structured Question

What do you like best about the Science Buddies Classroom Scientists Program?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________

It is best to use non-structured questions when you are exploring new ideas and you don't really know what to expect from the respondents. In some situations, you may have a partial list of answer choices, but you may still have some doubt or uncertainty about other possible responses. You can create a partially structured question such as the following:

Example of a Partially Structured Question

Why did you sign up for the Science Buddies Classroom Scientists Program (please select all that apply)?
( ) I really enjoy science
( ) My teacher asked me to sign up
( ) My teacher made me sign up
( ) My parents asked me to sign up
( ) I'm bored in science class & thought this would be fun
( ) I thought it would help me do a better project
( ) I thought it would help me win the Science Fair
( ) I thought having a Mentor to talk to would be fun
( ) I knew other students who were doing it
( ) Other _____________________

Open-ended questions let you get more insight into the respondents' thoughts and ideas about a subject. As we have already mentioned, open-ended questions are useful when you are trying to capture new ideas or information for which you have no basis to develop an all inclusive set of structured responses. The disadvantages to using open-ended questions is that it can be much more time consuming and difficult to analyze the data. In general you should try to minimize the number of open-ended questions in your survey questionnaire. If you find yourself designing a survey questionnaire where the majority of the questions are open-ended, then you may need to do more exploratory research to get a better foundation of knowledge for the subject you are researching.

Tips to creating a good survey questionnaire:

Here are some tips and tricks to help you ensure you are developing a good survey questionnaire:

Credits

Source

Parasuraman, A. Marketing Research - 2nd Edition. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1991.
Top
We use cookies and those of third party providers to deliver the best possible web experience and to compile statistics.
By continuing and using the site, including the landing page, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
OK, got it
Free science fair projects.