FAQS

What is a survey?

A survey is a method of collecting information by asking questions and later analyzing the results.

What should I keep in mind when beginning to write a survey?

1. Identify the goal of your survey - why are you gathering responses?
2. Identify the audience of your survey.
3. Determine which survey tool you will use.  There are a variety of free survey tools available.  All you need to do is conduct a quick Google search to see what's out there.
4. How will you share your survey?  Email?  Social media? Mail?

What should I keep in mind while writing my survey questions?

According to SuveryMonkey, it's important to keep the following in mind when writing survey questions:

1. Focus on using more closed-ended questions.  Open-ended questions can provide valuable feedback and should be incorporated; however, they do take more time to analyze.  SurveyMonkey suggests using no more than two open-ended questions and including them at the end of the survey in case the respondent elects not to complete these questions.
2. Keep questions neutral.  You do not want to include an opinion or leading question in your survey.  These types of questions can influence your respondents' answers and can skew your results.
3. Keep answer choices balanced.  You want to keep things objective when creating a survey.  You want to provide answer choices that would allow the respondent to provide honest feedback.  
4. Don't ask about two things in the same question.  This can confuse the respondent and sway your results.  You want to keep your questions to one item at a time.
5. Keep your questions different from each other.  You do not want to ask the same question over and over again as it could cause your respondent to stop answering honestly.  Be sure to add variety in your questions and how you ask them.  If you do have similar questions, space them out in your survey.
6. Be sure to allow the ability to not answer a question.  The respondent may not know the answer and may quit if you require a response.
7. Proofread and share your survey.  Share your survey with colleagues before sending it out to your audience to allow you to catch any errors or mistakes before sending it to your identified audience.

Pew Research Center suggests the following for question design:

1. Identify what topics will be covered in the survey.  Basically, identify the purpose of your survey and what you want to cover.  
2. Be mindful of how many answer choices you are providing.  You want to keep it to 4-5 answer choices.  Research indicates people have challenges keeping more than that in mind when responding.  If the question is asking an objective question like race or religion, it is acceptable to use more than 5 answer choices.
3. Consider randomizing your answers when sharing it with different respondents.  This, however, does not apply when asking for feedback like strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree.
4. Question wording can make a big impact.  It is important to ensure that your questions are clearly expressing what it is trying to ask and that all respondents interpret it the same.  Use simple and concrete language and refrain from using words that could be considered biased.
5. Determine your question order.  Believe it or not, the order in which you ask your questions can impact the response.  Your questions should be grouped by topic and come in a logical order. 

Google Forms is a free option for creating an online survey. How can I create a survey in Google Forms?

You can also do a Google search to find other free options. Note: Rasmussen's Classroom IT Support is not able to provide technical support for Google Forms or other online survey tools.

Check out the links below for more resources!

References

Pew Research Center. (n.d.) Questionnaire design. https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/u-s-survey-research/questionnaire-design/

SurveyMonkey. (n.d.) Writing good survey questions: Get reliable results and actionable insights from your surveys. https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/writing-survey-questions/