Creating a survey that will produce helpful and accurate results can be more difficult than initially meets the eye. For every survey that is created, despite varying topics and desired outcomes, there are important things to remember.
Avoid Leading Questions: In order to be sure that a survey does not appear biased towards one viewpoint, it is important to maintain consistency throughout the survey. No one response should stand out causing respondents to waver from what they actually believe. These types of questions are called “leading questions”, which tend to sway people one way, and they lose sight of the other options that they can select. An example of this would be the question “What is your favourite colour apple?” with answer options being, “yellow, green, or luscious red”. Based on the descriptions, the survey taker may feel obligated to select the more desirably explained option, as it seems more correct.
Instructions must be clear: One of the most important things to remember is that what may seem simple and obvious to you may not appear so to those completing the survey. Having basic instructions listed throughout the survey, where necessary, only contribute to the elimination of misunderstanding which lead to unreliable data collection. For example, if the question at hand is “What are your favourite colours out of the listed options”, be sure to confirm that more than one is supposed to be selected. Possibly add something simple to the question such as, “choose no more than five options”, confirming what may have appeared as blurred to evaluators. If a question can be misinterpreted, it will be.
Keep it simple and concise: Other ideas that add to making the survey more clear to respondents is to not ask more than one question at once. This will cause people to be unsure as to what exactly they are supposed to be answering. Also, the list of answers should not be too long, as it becomes difficult for the evaluator to go through all of them and decide on what they feel. Similar to this idea, be careful not to ask too many questions, as it may cause the voter to get lazy and begin to select answers without thinking about what they actually believe.
Keep it relevant: The answers to survey questions should be 100 percent relevant to the question. In addition to this all possible alternatives should be included, and answers should not overlap. Include things like “undecided” as it ensures accuracy. You cannot assume that everyone has an opinion on the specific question at hand. Using the “other” option, which allows survey takers to write in their own answer, is to be used sparingly as you want to make sure that people are generally able to answer all of your questions by selecting the options given. Using this option in addition makes it difficult to collect measurable data, therefore utilize multiple choice options as much as possible.
Creation process, further suggestions:
- Keep it short while ensuring you get all of the information that you set out to get
- Before beginning, create a list of objectives and research goals
- Avoid using slang as it contributes to misinterpretations
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These are all great tips for writing surveys. Unfortunately most people do not follow them. Poor survey answer choices are frustrating. Poor grammar usage is even more frustrating. The occurrences of repeated survey topics is just silly when so many are denied survey submissions for the same reason. I appreciate the site greatly but I wish tellwut would actually read the surveys submitted. (emmyjr1 is my user name)
I agree with Tammy. There’s nothing more frustrating to me than seeing a Yes/No question with a Not Applicable option. Either you had coffee today or you didn’t. Not Applicable is not a reasonable option.
And please don’t get me started on the proselytizing surveys.
Username is ditdit
Great tips for writing surveys. I don’t think very many people utilize them tho. Can you disable whatever allows for an “N/A” answer on Yes/No questions? I love your site but surveys where no answer chosen even makes sense as an answer is annoying. Username – FennellTwinsMOM
I’ve written four surveys now, only to have them all rejected. I don’t get it they are set up right, great questions, good answers. Are my surveys to political. Do we not ask surveys about our government using drones against us.
Tw63684
I have to agree with Tammy. The grammar drives me nuts. Surveys need to be proofread before posting. I have largely given up posting my own surveys because they get denied and then I see one that is barely readable.
I appreciate the tips, I just wish everyone would read and follow them!
(bcsub)
Great tips but wish there was more proof-reading and more intelligent surveys(sunshine23 is my user name)
Thank you for posting these tips. I enjoy answering surveys on Tellwut and have written a few myself. I agree with everything Tammy said and would like to add another suggestion. I think it would be beneficial to limit the number of choices for each question.
username (amysrich)
I’d like to second Tammy’s comment. Please, Tellwut, put more emphasis on choosing literate, logically sound surveys. And although this blog post doesn’t mention repetitiveness vs. originality, you’ve mentioned that elsewhere. So please put more emphasis on rejecting surveys that are nearly identical to previous ones except for a change in the name of, for example, the TV show or movie in question. Thanks! My username on Tellwut is . . . . . . . . blue
I looked for this post specifically and I wish I had known about this blog weeks ago. Creating my own surveys is the thing I struggle with the most on this site and I have recieved many rejections for my surveys. I do not possess creative ideas and I just hope that after reading this I can get better. I really do love websites like Tellwut and appreciate the people who put them together to help out people.
My username is banterwithtrophy.