Writing Surveys
Writing surveys can be a long process. Usually your first survey isn’t the one you send out to potential respondents. Writing good survey questions requires careful planning and deliberation.
All surveys are guided by the research purpose and question. You cannot write a good survey until your research purpose and question are clearly defined.
The image below depicts the survey design process. The middle phases guide the survey writing process.
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Developing the survey purpose and question, should follow the process discussed in the Writing Research Questions module. You can find that information here.
Once you have identified the research purpose and questions, it is time to decide what type of questions to include in your survey. There are three main types of questions: open-ended, close-ended, and partially close-ended questions. Each type has advantages and disadvantages, and most surveys use a mix of the three types to gather adequate data.
As you write your survey questions consider need to know vs. nice to know questions. Need to know questions are those questions that must be answered in order to adequately answer the overarching research question.
Now it’s time to start writing survey questions. Survey questions should be designed to collect specific information. Each survey question should ask about one item or topic in a specific and non-threatening way.
Some of the “Dos” of writing survey questions include:
Despite the many advantages of using surveys in primary data collection, there are also some disadvantages. Some of these disadvantages can be mitigated with the questions are written correctly.
For more information on survey design, review the linked slide deck.
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