Original Research- Survey Writing Research (Ella)

Research/Notes on Survey Writing

Harvard. “Questionnaire Tip Sheet.” Harvard University Program on Survey Research, (n.d.). Electronic. Received from https://psr.iq.harvard.edu/book/questionnaire-design-tip-sheet

• Keep questionnaire short
• Closed ended questions are easier for the survey taker to interpret as well as the responses are easier to analyze
• Providing a middle category yields better data
• Avoid technical terms and jargon
• “If You Want a Single Answer, Make Sure Your Answer Choices Are Unique and Include all Possible Responses”

Pew Research Center. “Questionnaire design.” U.S. Survey Research, (n.d.). Electronic. Received from https://www.pewresearch.org/methods/u-s-survey-research/questionnaire-design/

• Identify topic to write questions about
• Measuring change over time
• Open vs close ended questions– close ended preferred
• Take note of how questions are worded- be clear and specific, make question as specific as possible to remove ambiguity, questions should only be about one concept
• “One other challenge in developing questionnaires is what is called “social desirability bias.” People have a natural tendency to want to be accepted and liked, and this may lead people to provide inaccurate answers to questions that deal with sensitive subjects” – I have a feeling that this may be a concern for me
• Order of questions- “order effects”
• Pretests

Science Buddies. “Designing a Survey.” (n.d.). Electronic. Received from https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/references/how-to-design-a-survey

• “Survey questionnaires present a set of questions to a subject who with his/her responses will provide data to a researcher.”
• Keep it short but also capturing all info needed
• Types of questions: Structured (fixed response), Rating, Ranking, Non structured (open ended), Partially structured/select all that apply
• Clearly state intentions with survey
• Include instructions
• Ask one question at a time
• Keep questions unbiased
• Keep organization clean
• Test it- pretest