P.Mean >> Category >> Survey design (created 2007-09-12).

These pages discuss how to design a questionnaire or survey. Also see Category: Qualitative data. Articles are arranged by date with the most recent entries at the top. You can find outside resources at the bottom of this page. Other entries about survey design can be found in the survey design page at the StATS website.

2010

1. P.Mean: An example of a bad survey (created 2010-06-11). I was asked to fill out an Internet survey to define my "consulting needs." That's a rather strange invitation, and sounds almost like a cheap way to develop business leads. But it was a request through LinkedIn, so I thought it was worth filling out. I want to try to build my contacts at LinkedIn, and filling out a short survey seemed like a small price to pay to get a potential lead for my own consulting business. When I went to the webpage with the actual survey, though, I was shocked and disappointed with what I found.
   
   2009
    
2. P.Mean: The perils of self-evaluation (created 2009-06-30). A survey by New Scientist magazine examined a phenomenon called "citation amnesia." This is the tendency of researchers to overlook previously published work in the bibliography of their articles. Most of the respondents felt that citation amnesia was a problem. "Indeed, the vast majority of the survey's roughly 550 respondents -- 85% -- said that citation amnesia in the life sciences literature is an already-serious or potentially serious problem. A full 72% of respondents said their own work had been regularly or frequently ignored in the citations list of subsequent publications. Respondents' explanations of the causes range from maliciousness to laziness." There are several problems with this survey, though.
3. P.Mean: Five points or seven points on a survey scale (created 2009-03-12). I am creating a survey and wanted to know if anybody can suggest a scale: both the wording and 5 versus 7 point.
   
   2008
    
4. P.Mean: How to design a new survey (created 2008-10-28). Someone wrote in with a question about how to design a survey. There are entire books devoted to the subject. I couldn't do the subject justice in a single email, but here's what I sent.
5. P.Mean: Processing skip fields in SPSS (created 2008-09-25). How do I program skips on SPSS so that data would not be entered on irrelevant questions?

Outside resources:

• http://www.aapor.org/questionwording
• http://www.aapor.org/responserates
• http://www.aapor.org/docellphonesaffectsurveyresearch
• http://www.aapor.org/sampling
• http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/opinion/07blumenthal.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
• A Brief Guide to Questionnaire Development. Robert Frary, Virginia Tech. Excerpt: Most people have responded to so many questionnaires in their lives that they have little concern when it becomes necessary to construct one of their own. Unfortunately the results are often unsatisfactory. These problems are sufficiently prevalent that numerous books and journal articles have been written addressing them (e.g., see Dillman, 1978). Also, various educational and proprietary organizations regularly offer workshops in questionnaire development. Therefore, the brief exposition that follows is intended only to identify some of the more prevalent problems in questionnaire development and to suggest ways of avoiding them. This paper does not cover the development of inventories designed to measure psychological constructs, which would require a deeper discussion of psychometric theory than is feasible here. Instead, the focus will be on questionnaires designed to collect factual information and opinions. This website was last verified on 2008-01-14. URL: www.testscoring.vt.edu/questionaire_dev.html
• Comparative response to a survey executed by post, email, & web form. Gi Woong Yun, Craig W Trumbo. JCMC 2000: 6(1); [Full text]. Description: This article studies a data collection approach that used postal mail, e-mail, and a web-based form. Each method tended to solicit a different group of respondents. The authors conclude that using multiple methods to collect data will provide a more representative sample.
• John F. Hall. Journeys in Survey Research - Home. Excerpt: "Welcome to this new resource for researchers, students and others doing, or learning about, survey research and the analysis of survey data. You will find here a wealth of materials drawn from my 45 years of doing and teaching survey research." [Accessed July 9, 2010]. Available at: http://surveyresearch.weebly.com/.
• EDF 5841 Methods of Educational Research. Guide 5: A Survey Research Timetable. Susan Carol Losh, Florida State University, October 15, 2001. Description: This webpage outlines the general setup of a focus group and explains what type of information that a focus group is likely to provide. URL: edf5481-01.fa01.fsu.edu/Guide5.html
• EDF 5841 Methods of Educational Research. Guide 6: Focus Group Basics. Susan Carol Losh, Florida State University, September 25, 2001. Description: This webpage outlines the steps you need to follow in a survey research study, with special emphasis on pilot testing. URL: edf5481-01.fa01.fsu.edu/Guide6.html
• Streiner DL, Norman GR. Health measurement scales. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press; 2008.
• John F. Hall. Journeys in Survey Research - Home. Excerpt: "Welcome to this new resource for researchers, students and others doing, or learning about, survey research and the analysis of survey data. You will find here a wealth of materials drawn from my 45 years of doing and teaching survey research." [Accessed July 9, 2010]. Available at: http://surveyresearch.weebly.com/.
• Peter B. Gilkey. Questionaire. Excerpt: "You are no doubt aware that the number of questionnaires circulated is rapidly increasing, whereas the length of the working day has at best remained constant. In order to resolve the problem presented by this trend, I find it necessary to restrict my replies to questionnaires to those questioners who first establish their bona fide by completing the following questionnaire. Please fill it out and return it to me electronically. This will help me compile a profile of people who compile profiles." [Accessed May 1, 2010]. Available at: http://www.uoregon.edu/~gilkey/dirhumor/questionaire.html.
• Alreck PL, Settle RB. Survey research handbook. 3rd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin
• Yes, Polling Works. Frank Newport. Excerpt: There's little question that some Americans are skeptical of polls and the process by which we use small samples to represent the views of millions of people. We pick up that skepticism when we poll people about polls (something we do from time to time!), and I certainly hear it when I am on a radio talk show or make a speech and get bombarded with questions about the believability of our polls, which are based on what seems to the questioners to be ridiculously small numbers of people. This website was last verified on 2008-01-14. URL: www.gallup.com/poll/7174/Yes-Polling-Works.aspx

All of the material above this paragraph is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. This page was written by Steve Simon and was last modified on 2010-07-12. The material below this paragraph links to my old website, StATS. Although I wrote all of the material listed below, my ex-employer, Children's Mercy Hospital, has claimed copyright ownership of this material. The brief excerpts shown here are included under the fair use provisions of U.S. Copyright laws.

2008

1. Stats: Real-life examples of survey mistakes (January 31, 2006). Tzippy Shocat was nice enough to forward a link to an article that she wrote for the iSixSigma website (www.isixsigma.com), titled "Tips for Getting the Most from Six Sigma Surveys." There were some amusing examples of bad survey practices that she cites.
2. Stats: Open-ended questions on a survey (March 25, 2005). No one seems to talk about how to handle those pesky open-ended questions you see on a survey. I usually hold my breath and hope that the researcher doesn't think to mention it. Alicia O'Cathain and Kate Thomas address this important issue in a recently published article and they gently scold us for ignoring an important source of information.
3. Stats: Designing a questionnaire (December 24, 2004). I'm behind in my reading of the British Medical Journal, and the first issue I looked at today has a gem of an article, Selecting, designing, and developing your questionnaire. Boynton PM, Greenhalgh T. Bmj 2004: 328(7451); 1312-5. Questionnaire development is something that many researchers do, but few researchers do well. Here's a quick summary of the questions this paper raises.
4. Stats: So you want to write a questionnaire (July 12, 2002). Dear Professor Mean, I need to write a questionnaire for a research study I am conducting. Can you help me write it? -- Cautious Carmen

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