How to Conduct a Survey

Crafting Survey Questions

Identify your objectives. Before you begin to ask people questions, you need to understand why you are conducting your survey in the first place. Is it to complete a class assignment? Is it to get feedback on a particular product? Then, start to think about who you should talk with and what you should ask them to get at your larger goal. For example, your objective might be to determine how many people in your class will attend the school dance. This could be a relatively quick yes/no survey unless you want to add additional layers about motivation, dress, or other factors. Ensure that each question on the survey helps you complete your objective. You may need to rewrite your objective as you design the survey.

Set the parameters of your survey. Consider whether the survey will be anonymous and if the audience will get to see the results. Decide when you will start and stop the surveying process. Determine how many people you want involved either as interviewers or data analysts. If this is a solo class project then that answer is easy! Formulate the instructions that you will include with your survey to guide respondents. People may answer more honestly if the survey is anonymous, but then you won’t be able to follow up with the participants. With the instructions you may ask them to complete the survey in a certain time frame or perhaps only using pencil. There are many options here. You may also want to craft a brief statement as to your intentions or goals with the study. This is particularly important if the survey is not face-to-face. You can make people more likely to trust you and respond if you let them know, for example, that this is part of a college project.

Match your questions to your objectives. This is one of the most critical steps. Now that you’ve identified your objectives, think about what kind of information you need to get in order to make your survey worthwhile. Would you be satisfied with simplistic, basic answers or are you interested in more elaborate narrative responses? If you are trying to get an indication of a person’s feelings, then an open-ended narrative response will be more helpful. However, if you need to quantify emotions then you may need to go with a ranking question. For example, “How angry are you about X? Choose from 1 to 10 (with 10 being the angriest).”

Understand the differences between open and closed questions. Do you want to present your respondents with multiple answer options or just a single choice? Once you’ve made these decisions start to write out your questions and then narrow down the list to your final choices. An open-ended question could be, “Tell me about your childhood.” A closed question would be, “Was your childhood happy? Answer yes or no.” The design of your survey can also limit the space allowed to answer open questions, limiting the length.

Remember to include demographic questions. If you intend to analyze the final responses while taking into account demographic categories, then you will need to formulate these questions as well. You do not have to ask about every category, so decide which ones relate the most closely to your overall objectives. You might ask respondents about their income, marital status, sex, ethnicity, age, or race. Many of these questions will be formatted as lists in which the respondent will choose the appropriate option. For example, “Please circle your marital status: Single or Married.”

Pay attention to question order. You will generally want to start with the easier questions and work up to the more complex ones. This allows your respondents to grow comfortable with the survey process before they are asked to provide intimate or challenging information. You should generally place your demographic questions either at the very beginning or the very end of your survey. The danger of placing them at the end is that many respondents, if not asked in person, will skip this section.

Ask everyone to contribute, if working in a group. You may want to divide up the task of writing questions. Ask each of your group members to contribute a few and then work together to finalize the list. If everyone is focused on the same core objectives, this collaborative process should yield a more focused and precise set of questions.

Keep your survey short. You’ll want to keep the total survey process somewhere around 5-10 minutes ideally. This is the total time that it should take a respondent to complete the survey. You will notice that your response rate will drop if your time commitment goes up. You can sometimes counter this by offering a gift.

Maintain careful records. A researcher is only as good as their records. You will want to keep a detailed accounting of your methodology, the interview process, and the final results. Everything should be documented when possible. This process starts as soon as you begin brainstorming objectives and only ends when your results are presented. For example, if you are working with a team of researchers it is important to know who conducted each interview, on what day, and other details. Keep documentation as to which questions were removed from the initial list and why.

Running a Basic Survey

Create an incentive. You are more likely to get quality responses if you include some sort of reward into the process or upon submission of the survey. Consider using a raffle entry, a public announcement of thanks, a promotional product or even something more substantial like a gift card.

Do a trial run. Before you send out your interviewers or mail off your surveys, conduct a small, local trial-run perhaps just on family and friends. Let them take your survey and then ask them for feedback about the questions, the process on the whole, or anything else. Revise your survey based on their responses, if necessary, before sending it out. You can also use this as an opportunity to see if the kind of data and responses that you are receiving are the ones that you want. Do these responses answer your central problem or question?

Contact respondents face-to-face. This is one of the best ways to conduct surveys as it yields a high response level and the quality of responses is often good. You establish a particular list of contacts that you would like to approach or you can take a “random walk” approach and spontaneously approach people until you’ve reached your target sample number. If you are in a class setting and need to conduct a quick survey, walk around with a sheet of paper. Ask your respondents to simply place a “tally mark” by their choice within a table. Be aware that face-to-face interviews are often seen as more personal and they can sometimes be a bit awkward when dealing with sensitive information. Your respondents may shield or edit their answers more as well.

Use an online survey program if desired. This is one of the new breakthroughs in survey methodology. You can direct your respondents to one of the many websites available where you can set up a detailed survey for them to complete. Google Surveys, Survey Monkey, Dot Survey, and Key Survey are just a few of your options. Many of these sites let you create a basic survey for free. They may charge for repeated or more detailed surveys involving larger participant numbers, but, it's still a low-cost survey method. The sites may also help you to analyze your data as well.

Tally the results. After you’ve completed the survey, look over data and decide how to report it. Perhaps you would like to create a table or graph showing the information. Or, maybe a chart listing the statistics would be more helpful. If you are in a business setting you may be asked to complete and present a formal report.

Conducting a Scientific Survey

Decide on sample size. You will need to figure out how many respondents you need and how to keep the process as free of selection bias as possible. It is generally best to go with random selections of participants or an all-inclusive approach based on demographics. For example, Pew Research limits their international interviews to 1,000 persons per country. This may seem like a small number but it allows them to cover more countries. Be realistic about how many people you can feasibly interview or survey in your given time period and with your available resources. Good data does not necessarily mean more surveys.

Get review board clearance if necessary. If you are operating out of a university or business setting, you may need to approach your institutional review board (IRB) and have them sign off on your research. This is generally the case because survey research requires interaction with human subjects. During the IRB review process you will need to provide as much information as possible about your survey objectives and methodology.

Pursue funding. Don’t forget to factor in the cost of your survey, if going beyond the classroom and gathering scientific data. You can submit a grant application to funding agencies at the local, state, or federal levels. You can also approach field-specific organizations. To get an idea as to cost a phone survey, for example, can cost up to $40 per contact.

Contact respondents via email for a quick option. This is one of the most preferred ways of communicating now, so it makes sense as a survey delivery option. It is quick and generally cheap to do, even if you need to purchase an email list. You can generally reach a particular target audience and ask them to complete the survey within the email or direct them to another site. The downside is that it is very easy for respondents to delete emails.

Contact respondents via the post for a traditional method. This is an old-fashioned, but still used, method of survey contact. You will mail out your questionnaires to your survey sample addresses. This method allows you to cover a wide geographical range and it is also a friendly method for older respondents who are less comfortable using email and the like. However, be prepared to pay more and expect a lagging response time.

Contact respondents via the phone if you have access to phone numbers. With telephone surveys you will want to navigate the balance between cell phones and landlines. Which ones will you contact? You’ll also want to figure out how to get the numbers, perhaps by purchasing a calling list. Telephone surveys are one of the cheaper methods, but they also generally yield high refusal rates as people often feel inconvenienced.

Choose a research firm to survey for you if you can afford it. You can find a research firm near to you by searching your city name and “research firm.” Depending on your budget, you may want to hire a group to ask your questions for you. Or, you can even hire them to write the questions as well. This is one option if you need a professionally created survey with a quick turnaround time. Review all of the policies of the company that you hire to make sure that they have privacy practices in place. You also may want a confidentiality agreement in order to protect the process and final results.

Monitor your interviewers. Fieldwork can be challenging but to get the best data you must use trained, professionals to administer your surveys. Asking interviewers to log information about their contacts, such as the time of the interview, is one way to keep track of what is happening in the field. Be aware that some survey researchers may need additional training in counseling if they are going to ask personal questions that my elicit a strong emotional response.

Adhere to federal and state regulations. Make sure to do your research regarding applicable laws before you make your survey public. This is especially the case if you will be contacting persons “cold” and without their prior knowledge or consent. There are generally age limits for contact, time limits, as well as limits pertaining to particular contact methods. For example, some laws prevent researchers from using auto dial to make phone calls.

Prepare your findings for professional review. The way that you handle your final results is likely to be very field-specific. Some fields, such as sociology, provide venues for journal publication, conference presentations, and lectures. Whatever your approach, after you’ve analyzed your data, look for a way to share your findings with the broader academic (and maybe even public) world.