# 4.3 Designing surveys

When writing surveys or questionnaires, it is important to carefully design your questions so that they obtain the information you want and are clear and unambiguous. You need to make each word count!

Figure 14 Online surveys need to be carefully designed

There are a number of different types of questions you can ask.

1. Closed questions (questions that require a yes or no) are more likely to be answered by participants but may not give you the information you need.
2. Using a Likert scale (excellent, good, neither good nor bad, bad, terrible) can often provide richer data and a more nuanced understanding of an issue. When using a Likert scale, it is best practice to provide five or seven possible answers with the same number of positive and negative responses. You may also need to offer an ‘other’ response as you may not anticipate all possible answers.
3. Open questions (where you provide a box for participants to provide their own answer) give the richest source of data but are less likely to be answered by participants because they require more work.
4. You should only collate personal information (e.g. age, ethnicity, disability, gender) if it is needed for the research, and participants should have the option to opt out of these questions.

Your survey should start with information about what you are asking, and why, and whether the survey is anonymous. You may obtain different responses to the survey if it is not anonymous. Your first question will be a closed question asking the participant to consent to take part in the research. You are more likely to get a response to a survey if it is short and takes no more than 2–5 minutes to complete.

If possible, you should always test the survey to ensure it is clear and unambiguous before releasing it to the participants.

In the next activity you will have the opportunity to design a survey.

## Activity 7 Designing survey questions

You should allow yourself 30 minutes to do this activity.

Read the blog post ‘How to create an effective survey in 15 simple tips’ (Fisher, 2023) and imagine you are creating a survey to find out whether people read the terms and conditions when shopping online. Design a question that could form part of the survey.

### Comment

When designing effective surveys, it is important to always remember the purpose of your survey, and to keep it short and simple. Questions should be asked one at a time using simple, clear language that the people completing the survey will understand. The survey should be phrased in a neutral way. Check again if your survey does this; if so, it is likely to be an effective survey.

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