Formatting
Effective survey design is crucial for successful engagement and responses. Before administration, questionnaire instructions, questions, and answers should be well-formatted to ensure simplicity for respondents, whether self-administered or conducted in person.
A well-organized layout enhances respondent understanding and concentration, promoting accuracy. Appealing design increases the likelihood of respondents completing the survey.
Fink (2017) provides a self-administered questionnaire checklist:
Checklist
- Send an advance letter explaining the survey’s purpose, timing, reimbursement, and selection reasons.
- Accompany the questionnaire with a brief, formal explanation reiterating the survey’s aims, respondents, and response burden.
- Consider sharing a summary of findings.
- Explain the necessity of personal questions like gender, race, ethnicity, age, or income.
- Keep procedures and the questionnaire itself simple and concise.
- Utilize incentives, such as gift cards or lotteries, to encourage participation.
- Be prepared for follow-ups or reminders, keeping them brief and to the point.
Formatting and Pre-Testing should be completed before you launch your survey!
Online Formatting
If you are doing an online survey, there are some special considerations.
- Prepare all survey questions and responses before you go online to create the survey. The survey software will guide you to the type of question such as multiple choice with one answer multiple-choice with check all that apply but do not let yourself be influenced by the software for the sake of convenience.
- If necessary, provide instructions for completing each question.
- Decide on whether to keep the survey as one continuous document or to divide into one or more questions per screen. If you choose to have one or more questions per screen, check on each screen to make sure that it is readable.
- Look at each question online. If it is difficult to read or use, edit it. Once you have all the questions in the document, review the document to ensure that the questions are properly sequenced and easy to complete.
- Keep respondents up-to-date on their progress. Online survey software allows you to provide a progress bar.
Pre-Testing Your Survey
Researchers ensure the survey functions correctly by pre-testing it on potential respondents, especially for self-administered questionnaires, which are one-sided and lack the adaptability of interview schedules. Pre-testing helps anticipate and address any issues in the survey design.
Pre-testing allows researchers to determine if:
- The wording is understood
- The most likely answers to close-ended questions are all included
- Sufficient space is provided for answers to open-ended questions
- The flow of the questions follows a proper sequence
- The formatting is easy to follow
- The filter and skip instructions work as intended
Researchers should set up a form to record concerns about the working of the introduction, instructions, questions, and responses, as well as formatting concerns. The researcher can then make changes after compiling the results of the pre-test.
Surveys go through several versions before they are ready to be used!
