Science of Surveys Step
1: Determine goals and specify objectives
This step is one of the most important steps in the process and often
most overlooked when developing surveys. People often begin the process
by developing the survey questions. The outcome is an unfocused survey
that glosses over many unrelated concepts with results that are difficult
to interpret. In addition, creating a list of specific objectives for
the survey will simplify all development to follow as well as the analysis
and interpretation of the results.
Obviously, before In identifying the project goal, you have to determine
what information you would like to obtain from respondents. Hopefully,
you can describe the project goal in a short phrase. If you can't, chances
are you are assessing multiple ideas and perhaps multiple surveys need
to be created, or at least multiple sections within the survey. Examples
of survey goals are:
Quality
ratings of current products or services
Customer/patient
satisfaction levels
The
potential market for a new product or service
Opinions
about political candidates or issues
Employee
attitudes
Once
the overall goals of the survey are defined, they are used to create
specific objective statements that will guide the question writing process.
The objective statements should be:
1. Concise: It's important to keep the objective statements as
short and specific as possible. As with object statements, if you have
trouble specifying an objective in a single sentence, chances are it
is too long and needs refining or to be split into multiple objective
statements.
a. Poor: Are customers satisfied? If customers aren't happy with the
technical support that we give them related to our software, what things
can we do internally help show employees to change their opinions?
b. Better: i. How satisfied are customer with our software technical
support? ii. How can we improve our software technical support?
2. Unambiguous: Objective statements should be specific and easily
understood by others. A good rule of thumb to use when developing objectives
is: Could a stranger read the objectives and understand the purpose
of the survey? If an objective statement needs an explanation for others
to understand, it needs to be refined. In addition, objective statements
should be written to avoid incorrect interpretation.
a. Poor: Are our employees happy?
b. Better: How happy are our employees with the annual performance review
process?
3. One-dimensional: Each objective statement should only assess
one concept. One of the most common errors is to combine two or more
concepts into one objective statement, which creates multiple paths
for the question development that will follow. Avoid using "AND" when
creating objective statements, as it usually means that you are mixing
two different concepts.
a. Poor: Should we expand our advertising to include this demographic
group, and what features product features would be most appealing to
them?
b. Better: i. How effective would it be to advertise to this demographic
group? ii. What product features would be most appealing to them?
4. Measurable: Each objective statement must be worded to produce
measurable results. Good objectives allow for predictions to be made
about the results.
a. Poor: What do customers think about our web site?
b. Better: How satisfied are customers with our web site in comparison
to other sites they have visited?
